Peter Rhodes: Is Santa up for Brexit?

SO far, the EU debate has invited us to consider how Churchill, Shakespeare and Jesus might have voted. A reader writes: "How about Father Christmas? Is he for Brexit?" Maybe we should all write him a letter.

I HAVE been hacking away at the English language for the past 50-odd years or so and like to think I can tackle most assignments. But the latest request leaves me stumped. I bought an item online and eBay is now inviting me to "write a review" about it. In my time I have reviewed books, TV, rock concerts and Shakespeare. I have absolutely no idea how to review a 500g tub of fire cement. It was black. It was sticky. It was just under three quid.

TALKING of brilliant journalism the word "abattoir" appeared in this column a few days ago as "abbatoir." The first spelling is correct, the second is a mistake and neither should be confused with an Abba tour which is something completely different.

BACK down to Stratford, this time for an audience with Hunter Davies, the biographer of Gazza, Prezza and The Beatles, chronicler of Spurs, finance columnist, lover of the Lake District and all-round good egg. Davies is an old hero of mine from the 1980s when he wrote Father's Day, a weekly diary of family life, for Punch magazine. His wife, the writer Margaret Forster, died only a few weeks ago. You couldn't help wondering how, so soon after her passing, a man of 80 could talk on stage about his soulmate of six decades and not lose his composure. The answer is that he could not. Hunter Davies told us how when they first met in the 1950s his heart fluttered, and carried on fluttering for 60 years. A moment later he blinked away the tears, drank a glass of water and carried on. They say you should never meet your heroes but I'm glad I met this one. A lovely man.

REFERENDUM trivia. In the 1975 referendum when we voted 2:1 to stay in the Common Market, a total of 25,848,654 votes were cast. The UK population has risen since then by seven million, from 56.2 million to 63.2 million. So what are the odds on as many folk voting this year as voted in 1975?

IT is almost impossible to mention the silent majority, the slice of society who may well decide the EU referendum, without using the poet G K Chesterton's famous lines on what he called The Secret People. I may be throwing it away a little early in the campaign and I bet you'll see this rhyme many times between now and June 23: "Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget: For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet."

THE irony is that it doesn't really matter which side wins. There are dark forces and vested interests which have no intention of allowing the European Project to be derailed by mere democracy. If we vote to stay, we stay. If we vote to leave, we stay. Cynical? Moi?

THE people of Arcachon in south-west France have lost count of how many times vandals have snapped the phallus off the statue of Hercules in the local park. Officials have now decided to give the statue a removable one which will be fitted for "special occasions." Some feminists think men should have the same.