Peter Rhodes: Islamophobia?

THE price of globalisation. In my local DIY shop they are selling 16ft button-operated retractable steel rules for 99p. You couldn't post it back to China for that price.

THE shop next to the DIY store is one of those gloriously old-fashioned Aladdin's caves selling everything from pins to pedal bins. Inside, my eye fell on an iconic item from my youth and I was transported back almost 60 years to another Easter holiday. We were in Borth and my proudest possession was a new water canteen, as used by every cowboy since Tom Mix. A plastic canteen was the badge of the explorer. With a Wagon Wheel in your pocket and a canteen full of orange squash, every five-minute scramble across the sand dunes was an epic adventure. Mine ended on the first day. Climbing a cliff, I put my palm down hard on someone's dropped cigarette end and ran home, sobbing. Nothing fixes a memory in your mind quite like pain.

BETWEEN the killing of Asad Shah who was stabbed to death in his Glasgow shop, allegedly by another Muslim, and the slaughter of Christians in Lahore, a reader emailed – anonymously, of course - to denounce me as Islamophobic for suggesting the Brussels bombers had some support in the ghettos of Molenbeek.

Islamophobia is a fuzzy, ill-defined yet poisonous word. It is chucked about by zealots and dimwits to demonise opponents and smother free speech. Yet the literal meaning of the word is simply "a fear of Islam." And I admit I am more wary of Islam than I was when I first encountered it years ago. All the Muslims I met were gentle, thoughtful people, strong on family life, hospitality and education. One thing I have heard many times from Muslims (including one eager young Mujahid fresh from fighting Russians in Afghanistan) is the concept of a special kinship between Muslims, Jews and Christians because all are "of the Book" and worship the same God of Abraham. That is the respectful, inclusive creed Asad Shah obviously embraced in his Easter message on Facebook wishing "Very happy Easter especially to my beloved Christian nation."

BUT there is another Islam. It is the creed that preaches the West is rotten, Jews are evil and all non-Muslims are worthless kuffir. This venom, which must terrify many British Muslims, is spreading and if we stick our heads in the sand, or try to accept it in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism, then we not only fool ourselves but betray the Asad Shahs of this world. I am an optimist. I believe peace and understanding will prevail. But at this particular moment in history it is wiser to be concerned about what is happening in Islam than to pretend all is sweetness and light. Better Islamowary than Islamostrich.

A C BARR, makers of the Scottish fizzy drink, Irn Bru, says George Osborne's sugar tax is "extremely disappointing." But how can this be? I distinctly remember Barr's advert which claimed that Irn Bru was "made in Scotland from girders."

GIRDER, that is, pronounced the Scottish way: gurrdurr. It rhymes with the crime that Taggart was always solving: murrdurr. I wonder if at some time in Scottish criminal history, someone has committed murrdurr with a gurrdurr.