Peter Rhodes: Don't blame the Yank

DAVID Cameron stands accused of media manipulation by issuing identikit press releases, crudely tailored to various parts of the UK. Depending where you live, you will read that the Prime Minister is in love with Cornwall / Northumberland / Wales and so on. I bet he got the idea from Ken Dodd whose pre-show publicity used to declare that Birmingham / Derby / Swansea / Glasgow / or wherever was the chuckle capital of Britain. Shameless Doddy, shameless Dave.

THE Journal of Preventive Medicine reports that people exercise more when they retire. A scientist declares: "It's a chance to get rid of bad routines." Ah, but there's more to it than merely ending the unhealthy commute. Retirement is one of the biggest wake-up calls in life. Death may not be imminent but it is suddenly somewhere out there on the horizon and every time-signal from Greenwich is one more pip towards the final pip, the toodle-pip. Once you're aware of your own mortality you suddenly have the incentive to keep it at bay, and walk or jog a bit. Once more round the block, Elsie?

INCIDENTALLY, the researcher in charge of the retirement project has a most musical name. She is Dr Melody Ding. Fancy having your name sung by every microwave.

SCIENTISTS in Canada claim that typing too fast can impair the writing process. Essay writers used a bigger range of words when they were told to type one-handed. Thankfully, I have no such problem. This column is written on vellum using a goose quill pen and an oak lectern. I find it helps me to use long words to dazzle my readers. Antidisestablishmentarianism.

ALLOW me to let you into a secret. Back in 1975 when the Government graciously allowed us a vote on whether to remain in the Common Market, not all of us understood the details. So we tended to look around to see how famous people were planning to vote. In the end, I voted yes because Enoch Powell and Tony Benn were voting no. Of course, all these years later we are far better informed and make our decisions on a careful and intricate analysis of the economic, legal and sovereignty issues. Plus the fact that Jeremy Clarkson says he's voting to stay in.

SOME pundits point out that Clarkson, for all his many faults, would not have performed tyre-burning wheelspins at the Cenotaph, as the latest Top Gear series has. Clarkson is actually a staunch supporter of British armed forces and remembrance. My personal theory is that, given his life again, Clarkson would choose to be not a Top Gear presenter but Major Robert Cain VC, the hero of the epic Battle of Arnhem in 1944. Major Cain was the father of Clarkson's former wife, Frances.

ANYWAY, don't blame Matt Le Blanc for the Whitehall outrage. He is an American abroad and probably doesn't know the difference between Sellotape and Cenotaph. The Top Gear stunt was a "long planned" event arranged by the BBC, Scotland Yard and the Department for Transport. So which senior officers, executives and civil servants thought it was a good idea? I bet every one of them has done the diversity course and would have instantly banned a Top Gear stunt anywhere near a mosque or Sikh temple. Yet the Cenotaph was considered fair game. Why?

MEANWHILE, let us start organising something to show the Yanks what we think of tyre-smoking events at our sacred sites. The venue: the hallowed halls of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC. The event: the World Raspberry-Blowing Championships.