Confusion over a brothel

ALL men in Mosul, the Iraqi city captured by Islamic State, have been ordered to grow beards. Officially, this is to conform with the wishes of God and the Prophet. Unofficially, everyone knows that Iraq and its allies will soon try to retake Mosul, and, if everyone wears beards, the jihadists will find it easier to slip away. Dying for martyrdom – but not yet.

WHERE is the computer spell-check when you need it? The program which repeatedly suggests "Warrington" whenever I write "war" totally missed a cock-up in the first line of the above item. But for some excellent proof-reading, you would have read that the men of Mosul had been ordered to grow bears. I blame the fog of Warrington.

THIS obsession with beards. Do you think jihadists are allowed to watch Monty Python's Life of Brian?

A READER begins her letter with: "Has anyone tried contacting a branch of their bank by telephone recently?" Space does not permit an account of her full experience here but after 30 minutes being shunted from pillar to post she gave up. It would not be so bad if banks had advertising slogans such as "We'll rob you blind, you suckers" or "Just give us the money and shaddup." But they don't. They spend millions trying to create a caring, sharing image and then treat us like rubbish. PS: If anyone from the banking industry wants to discuss this with me I will, of course, ask the security question.

THE photos from the wedding we attended last month have appeared online, all 468 of them. There is no denying the fact that with a few exceptions, the males of the extended Rhodes clan are not ageing well. You may wear your best suit. You may put on That Expression, the one you save for photos, with its catchy combination of wit, wisdom, allure and just a hint of a smile. Yet by the magic of the lens you emerge, eyes closed and leering like a baldy loon. My daughter admired the results: "There are a lot of Hobbity genes in this family, aren't there?" she observed.

THE public no longer supports the use of speed cameras on British roads, according to Roger Reynolds, one of the poilice officers who introduced them in 1992. He says "If you see someone speeding at 50mph or 60mph in a 30mph zone, you think 'I wish they'd get caught'. But when it's you getting caught for doing 31mph, it's a different kettle of fish." Too late, old chap. The genie is out of the bottle and English highway law is being subverted on an industrial scale simply to make money. Twenty years from now someone will cry corruption and somebody will go to jail.

MORE linguistic confusion. After the UK/US mix-ups over fags and rubbers, a reader writes: "My wife is Ukrainian. When Ukrainian friends visit us for the first time, we always have fun telling the female visitor that I am going to take her husband to a public house for a couple of hours ( in her language a public house is a brothel)."

WE no longer speak English as the Queen used to speak it,in the days when monarchs dwelled in pellisses and the lower orders lived in hices. But you do occasionally catch a morsel of genuine 1950s Windsorese. In the streets of Leamington Spa a few days ago I heard an old chap explaining, in a cut-class accent, that the wind was "dine dine". Dying down.