Peter Rhodes: Sir Bob at his best

ACCORDING to one weekend headline, 80 per cent of over-50s are baffled by the the new state pension plan. Let us be honest. Eighty per cent of over-50s are baffled by just about everything.

SHOCK! Horror! We awoke yesterday to the news that a massive leak from a firm in Panama reveals terrible details of how world leaders and captains of industry behave. Apparently some politicians and business chiefs deliberately conceal their ill-gotten wealth in order to dodge tax and mislead their people. I must have a lie down.

IT is reassuring in this frantic, dumbed-down world that BBC4 found a full one hour and 40 minutes to broadcast A Fanatic Heart, Bob Geldof's excellent analysis of the Irish poet W B Yeats. We learned much about Yeats and more about Geldof who did a brilliant, informative job about Ireland, its Easter Rising and what might have been. What's more, Sir Bob used the F-word only when it was necessary. Pretty much.

SADLY, the programme failed to answer a fundamental question at the heart of English poetry. Why doesn't Yeats rhyme with Keats?

THE spirit of the Famous Five lives on. A police video shows a group of children on a country ramble in Surrey lying down and forming a human arrow to guide the force helicopter towards two suspected burglars on the run. Let us hope they were duly rewarded with lashings of ginger beer.

AND before you Blyton purists leap into print, I am fully aware that Enid never actually used the term "lashings of ginger beer."

FOR the first time in its history, Battersea is today rehoming more cats than dogs. The popularity of moggies is said to be driven by millions of cute videos of cats and kittens doing sweet and wacky things on the internet. Yes, folks, get yourself a cat and in a few days it'll be dancing to ballet music or leaping on the keyboard to play the piano. It's a shame that cat owners never share those many moments when the creature does something unspeakable. We had guests for the weekend. Just as we sat down for a civilised breakfast with our relatives from Scotland our rancid old moggie strode in, convulsed a couple of times and threw up. So sweet.

OUR Sassenach squirrels, on the other hand, were at their showbiz best, balancing on the washing line and posing picture-postcard like on the birdbath. The kids were enchanted. They come from Fife and never see big, ballsy, show-off grey squirrels, only timid little red ones.

ENGLISH as wot she is wrote. I have just bought a new camping stove. The instructions include: "The knob is not turn around when the soup holder is put upside down," always being aware that "the soup holder holds overthrowed soup" and "if the hole and protuberance is not fitted the gas can will not de set."

THERE is a serious issue here. Every consumer item must meet EU standards of safety and carry the official stamps. Yet the instructions for using even high-risk products can be written in the most confusing and dangerous gibberish and no-one seems to care.

IF using the stove outdoors, the advice is: "Choose the shady place where the sunbeams do not reach directly." No problems there. We are going to Scotland.