Tosh and Twaddle

I COULDN'T help noticing a few days ago that the BBC's Prayer for the Day was delivered by the Rev Twaddle. Monday's Morning Service this week was presented by the Rev Tosh. Are they trying to tell us something?

TALKING of religion, a colleague tells me he believes that the Rosetta spaceshot to a distant comet will prove that life on Earth originated in outer space, thus destroying "religious fairy stories" once and for all. I wish I shared his faith.

THANKS for your amusing epitaphs in graveyards. When my time comes and my headstone is simply crammed with my many achievements: writer, soldier, exaggerator, musician (okay it was only a ukulele) etc , I hope they find space for "penguin herder." There are not many of us. The John Lewis festive advert featuring penguins reminded me of a day in the Falkland Islands in 1986 when, covering an army reinforcement exercise, we were suddenly presented with a brilliant photo-opportunity. In the background, a four-man patrol of the Light Infantry. In the foreground, a vast crowd of inquisitive little rockhopper penguins. All we had to do, to get the light right, was to move the penguins and the squaddies. A Falkland Islander instructed me in the art of penguin-herding. The trick is to move slowly, hands at your side with gentle, ushering motions of your palms. You need just enough encouragement to get the little chaps moving but not enough to panic them. I cannot describe the satisfaction, at my first attempt, of herding a couple of hundred rockhopper penguins into the perfect position. In fact, the penguins got into formation quicker than the squaddies, although I promised the Army PR people not to mention that.

STRANGE times. It used to be the rule that anyone becoming prime minister would be more unpopular during his term in Downing Street than at any other time in his life. How times change. Weird Ed is record-breakingly unpopular before he gets anywhere near No 10 and Tony Blair, the multi-millionaire bringer-of-peace, is even more detested today than when he was in residence.

AND how popular is David Cameron? I suspect tomorrow's by-election in Rochester will not be quite the Tory catastrophe some pundits are predicting.

I COMPLAINED last week about people who eat smelly, greasy hot dogs in the cinema. Two readers respond. The first points out that some sausages look so disgusting that you can only eat them in the dark. Another says: "Eating hot dogs is better than passing wind." Not much of a choice, is it?

FOR those of you tearing your hair out with the computer program that tries to guess the word you are typing, a happy day. This email has just arrived: "The inventor of predictive text has died. His password away on Saturn and his funfair will be hello on sundial."

I AM most grateful to the Morse (ITV) fan who, thrilled at the success of the spin-off TV series Endeavour and Lewis, has a suggestion for a third. This is based on the notion that Morse, during his casual liaisons early in his career, fathered a secret daughter. She grew up to become head of a mixed comprehensive school in Oxford and is also an amateur sleuth. The fan suggests a working title for the new series could be Morse Co-Ed. Oh, dear.

AN old friend is not impressed with my tale of a husband who, overcome by the Xmas spirit, bought his wife a new coal shovel. If he really loved her, says my reader, he would have bought her a new zinc bath to keep the coal in. Romance is not dead.