Peter Rhodes: Driven out in the name of God

GREECE was skint six months ago. Greece is skint today. Greece will be skint six months from now. How on earth did anyone think that just giving Greece a few more months to sort things out would change anything?

YESTERDAY'S item on the importance of hyphens reminds me of my weekly appointment with the pastry stall at our local street market. It is run by a woman whom I have always referred to as the sticky-bun lady. Not, you will notice, the sticky bun lady.

SIR Ian McKellen hits the big screen today with the release of the Sherlock movie Mr Holmes. I wish him well. I've interviewed him twice and each time was a delight. He was sparky, spontaneous, informative, totally un-luvvie and delightfully indiscreet. If only all celebs were such a pleasure.

THERE is one glaring and unanswered question in yesterday's United Nations study which reveals that nearly 60 million people worldwide are living as refugees displaced by war, violence or persecution. It is a simple question. How many victims of what the UN calls "this age of unprecedented mass displacement" have been persecuted, raped, tortured or driven out of their homelands in the name of God?

THEY say that when a moggie falls from a great height, it exhibits something called the dead-cat bounce. Moral: just because something bounces, it doesn't mean there is any life in it. I was reminded of that this week when a Lib Dem party activist delivered a leaflet inviting us to: "Help the Lib Dem Fightback locally" and assuring us that a couple of dozen people joining the branch proves "the Liberal Democrats bounce back." Yup, just like a dead cat.

AS the Dewsbury case gets ever more tangled, can anyone explain why so many young Muslims will go to their deaths for the sake of their "brothers and sisters in Islam" living in Syria or Iraq but clearly don't give tuppence for their own flesh and blood back home?

THE curious case of the white American woman who posed as a black civil-rights campaigner has raised the issue of something called "transracial" behaviour, as though it is something to take as seriously as gay rights and transgender issues. Okay, let's go along with it. Let us campaign for a weekly television series in which transracial issues are fully addressed. People would be free to appear, without censure, dressed and made-up as whichever racial group they chose. It need not be too serious. There could be songs, dancing and laughter. We could call it the Black and White Minstrel Show.

I HEARD a claim this week that 70 per cent of Britons are now members of "victim groups." This means 30 per cent of us are not. Doesn't this make us victims?

AT least I am assuming I do not belong to a victim group. From time to time I play the old colour-blindness card but it never seems to get much sympathy. The invariable question is: "How do you manage at traffic lights?" To which my usual response is to adopt a puzzled look and ask: "What are traffic lights?"