Peter Rhodes: So many bombs, so little coverage

MIFFED that its Lord's Prayer ad has been declined by some cinemas, the Church of England has now called for all Xmas ads to be banned. That would be a grave mistake for it would deny us the seasonal cautionary tale from John Lewis. This is the one that warns us that if we give weird old men telescopes, they will spy on little girls.

SERIOUSLY, what were John Lewis thinking when they allowed this impenetrable and vaguely disturbing Xmas ad to be screened? They already have the best sales slogan in the world. A sprig of holly with the words "Never Knowingly Undersold" would have done nicely.

HOW long does technology have to be around before it appears in our dreams? A reader relates a panicky nightmare. She needed to send a text message on her smartphone but was wearing huge, unremovable mittens.

THE younger generation have techno-phobias, too. I rang a friend by landline and his twentysomething daughter answered. Or rather, didn't. She picked up the phone but said nothing. There was a long silence until I said: "Hello?" Apparently youngsters don't feel at ease with landlines. On a smartphone the caller is identified before you respond but a landline means you have to speak into an unknown void which is a bit of an ordeal for kids. How strange.The last person I recall who was nervous about answering a telephone was my grandmother.

THE strangest thing about the war against Islamic State is how little has been reported of the latest air war. Over the past couple of weeks the Russians and Americans have been going straight for IS's financial jugular vein, the columns of thousands of fuel tankers ferrying millions of gallons of oil out of Syria and into the hands of dodgy dealers. This income, from oil fields and depots captured and now run by IS, is earning the terror organisation about a million dollars a day. According to one report, the massacres in Paris were in retaliation for French air raids on this illicit oil industry. Now, Russia and America have joined in, destroying almost 1,000 tankers. You can see the videos on the internet but until yesterday there was very little TV reporting. This hush-hush coverage may suit America and its allies for it reduces the risk of embarrassing questions such as, why has it taken them so many months to do something so blindingly obvious?

THE answer? Conspiracy theorists claim there are huge vested interests in preserving the current global glut of oil to fight off the potential threats from other sources of energy. The more oil that is sold (including IS's oil), the lower the price of oil will stay, and the less competitive renewables, shale gas and nuclear energy will become. America was happy for IS's oil to flow until the Russians started bombing, at which point Washington had to be seen to be just as tough. Okay, it's only a theory. . . .

AFTER Monday's item on the campaign to scrap court charges imposed on those convicted by the courts, I discover that Whitehall's official policy is to make defendants "pay their way." What a splendid idea. How long before we extend it to those troublesome NHS patients and schoolchildren?

INCIDENTALLY, I wrote that the criminal court charge had replaced the victim surcharge. It is actually in addition to it. Kerching!