Rich on Redditch

"THEY are really so marvellously adept at killing things." Food writer Joseph Connolly this week, on British countryfolk.

ACCORDING to a new study, those of us who walk 20 minutes can expect to live an extra seven years. Unless, of course, you get hit by the bus that other folk avoid by being couch potatoes.

ODDLY enough, on the day the 20-minute walk survey was announced, an assortment of celebrities were singing the praises of the latest device to help us avoid walking. It is called the Megaboard, and it's a battery-powered pair of wheels which goes forward, backwards or turns as you adjust your weight on sensor pads. Who knows, in time human beings may progress from the pram, via the Megaboard, to the mobility scooter and finally to the hearse without ever stepping on terra firma. Megaboard = mega lard.

I MISSED Rich Hall's brilliant travelogue "You Can Go to Hell, I'm Going to Texas" until this week's repeat on BBC4. It was frank and fearless stuff. The Heroes of the Alamo? Just a bunch of greedy land-grabbers. I bet Hall was far away from Texas before that aired. Not that Britain fares much better from his acid asides. During his latest tour Hall said of his remaining venues: "I'm on to the last few dregs. Places like Redditch and Runcorn, places that don't even have a Primark. That's how devastated these places are."

OF all the succulent tit-bits in Cameron at 10: The Inside Story, published this month, none is more intriguing than the mood in Downing Street on the day of this year's General Election. Cameron summoned an aide to write three speeches to the nation, to cover all eventualities. The first speech was to announce a new coalition. The second was in case Labour was trying to form a coalition. The third, in which Cameron conceded absolute defeat, included the lines: "I wish Ed and Justine (Miliband) every success." Authors Anthony Seldon and Peter Snowdon say that at this stage, Cameron was convinced he had less than 24 hours left as prime minister. Quite how we got from then to now is still a surprise. But then our electoral system is brilliant at creating surprises. Shortly before the 1997 General Election I bumped into the then Stoke MP Mark Fisher (Lab) on a railway platform. We had a brief chat and I suggested, given the state of the polls, he must be pretty confident. But Fisher was far from upbeat. "The Tories could still fluke it," he replied warily. A few days later Tony Blair led Labour to the most astonishing landslide victory of modern times, winning 418 seats, the most the party has ever held.

TONY Blair says he cannot understand the "powerful" phenomenon of Jeremy Corbyn's popularity.

For what it's worth, I never understood the appeal of Blair. I recall meeting him for the first time. As all around adored him, one word stuck in my mind and has never changed over the past 20 years: shifty. As I left the interview one of Blair's aides said to me: "Isn't he a great man?" He looked as though I had slapped him in the face when I answered: "No."

GREAT mysteries of the computer age. How do sellers on eBay qualify to be graded on the quality of their service? I am patiently waiting for a book from a company which, over the past 12 months, has accumulated 6,000 negative responses and 5,900 neutral responses from its customers. About one in seven customers have been less than thrilled with its service, yet it still boasts a "positive feedback" rating of 99.1 per cent. How?