Peter Rhodes: Expect the unexpected

TWO institutions. Both depend on public donations. Both help people let down by government agencies. So why is Children in Need a national treasure of which we are proud, but food banks are a national disgrace of which we are ashamed?

FORTY-four years after the rest of the world and thanks to the miracle of Neflix, I finally got around to watching Last Tango in Paris. Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider's anonymous sexual encounter gets five stars in the critics' ratings and is usually described as a landmark movie. I can't believe it's not better.

STILL in Paris. As you know, I have sworn not to mention the K lady's name in this column on the grounds that she and her large bottom get quite enough publicity already. However, the theft of her £7 million jewels in the French capital spurs me to pass on an old holiday tip which has always served Mrs Rhodes and me well. When staying in a hotel, apartment or B&B, never leave more than £1 million worth of jewellery in your room.

MANGLED metaphors in Birmingham. If you believe everything you heard from Conservative leaders, the way ahead is going to be a stormy sea and a rough ride with many bumps in the road and a bit of a rollercoaster. After the Tory Conference should we be travelling by boat, car or fairground ride? I think I'll be packing my trusty pogo-stick, just in case the grapes of wrath come home to roost.

IN politics, as in warfare, you don't have to be brilliant. You only have to be better than the enemy. And the Tories can look back on a Conference week better than they could have expected only 18 months ago. Who could have forecast that Ukip, having won its battle, would become leaderless, rudderless and pointless? Or that the Lib Dems would be savaged almost to extinction by a vengeful electorate? Or that Scottish resentment of English Tories would wipe out the Labour vote in Scotland? Or that Labour would have set off, under Jeremy Corbyn, on the road back to 1970s socialism, with both a leader and an immigration policy that the British people will never endorse? Today, the Conservative Party is looking as it looked for much of the 20th century, as the natural party of government. And as boundary changes alter the shape of constituencies, the new arithmetic of elections could make it virtually impossible for Labour ever again to form a government.

THERESA May must be happy. And yet she, and the rest of us of a certain age, will remember how entrenched and unassailable the Tories seemed in the 1980s. And then along came a new mood and a new, floppy-haired young man promising that things could only get better. Suddenly John Major was swept from power and there was serious talk of the Conservative Party ceasing to exist. Another rule from the battlefield: always expect the unexpected.

TV switches from programmes to adverts with no warning. One moment we were wincing in horror at the young sheep with a huge, shiny, prolapsed rectum in The Yorkshire Vet (C5), the next we were invited to try a gourmet break in a Yorkshire hotel, featuring tender, glistening burgers. I bet they didn't get many inquiries.