Peter Rhodes: Dear Andrea

I STOPPED buying contact lenses from an online company some years ago but they don't give up. Their latest email sales pitch is headlined: "We can send your lenses across Europe." Sounds like a threat from the Mafia, doesn't it?

SHOPPING at an upmarket store, a reader took his purchases to the till where an immaculately-clad assistant explained: "As you have spent more than £35, Sir, would you like a free pair of flip-flops?" The shopper replied firmly that he did not wear flip-flops. After a moment's thought, the assistant asked: "Is there anyone you dislike sufficiently for whom you would want a pair?" Why do I keep thinking of Grace Bros?

MEMO. From Theresa May to Andrea Leadsom: Dear Andrea, I was going to offer you a really high-flying job in the Cabinet. However, as you have so many children, you probably wouldn't have the time. . . ."

MRS Leadsom may think that having children as "a stake in the future" makes one a better politician. The rest of us are, of course, far too politically correct to argue that a politician without the distraction of children might actually do a better job than one who is up to the elbows in nappies, Calpol and rusks. We used to be more outspoken about such things. In a franker age it was the great critic and editor Cyril Connolly who famously declared: "There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall."

AND it is a fact that while about 20 per cent of British women aged under 45 are childless, the figure for British female MPs is about 45 percent. This suggests either that the demands of Westminster make it extremely hard to have a family life or that many female politicians willingly decide to remain childless. All around the world the House of Commons is known as the Mother of Parliaments. Now, there's irony.

CYRIL Connolly also observed: "Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising." I wonder how many Tory backbenchers who have not had the hoped-for phone call from Mrs May are reflecting ruefully on the days when they were considered promising.

TALKING of the late Mr Connolly, are there any Cyrils left? I had an Uncle Cyril, long gone, but the name seems to be passing into history.

WHAT if despite Mrs May's assurance that "Brexit means Brexit," we never get to leave? A reader points out that the population of the West Midlands at 5.6 million is bigger than Scotland's of 5.37 million. As he puts it: "If there is a fudge, and the UK stays in the EU, should the West Midlands secede? Mercia, it could be argued, has as much right to independence as does Scotland." Yup, that's just what we need, folks. Another referendum.

THOSE who forecast that Brexit would mean the UK going to hell in a handcart must be bemused at this week's soaring success of the FTSE index. People are obviously buying and selling something, but what? Handcarts?