Peter Rhodes: An Eton mess?

SCORCHIO. This year we have spent so many cold, wet, dank days sitting indoors complaining about the weather that we have quite forgotten what to do on hot, sultry and sun-soaked days. We sit indoors complaining about the weather.

THE other thing folk tend to do is leave their pets in cars. In England, the cost of a few sunny days can be measured in dead dogs.

EVENTS in Turkey are a reminder that in countries where coups are commonplace, wise politicians always carry two ready-written speeches. The first praises the heroic president for defeating the wicked revolutionaries. The second praises the heroic revolutionaries for ousting the wicked president. It was the courtier and scientist Sir John Harington (1561-1612) who wrote: "Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? / Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

SIR John probably had in mind the words of the Roman statesman Seneca writing 2,000 years ago: "Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue." Some things never change.

IF Turkey's President Erdogan is serious about imposing the death penalty for treason, he might reflect on another deeply religious country where the leaders of an armed uprising were widely despised by the people. But when the government started executing the ringleaders, the rebels were instantly transformed from pariahs to heroes. From Dublin 1916 to Ankara 2016, there are always lessons to learn.

BORIS-TALK for beginners. Our new Foreign Secretary has an unfortunate habit of running several plummy-accented words into one. An example: "Peepersherize" = "People should realise." You could call it an Eton mess.

HOW nature works. We have a bumper crop of raspberries at Chateau Rhodes. Most years, at least half are scoffed by greedy blackbirds. This year there's a sparrow hawk about.

WITH terrorism abroad and a heatwave at home, the silly-season headlines are all about "staycation." However did this misbegotten word, meaning to take a holiday at home, creep into our language? It is based on the American word "vacation." But we Brits do not have vacations, just as we don't have furloughs, R&R or sojourns. We have holidays. And after the arrival of words such as Brexit and Bremain, surely a holiday in the UK should be known as a Broliday.This useful word suggests not only a holiday but also an umbrella, which makes it doubly appropriate.

DAVID Davis was in good form when it was pointed out that EU rules forbid the UK making new trade deals with other countries and Brussels might take umbrage. "They can't tell us who we can talk to," snarled the Tory. "What are they going to do? Chuck us out?"

DAVIS once served as a part-time soldier in a Territorial Army regiment of the SAS, a unit known inevitably as "Saturdays And Sundays."

STRANGE, isn't it, how one small item of news can make you feel old? Tim Brooke-Taylor has just had his 76th birthday.