Best of Peter Rhodes - July 19

MY RECENT thread on odd married names (Hope Pope, Eva Weaver, etc) reminds a reader that some men are born with curious names. He says he can never hear the BBC reporter Phil McCann without thinking: "What – from here?"

AS ZARA Phillips decides to give up riding during her pregnancy, Woman's Hour (Radio 4) puts together a report to advise women that while some exercise is perfectly fine in pregnancy, kickboxing is not.

QUESTION: What do you call an old lady who says: "Don't be so damn silly, girl, of course you shouldn't be riding." Answer: Your Majesty.

A FRIEND is building a tiny extension and the local council invites all his neighbours to read the 17 documents involved in the planning application, and comment. I was particularly impressed with the bat inspector's report. It takes just over 2,500 words to tell us "no bats here."

THE feeble 15-month sentence imposed on Stuart Hall is to be reviewed, and a good thing too. But let's hope the authorities are not focusing solely on the former BBC presenter. One allegation against him makes your flesh creep. It was a victim describing how when she was 13 she was at the house of a schoolmate whose father was friendly with Hall. The girls drank too much vermouth and she was sick. She recalled: "My friend's mother came up and took me to the bathroom, undressed me. Then Stuart Hall came in. She left me and told him to bath me." Hall then committed a "frenzied" assault against her. As the Jimmy Savile scandal grew, we learned how many TV executives, NHS bosses and prison officials were complicit in the disc jockey's unspeakable activities. Somehow, the thought of a mother aiding and abetting a paedophile by eagerly ushering Stuart Hall into a girl's bathroom takes it all to a lower and infinitely nastier level. There must surely be more prosecutions.

THE best CV is only as good as its weakest part. An employer tells me he was greatly impressed with one application for a café assistant until he read the bit about how the applicant had worked "a variety of shifts including weekends" and unfortunately left out the F.

THE hosepipe bans cannot be far away. Will that be the spur this Government needs to make it drop the ludicrous HS2 train project (£42,000 million and rising every second) and build a UK water grid? Most rail and tram projects provide billion-pound contracts for foreign manufacturers. Creating a 21st century network of canals, aqueducts, irrigation trenches and fountains would ensure there is water for all while creating British jobs for British workers.

WHEN a single soldier dies of heatstroke in training, it might be blamed on some rare health problem. When six soldiers collapse and two die, something has gone horribly wrong. I can't see the tragedy in the Brecon Beacons ending in anything less than a court-martial.

I SUGGESTED some time ago that when it comes to medicine and climate change, we never get absolute truths, only the latest opinions. I was instantly denounced by one reader who, with blazing conviction, declared that he fully understands climate change and knows, for a certain fact, that we're gonna fry. Here are a couple of cautionary tales which suggest we don't always know as much as we think. Firstly, a couple of new scientific papers suggest that babies conceived through IVF have a higher risk of developing a range of childhood illnesses. Secondly, researchers appear to have found a link between Omega 3 fish-oil supplements and prostate cancer. So IVF and Omega 3, having been trumpeted as A Good Thing for decades, are suddenly being called into question. Don't be surprised. Science is always changing its mind and today's fact is tomorrow's folklore.

MEANWHILE, the genetically-modified food lobby has obviously been very busy. You have probably noticed a sudden increase in the number of politicians speaking up for GM and suspiciously well-informed columnists rubbishing all those "Frankenfood" scare stories put about by the unbelievers. Their message is clear. GM will not only save the world from starvation but is 100 per safe. Just like Omega 3 was.

IT IS said that unless you understand the agony of Spain, and have read an awful lot of Hemingway, then you cannot understand bullfighting. And you certainly cannot comprehend the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona this week in which many were crushed and John Bennett of Willenhall was injured. In Spain there are many ways for a man to prove his courage against animals. Each must choose his own destiny. I speak as one who has proudly put fear aside, pulled on the padded jockstrap of Seville and, despite the pleading of my loved ones, dared to pit the frailty of my human flesh against the steel sinews of a mighty adversary. I bruised my thumb quite badly in the annual Hamster Slapping Festival in Benidorm.

POLICE in Wales have issued a warning about "rogue" ecstasy tablets. Not to be confused with good, old-fashioned, traditional, wholemeal, health-giving ecstasy, just like Granny used to take.