Peter Rhodes: A national moment of eyebrow-raising

"I'M alive, my wife's alive, the dog's alive." Cumbrian pub landlord after the floods, giving a North Country masterclass in counting your blessings.

OUR changing language. After the Leytonstone terrorist attack, the Guardian reported: "The man was believed to have been working alone." Working?

ALEXANDER Armstrong, best known as a comedian, has a fine singing voice and has released his debut album for Christmas. Thankfully, it doesn't include the Train Song in which Armstrong, accompanied by Ben Miller in the style of Flanders and Swann, describes the horror of using an overflowing lavatory on a train. We have all been there. You can find it on YouTube but it's wince-making stuff.

THREE NHS facts. 1) In order to keep antibiotics effective, they must be strictly controlled. 2) Research published yesterday shows that doctors who liberally dispense antibiotics are more popular with their patients than those who restrict them. 3) GPs' salaries are in part related to how satisfied their patients are with them. You see the problem?

SADLY, the music drowned out the words of That's Entertainment, the opening number of Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1). Howard Dietz's lyrics, for the 1953 hit The Band Wagon, are some of the cleverest ever penned for a musical. In the song, his list of much-loved dramas includes: "Some great Shakespearean scene / Where a ghost and a prince meet / And everyone ends in mincemeat." What a great rhyme. And still the finest summary of Hamlet I know.

I AM no authority on Strictly. I don't really watch it so much as absorb bits of it in passing. But even I joined in that national moment of eyebrow-raising as Anita Rani, bottom in Saturday's judging, was voted through to the semi-final while Helen George and Georgia May Foote were forced into the dance-off and Ms George was sent home. Yes, I know it's only entertainment but it would still be good to know, for example, how many votes were cast.

THE buying and selling of oil produced by Islamic State-controlled refineries shows an unholy alliance between extreme Islam and organised crime. Thank goodness it could never happen in a Christian country. Wanna bet? In southern Italy, prosecutors are investigating claims that a church procession in the little town of Paterno paid tribute to the Mafia. Men carrying statues of two local saints allegedly bowed them in salute outside the house of a convicted Mafia boss. In case anybody missed the point, the band played the theme tune of The Godfather. That'll be God moving in a mysterious way. Again.

MARY Berry, 80-year-old presenter of The Great British Bake-Off, says in an interview that older folk should not "just watch TV" but get out and lead a healthy, active lifestyle. This, from a lady who makes a good living out of keeping people glued to the TV and cooking Victoria sponges.

A READER accuses me of hypocrisy for writing about "lardarse Britain" and then condemning bullies who hand out "fat cards" to individuals they judge to be overweight. There is a huge difference. Writing generally about the size of Brits ("a nation of lardarses," etc) is social commentary. Picking on strangers in the street and humiliating them is personally offensive. If you really don't understand the difference, you must get into an awful lot of fights.