Peter Rhodes: A mammoth in the lounge

A READER, having studied the Christmas-post dates, is puzzled that the last posting date for Germany is four days before the deadline for Slovakia. He asks: "Does it really take four days longer to fly to Germany than to Slovakia?" I blame the jetstream.

MEANWHILE, consider the curious fact that as thousands of delegates in Paris were trying to hammer out global emission targets, planners in Whitehall have been looking for somewhere to stick a new runway, thus filling our skies with millions of extra tons of emissions. Not exactly joined-up thinking, is it?

IN her series on the islands of Italy (C5) Alex Polizzi introduced us to the once-deserted settlement of Gangi where she explained how the dynamic new mayor is "working tirelessly to repopulate the town." A labour of love, presumably.

IN some versions of this column a few days ago, the name of the former Kremlin spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov appeared with two spellings. You may have assumed this was in the classical Russian literary tradition of giving each character at least two, and usually three, different names. Not at all. It was actually what the Russians call a kokupsky.

HERE we go again, another radio debate which manages to ignore the gigantic, hairy, enormously tusked mammoth slumped in front of the telly. It followed the news report about the over-65s being richer than people in their 40s. No surprises there. Anyone buying property over the past half-century has made a fortune. But time after time, as in this recent Radio 4 chat, the pundits tell us that the cause of this bubble is not enough homes. The elephant in the living room is the issue no-one seems willing to mention. It's not just about too few homes, it's about too many people. In a single lifetime the UK population is soaring from 50 million to 70 million and the global population from three billion to nine billion. We are breeding ourselves towards calamity. Yet governments, religions, business leaders and even the climate-change lobby seem unwilling to address the inconvenient fact that almost all of the world's problems stem from a surplus of Homo sapiens.

FUNNY how old headlines come around, isn't it? We are at war with Germany. Except that this time in Syria we are genuinely with them, rather than against them. This must be the first war when the RAF, on seeing warplanes with little black crosses, doesn't try to shoot them down.

I SUGGESTED recently, in a jovial sort of manner, that the United Kingdom was neither united nor a kingdom. A reader insists that it is both. Technically he is right. However, Scotland is gradually drifting away and, anyway, I always picture a kingdom as something historic, usually involving armour and trebuchets. These days, are we not a constitutional monarchy? And is this item reminding anyone else of the opening scenes of Monty Python and the Holy Grail? King Arthur believes he is the monarch ruling a monarchy but Dennis the peasant is pretty sure it's an anarcho-syndicalist commune.

AS I understand it, the latest verdict on the flu vaccine is that it has the best effect on people who are healthy. Rather like flu itself.