On me nose, son
Blogger of the Year PETER RHODES on Rod Stewart's ball skills, that Tory NHS promise and another insurance bargain.
SO let's get this right. A new Tory government will ensure that, by the year 2020, everyone in England will be guaranteed a GP appointment with the doctor of their choice, seven days a week. Do we have to book the appointment now?
STILL at the Conference, who could hear Home Secretary Theresa May's plan to silence the preachers of hate without being reminded of Mrs Thatcher denying the IRA "the oxygen of publicity"? Back in the 1980s radio and TV were banned from broadcasting the voices of Republican spokesmen such as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. So we had news reports (younger readers will probably not believe this) of these characters talking, with their voices removed and their words dubbed in by actors with Northern Irish accents. Bonkers but true.
HOW car insurance works (continued). A reader says I am her hero. Soon after reading last week's item about never paying the asking price for car insurance, she received her renewal letter demanding a premium of £1,396. She went online and found identical cover with another firm for £844. The next day she confronted her current insurer who, after some discussion, agreed to match it. Interestingly, it was the Customer Loyalty department which offered this reduction. Do they also have a Customer Rip-Off department?
IF you really want to play hard ball with your insurer and drive down the price of your premium, remember the golden rule of haggling: If they ask ten, they mean eight, so they want six, so it's worth four and you offer two. Good luck with that.
MOSTAFA Kashe (seriously) is suing Rod Stewart after being hit on the nose by a football kicked into the audience by the rock star at a gig in Las Vegas. Strange case. By now, almost the entire global population knows that, when confronted by a football, you catch it, kick it or head it. Only in America do you nose it.
ACCORDING to the RAF, its shiny new Typhoon, costing us taxpayers £110 million each, is "a multi-role combat aircraft, capable of being deployed in the full spectrum of air operations." So why is the Iraq operation being left to half-a-dozen 1980s vintage Tornados?
TALKING of old warhorses, I was sad to read that the world's only complete Horsa glider, as used on D-Day and at Arnhem, is gathering dust in a hanger at the RAF Museum at Cosford. A team of volunteers worked hard to restore the mighty assault glider and it's not even on public display. The news reminded me of a D-Day veteran of the Glider Pilot Regiment, Alf "Tug" Wilson, who before he died a few years ago, raged against "health-and-safety gone mad." Alf saw absolutely no reason why members of the public shouldn't enjoy flights in Cosford's restored Horsa with him (then in his 80s) at the controls. "Beautiful aircraft," he told me. "We could land them on a sixpence." And at least, with only one Horsa, Alf wouldn't have to worry about a repeat of his D-Day experience. As he was landing in Normandy through a curtain of anti-aircraft fire, another Horsa crashed on top of him with "one hell of a bang," but they all got down safely. Nothing to make a fuss about, he said. We don't breed 'em like that any more.
AFTER the recent item on the £200 winter-fuel allowance being paid to all over-60s, a reader writes: "A better way to spend your £200 is to give it to a local food bank." Remove the word "your" and replace it with "my." Does it still seem a better way?
