Peter Rhodes: Whatever happened to Al McCogan?

THE row over race and diversity at the Oscars and Baftas is too silly to take seriously. The demonstrators brandishing, in all seriousness, the banner: "We demand a quota system" are asking, in effect, for actors to be given prizes for the colour of their skin.

AND how are we expected to take the diversity issue seriously when female stars, who sternly insist on being called "actors" at any other time, put on their prettiest frocks for awards night as they accept the prize for best actress? How long before the ladies of Hollywood demand to be judged not in a gender-defined section but in the same category as the men? About the same time as hell freezes over.

MEANWHILE, welcome to the 2025 Baftas, by which time all minorities will be fairly represented on the basis of diversity quotas. And the award for Best One-Legged Zulu actor in an Jane Austen revival goes to . . . .

SCOTLAND is proud to have taken more than its share of asylum seekers. The Herald newspaper introduces us to some of the warm-hearted Scots who have agreed to give a home to migrants. They include Dr Gen Cannibal and his wife, Alison Cannibal, a fine couple who talk modestly about doing their bit and giving strangers a warm welcome. However, the obvious question goes unanswered, namely how do families from Syria feel about being billeted with the Cannibals of Glasgow? Mrs Cannibal says: "I would like to think we are open-minded enough to adapt to anything that is thrown at us. Those last two missionaries were delicious." Okay, I made up that last bit.

THE NHS continues to baffle us. A reader received a letter a few days ago from his GP inviting him to a five-yearly health check being offered to everyone in the UK between the ages of 40 and 74. He phoned the number and was immediately offered an appointment at 11am the next day. He admits he was impressed but adds glumly: "I suspect if I was at death's door, I'd be waiting for a fortnight."

THE latest Suzuki TV ad is a waste of space. From a concealed office, Ant and Dec direct a car salesman to do silly things for a pair of customers. Any and Dec clearly think it is screamingly amusing but has a single viewer laughed? Sorry, lads, it doesn't work.

HOW Suzuki must envy Ford, currently offering its new drop-dead lovely Ford Mustang. This is a car which needs absolutely no salesmen. Forty-eight years after Bullitt, Steve McQueen is still doing the job.

MORE things we believed when we were very young. A reader who grew up in the 1950s recalls hearing two of his aunts discussing an entertainer who was presumably a Scottish singer: Al McCogan.

AND how many of us shared the belief as kids that the grimy, gritty town at the centre of the Midlands mining industry was Sutton Coalfield? A reader describes finding out, in his 20s, that the place was actually called Sutton Coldfield and was green, pretty and rather posh.