Peter Rhodes: The never-ending inquiry?

I ASSUMED I was in a tiny minority in not welcoming the Olympic Games to my country. Apparently not. The people of Hamburg have just voted against hosting the 2024 games on the grounds that the £8 billion could be better spent. Behold, I have found my kindred spirits. Ich bin ein Hamburger.

HERE we go again. Judge Lowell Goddard unveils the scope of her inquiry into child sexual abuse involving "people of public prominence" dating back several decades. It will include an initial 12 investigations, to be followed by up to 13 more. She expects it will take five years. After Hillsborough, Bloody Sunday and the Chilcot Inquiry, does anyone believe that? Would anybody be surprised if it dragged on for 10 years or more? If it goes true to form, by the time this inquiry is finished, half the accused will be dead, retired or ga-ga and the public view of what constitutes sexual abuse may well have changed anyway. Will this inquiry result in a single prosecution, save a single child, change a single mind or have any effect apart, of course, from making a lot of rich lawyers even richer? I honestly wish I thought so.

TO put Judge Goddard's quest into context, in the same week that she unveiled her report, the Office of the Children's Commissioner (OCC) revealed the estimated scale of child abuse committed not by politicians or celebrities but by common perverts. Police recorded 50,000 cases in two years but the OCC reckons the true number of children abused is 450,000 – and two-thirds of those assaults are committed by family members. Ten years from now the best we may say about the Goddard Inquiry with its focus on "people of public prominence," was that it was stupendously irrelevant.

FAR from turning the other cheek, the Church of England has called in the Equality and Human Rights Commission over the decision by three cinema groups not to screen its controversial Lord's Prayer advert. Why was it banned in the first place? Apparently the decision followed what the cinema advertising firm DCM calls "considerable negative feedback from audiences" when ads for and against Scottish independence were screened. For "considerable negative feedback" read "lots of punch-ups in the stalls." After that experience, for obvious reasons, anything political or religious was banned.

THE chatterati may want to turn the Lord's Prayer issue into a freedom-of-speech debate but it's no such thing. And it's not bishops in their palaces or Guardian columnists in their ivory towers who have to deal with the fallout. It is cinema staff on the minimum wage who find themselves in the front line between unionists, separatists. Christians, Muslims, agnostics and anyone else who finds other folk's beliefs stupid or irritating.

FREEDOM of speech has never included the freedom to shout "fire!" in a cinema. These days "Allelujah!" or "Allahu Akbar!" can be just as incendiary.

UNDER a scheme called Game Share, 1,300 grouse have been donated to food banks and day centres. Poor people are thus exposed to a hazard once reserved for the rich – cracking your teeth on shotgun pellets. When eating grouse, or any other game, chew gently.

BY coincidence, I bought a rabbit pie at a market a few days ago. Wary of pellets, I asked whether the rabbit had been shot. "Yes," said the butcher. " I can assure you it is dead."