Peter Rhodes: An irritation of turbines?

A READER picks me up on my adjectives. I referred a few days ago to sausage rolls containing grisly bits. Although some bits may indeed be grisly, he says gristly is more likely. Grizzly would be unbearable.

I SUGGESTED the collective noun for a group of wind turbines is an accumulation. You lot, as usual, have much better ideas. I particularly like: a battery, an abomination, a blight, a prominence, a provocation, a desolation, a despoliation and an irritation of turbines.

HAS the spell of unseasonally warm weather been killing birds? We have had a steady succession of boings! on our windows as little birds hurtle into the panes and either stun or kill themselves. This tends to be a spring phenomenon when the daft little blighters are hurtling madly around to fight or fornicate. As far as I know the best way to prevent it is by sticking black silhouettes of birds on your windows. Any ideas welcome.

HEAVEN save us from people with lots of our money and bright ideas. The latest bright idea in Brussels is to bung a few billion euros to Africa's failing states in order to make them reduce the flow of migrants to Europe. How many despots will see this as a way to make even more money? Anything that connects migration to money will always be exploited. If Europe is panicking over 1.5 million migrants, how much more panic might be caused by, say, five million? The more migrants the rulers send northward, the more desperate Europe will get and the more billions of euros the EU will shower on the rulers and their families. The road to madness.

I WROTE a few days ago about t'grand house in Lancashire where my parents were in service when I was born. I was suddenly seized with a nostalgic desire to spend a few nights in the old village pub where Dad and his mates once slaked their thirsts at ninepence a pint. The old pub has moved upmarket. A room is now £120 a night, not including breakfast. If a man fell asleep in 1950 and woke up today, he might be horrified at the number of cars or airliners. But the real shocker, the thing he might never understand, is the general prosperity and the prices that go with it. Beer at £3.50 a pint? How did that happen?

A REPORT tells us that a change in someone's sense of humour may indicate the beginning of dementia. If someone loses interest in clever satire and starts roaring with laughter at slapstick, be warned. Far worse, but rarely mentioned, is the profound changes of behaviour that advanced dementia can bring. I have two friends whose parents were proud to be socialists, fervent campaigners for a better, fairer world. They never met but what unites them is that in their final months, suffering from Alzheimer's, each was taken to a nursing home. And each of them began using inappropriate words towards the black and Asian staff. After a lifetime dedicated to goodness, they slipped into the language of bigotry. It is a harrowing experience to see the parent you loved and respected being regarded as a racist by nurses.

FINALLY, thanks to the reader whose suggestion for a group of wind turbines is not actually a collective noun. From what little I remember of English Language O-level, it may be an adjectival phrase supporting an abstract noun: "A ******* waste of money."