Peter Rhodes: Thank you to the readers
This is the time of year when I admit that this column would be nothing without you lot.
Every day, by email, phone or old-fashioned letter, you make me aware of things that have made you smile, weep or tear your hair out. Long may you continue. Here's a selection of items from my column during 2015 which would never have seen the light of day without you, the readers.
A READER writes: "I am very cross that my young daughter just brought home a sofa and two chairs that someone gave her. I've told her not to accept suites from strangers."
I SUGGESTED water found on Mars and bottled could sell for huge prices. A reader writes: "You'd have to drink it in Mars bars – and there's no atmosphere."
A READER, studying images of the US Secretary of State, says: "Take John Kerry, add a fez and you've got Tommy Cooper." Now you mention it. . . .
"I WAS looking at the menu in a restaurant, and was wondering what the 'Jeremy Clarkson Special' was. Then it hit me."
"AM I the only one who can't see Camila Batmanghelidj of Kids Company without thinking of Ronnie Barker as Carmen Miranda?" How very ungallant, sir. Now you mention it . . .
A READER says we should not utterly condemn the delay in publishing the long-awaited report into the invasion of Iraq. If nothing else, it has given the English language a new adjective: Slow, slower and Chilcot.
"I HAVE just bought some pairs of long johns. Why do the labels give the chest size?"
"IS IT safer to smoke inside a VW than to stand behind one when its engine is running?
A READER continues the thread on the grammatical difference between "fewer" and "less" and on pedantry in general. He writes: "Pedants are like little Hitlers. There ought to be fuhrer of them."
"THANK goodness our money went metric. With the decline in maths teaching kids would be leaving school unable to calculate pounds, shillings and pence."
A FEW days ago I referred to the hazards of lead pellets in rabbit which has been shot rather than farmed. A reader writes: "I had rabbit pie once. Yes, it had been shot. I managed to avoid any pellets but almost choked on the blindfold."
A READER asks, why is it that when we are young we fall but when we are old we have a fall?
MEANWHILE, a reader fresh back from Ireland reports seeing this sign outside a pub: "Today's special offer. Buy any two drinks and pay for both of them."
A READER points out how striking dockers in Calais managed to scrounge enough old tyres to make massive bonfires in the road, but the sacked Goodyear workers in Wolverhampton, with access to thousands of tyres, lit not a single one.
A READER writes (in September): "I have seen my first gritting lorry of the season, complete with snow shovel." Is this a record?
AFTER the recent items on newspaper obituaries, a reader writes: "With regard to obituary notices, I looked again today and was surprised and mildly pleased that my name was not included." That's the spirit.
My message for the year ahead? Keep 'em coming.
