You can't quick-march water

DID you notice the first point made by the officer commanding the Royal Engineers drafted in to the flooded Somerset Levels was that his team were working to the local council's plan, not their own? The gentlemen of the Royal Engineers can do miraculous things but even they cannot make water flow uphill. The military solution, when confronted with an indefensible location, is to withdraw.

WHAT do Peter Crouch and Francois Hollande have in common? The French president is short, dumpy, bald and bespectacled. He looks like a baker in a small provincial town, yet he is seen with a succession of leggy, glamorous and successful women. Females are attracted by what women call "the aphrodisia of power" and men call "going out with rich blokes." Peter Crouch? The lanky, long-faced England striker has absolutely no illusions about his looks. It is hard to see Francois Hollande in the company of beautiful women without recalling Crouch's famous, funny moment of absolute man-honesty. When asked what he would be if he were not a professional footballer, Crouch replied: "A virgin."

MOST of us saw the Commons vote against going to war in Syria as an example of the people, through their MPs, taking democratic control of policy. But for the political and military establishment it was a body blow which has left them in a state of shock. Now, a fascinating report based on unnamed "sources," suggests the Ministry of Defence believes that an increasingly diverse multicultural Britain is reluctant to see British troops deployed abroad, especially in Muslim countries. But is this a religious and cultural issue? Or is it simply that Britons of all races and creeds are sick of seeing the Union Jack-draped coffins coming home with no visible results? The biggest anti-war demonstrations this country has ever seen were the marches against invading Iraq in 2003. Those vast crowds had a smattering of the loony Left and the "Destroy Israel" brigade but the racial make-up of the crowds reflected modern Britain and a big majority of the faces were white. Britain has spent the past 300 years fighting foreign wars. What unites most people, after the ghastliness of the 20th century, is the belief that the 21st century should be a century of peace.

THE Grand Canyon in Arizona, once thought to be 70 million years old, may have been created in as little as five million years, according to new research at the University of New Mexico. That's still far too long for millions of folk. An estimated 40 per cent of Americans believe the whole world was created in six days, because that's what it says in the Bible. Scary.

AND off to our local arts centre for a live broadcast of the National Theatre's Coriolanus, starring Tom Hiddleston, direct from the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden. This is the future of theatre and it is a strange experience. One moment the high-definition image is so convincing that you feel you're part of the audience in London. Then suddenly you get a close-up and the effect is pure cinema. At the end there is a short, embarrassed flutter of applause because, although it's a magnificent show, who's going to hear your clapping?

LIVE broadcasts are in their infancy but if we can see the best of the National Theatre live in every village hall, we could also have the finest maths teachers and the most charismatic university lecturers reaching audiences of millions. Why should a school or college employ its own staff when it could subscribe to livecasts and get the best? If you work in academia, the future must be a worry.

CORIOLANUS is Shakespeare's tale of the great general who is talked out of destroying Rome by his mother and promptly murdered by his allies. Moral: Mother does not always know best.