Peter Rhodes: A tale of two Rabbits

A READER remarks on a recipe published in a glossy mag for slow-roast belly pork using "pork, with the bone in." He asks, since when have pigs had belly bones?

EARLY fireworks caused a commotion out here on the urban fringe. As night fell, the sky lit up with a thousand bangs and flashes, and hundreds of rooks fled their nests in panic. I have no idea how or where those poor birds landed or if they ever made it back to their roosts.

BACK in July I said former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie was a clot for suggesting it was deliberately offensive for the hijab-wearing reporter Fatima Manji to cover the lorry massacre in Nice for Channel 4 News. If he had bothered to inquire, C4 would have told him that Manji was simply the reporter on studio duty that night and had been rostered several days earlier. So no conspiracy, and no intention to offend. Manji then reported MacKenzie to Ipso, the Press watchdog, which has now rejected her complaint that he was guilty of discrimination and harassment. Ipso ruled that he was entitled to express views, even if she found those views offensive. Which is pretty much what I suggested three months ago: "MacKenzie may be an oaf but censoring oafishness is still censorship. "

THE case doesn't cover the wider issue of whether it is wise for journalists delivering the national news to wear religious symbols. Manji says the hijab is not only a symbol of her faith but an inspiration to young Muslims considering a career in journalism. She wears it as a statement. Her senior colleague Jon Snow sees things differently. At this time of year Snow is regularly harangued for not wearing a remembrance poppy. Although he wears the poppy in private life, Snow explained: "I am not going to wear it or any other symbol on air." Two Channel 4 journalists, two opposing views. They can't both be right.

THIS row will simmer on for it goes to the heart of a modern dilemma. If you ask the question: "Do you believe in freedom of speech?" most people will answer yes. If you then ask: "Do you believe the law should protect people from being offended?" most people will also answer yes. Yet much debate, and most humour, depends on challenging, and sometimes mocking, the views of others. An insult-free world is not a free world.

INSPIRED by our recent thread on old technology, a reader recalls Rabbit, a mobile phone launched in 1992 by the Hutchison company. Its fatal flaw was that it could only make calls, not receive them. Sure enough, Rabbit was wiped out by more advanced rivals. That's the way it goes. One device called Rabbit was an abject failure for Hutchison but another was a great success for Ann Summers.

BIZARRE, isn't it, that the likely cause of the latest Mars probe crashing into the Red Planet is a failed parachute – the only item on board that you, me and any ten-year-old kid could make? One handkerchief, four lengths of string, one weight. Wrap into a ball and chuck into the air. Seriously, what's the problem?