Peter Rhodes: Kippered on a train

YET more memories of the double-decker trains which once plied the southern bits of Britain's railways network until 1971. Why did such a simple space-saving idea never take off? A reader has done some research and discovered that the double-deckers took longer to load and unload passengers than anyone expected. A secondary factor, in those nicotine-stained days when almost everyone seemed to smoke, was that passengers on the upper deck complained of being "kippered" by the smokers below.

LAWYERS will doubtless be rejoicing over the Zika virus scare which has led some experts to call for the Rio Olympics to be postponed or moved. In legal terms, this is known as a win-win situation. If the Games were scrapped, the compensation claims for breach of contract would be enormous. But if the Games went ahead and people contracted Zika, the compensation payouts would be even bigger. The rustling sound? Legal eagles rubbing their hands in glee.

IT is reported that a shortage of lemons in drought-stricken Spain and south America could deprive British gin-and-tonic drinkers of their favourite tipple. Fear not. As any serious gin drinker will tell you, once you have tasted G&T with a sliver of fresh cucumber, you'll never slice a lemon again.

SINCLAIR McKay, author of a new book on the wartime codebreakers at Bletchley Park, claims that some locals, perplexed by the oddballs working at Bletchley, came to the conclusion that the place was a government-run psychiatric hospital. I can believe that. It was my privilege on two occasions to interview Professor Harry Hinsley, one of the most remarkable Brits of the 20th century. The son of a Walsall coal merchant, he went to Cambridge and led Bletchley's team who broke German naval codes. He explained that cracking complex and bizarre cyphers demanded some equally bizarre characters. Hinsley recalled one expert whose daily routine was to take his after-dinner tea each evening while strolling by the park's lake. When he finished his tea, he would toss the cup and saucer into the lake. Some were merely eccentric but he was literally crack-pot.

AND if you're wondering by what amazing and improbable route a collier's lad from the Black Country became a codebuster at Bletchley and went on to become Master of St John's College and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, the answer comes in just two words: grammar school.

THE first show must have brought the house down. From the entertainments at Kenilworth Castle: "4pm, A Flash in the Pan. Mr Griffin demonstrates gunpowder once more (Chapel ruins).

WITHNAIL and I is one of the best British films ever made. It tells the beery tale of two drunken, unemployed actors (Richard E Grant and Paul McGann) on a Lake District weekend break from hell, with the unwanted attention of naughty, gay Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths). Made in 1987 it is set in the 1960s and captures perfectly the bomb-site poverty and bleak pessimism of the decade we usually call Swinging. It is a must-see film. So well done, Channel 4, for including it in tonight's programmes. But no points at all for scheduling it to start two hours after midnight. Even Withnail would be in bed by then.