Peter Rhodes: To screen or not to screen?

THE One Show (BBC1) did its best to celebrate BBC3 being taken off air and consigned to the internet, presenting it positively as some dazzling new launch. It didn't wash. BBC3 is being launched in much the way that HMS Ark Royal was launched into a dynamic and vibrant new role in recycling. Or as we usually call it, the breaker's yard.

NOW, here's a moral dilemma. I wrote recently about AAA (abdominal aortic aneurysm) screening, designed to detect dangerous swelling of the major blood vessel. A reader says he refused to be screened, partly because if a large aneurysm is detected, the patient is asked to surrender his driving licence until the condition is corrected. What if his undetected aneurysm suddenly burst while he was driving and he wiped out a young family? If we opt to decline such screening, how much responsibility should we take for that decision? For example, should the NHS inform the DVLA or the insurance industry of a refusal? In short, where do individual rights end and social responsibility begin? Over to you.

"HOW VIP do I gotta get?" demanded Sir Paul McCartney when he was not recognised and was refused admission to a rapper party in Hollywood. Not exactly the Queen's English, is it? But what was the alternative? "Don't you know who I was?"

HEALTH experts have called for an urgent investigation into a sudden rise in death rates in England. The number of deaths per year had fallen steadily since the 1970s but is now the highest figure for 70 years. So what's going on? No-one knows - hence the investigation. But there's lots of scope for blaming the NHS, immigration, cuts in meals-on-wheels and any other cause you fancy. So let me throw in my entirely unscientific theory. It is that we are seeing the passing of people who lived through the Second World War, probably the strongest generation, both mentally and physically, that Britain ever produced. They were born into pre-war hardship where disease and filthy living conditions killed off the weakest in childhood. The tough survivors lived on a rationed daily diet of 1,200 calories through the war years and grew up with the Welfare State, the NHS and the Clean Air Act. They were lean, fit and optimistic and in their later life they had all the benefits of mass medication. Many have lived into their 80s and 90s. This hardy, long-lived WW2 generation was something very special and I wouldn't be surprised if the later generations - soft, overweight and glutted with sugar – are not living as long.

FASCINATING research this week suggests that fat people see the world differently from skinnies. Because fat people tend to overestimate the size of mountains or the length of walks, they find exercise more daunting. The strange thing is that, although they think hills are enormous, they think pork pies are tiny.

IN the next few weeks people approaching pension age will start getting their forecasts for the new state pension. Although the figure of £155 is bandied about, it seems there will be a lot of variation. Feel free to let me know your forecast. Personal information will, of course, be treated in absolute confidence, although I reserve the right to send you a begging letter.