PETER RHODES: A new, improved Donald?

A READER says it's time to name and shame those who wrongly use words that sound the same. The classic example, he says, is the graffiti on a railway bridge near Oswestry proclaiming: "Gorilla War Fair."

STILL on primates, the "barter" incident in The Secret Life of the Zoo (C4) looked suspiciously like a hostage situation. An ugly and cunning old chimpanzee grabbed a moorhen chick and dangled it in front of the keeper. The keeper, knowing the routine, traded a couple of slices of bread for the terrified chick which was handed over unharmed. It would have been fascinating, if cruel, to refuse to negotiate and see whether the chimp would have murdered his hostage. Then we might have discovered whether chimps are better or worse than people.

THIS was the week, as you have probably noticed, when Donald Trump stopped being mad. After his Super Tuesday success, there were no wild-eyed demands to exclude Muslims or keep Mexicans out behind a massive wall. Instead, he spoke of unity and co-operation. What's going on?

THERE are two explanations for the New, Improved Donald. The first, offered by Piers Morgan, is that Trump has behaved outrageously simply to dominate the media and now, having virtually won the Republican nomination, can return to being the sober, reasonable business manager he really is. The second explanation, which I prefer, is that Trump merely wanted to shake up US politics and never in his wildest dreams expected to get this far. With the White House on his horizon and not an iota of experience in politics, he is frightened to death of becoming president and needs all the friends he can find.

THE PM programme (Radio 4) could not resist starting its report on the collapse of the Omagh Bombing trial this week with its original broadcast of the atrocity in 1998. The result was that thousands of listeners must have tuned it to what sounded like a news item, and assumed that Omagh had been bombed again. Flashbacks work on telly because they can be subtitled. Flashbacks work in newspapers because we use cuttings of old headlines. But flashbacks on radio merely cause confusion.

THE New Day, the national newspaper launched this week, is clearly after the news-lite readership, those busy souls who don't have time for long reports. Even so, there must be limits. When New Day tells us: "A brave student who had both legs amputated after contracting a bug is now a model," even the busiest reader wants to know what sort of bug it was. If a paper leaves questions unanswered, its readers will soon leave it.

ANOTHER anniversary passes. It is 25 years since the first Gulf War ended. Back in 1991 I was a TA officer, suddenly mobilised when the ground fighting began. A week later, the war was over and I was quietly demobilised, having got no further south than Salisbury Plain. I discovered that my war role was writing features for the national and regional press. One of my articles, concerning a PoW camp in Wiltshire, was spiked by somebody at the MoD on the grounds that it might contravene the Geneva Conventions. So that was my Operation Desert Storm: one week in uniform and I'm a war criminal. I never talk about it.