Peter Rhodes: Rhodes (no relation) shall not fall

THE Google row rumbles on. I wonder how other countries extract tax from large multi-nationals who claim to make their money in another place. And how do you research this crucial issue without, er, using Google?

SIX of Britain's new warships need a major rebuild because their engines are so unreliable. Warriors of an earlier generation will recall Britain's Chieftain tank. Cynics said it was the best defensive tank in the world, so long as it broke down in the right place.

JUST as I started writing this, my eye was caught by a sudden scurrying in the back yard. It was a weasel dragging off a mole half its size. Winterwatch, eat your heart out.

RHODES will not fall. Although some students have called for the statue of Cecil Rhodes (no relation) to be removed from Oriel College, Oxford, the college says the "overwhelming message" it has received is that it must stay. Part of this message is that supporters may withhold massive amounts of money if it is removed. In other words, it's a sound business decision. Cecil would have thoroughly approved.

MONEY donated by former students is a crucial source of income to British universities. But most of the wealthier donors have good reason to be grateful, having been students in the days when a university education was free. Today's students pay £9,000 a year. A few decades from now, will they simply put the begging letters in the bin?

DR David Grimes, a physicist at Oxford University, has devised a formula which explains why conspiracy theories are usually bunkum. He says that the more people involved in a conspiracy, the sooner the secret will escape. So if the 1969 moon landings were a hoax, one or more of Nasa's 400,000 employees would have spilled the beans in no more than three years and eight months. It goes without saying that Dr Grimes's theory will merely reinforce the belief among conspiracy theorists that the conspiracy goes right to the top, in this case to the heart of the world's leading universities. Oxford twinned with Roswell, right?

MEANWHILE, a conspiracy-minded reader accuses me of being naive for swallowing the US prank TV footage showing bicycle thieves flying over the handlebars of a bait bike which is tethered to a tree by a hidden cord. It is obvious, he says, that the "victims" are in on the act and have probably been paid a few dollars. Really? And how many dollars would he have to be paid to risk castration by handlebars?

"WE as human beings have to reach out to fellow human beings," Jeremy Corbyn declared after last week's visit to the migrant camps near Calais. Sadly, since then, the residents have been reaching out to each other with knives and guns. After four migrants were wounded, a French police spokesman revealed: "The Muslims are trying to expel the Christians from the camps." Optimists will say we shouldn't worry and that violence is inevitable in such stressful conditions. Pessimists will ask, if the migrants eventually come to England, how much religious hatred and violence will they bring with them?

MEANWHILE, Neil Kinnock says Jeremy Corbyn looks unelectable. People should pay close attention to this. Being unelectable is Neil Kinnock's specialist subject.