Peter Rhodes: Call me Malcolm

MOVE the bird feeder under the beech tree for protection against hawks and change the seed mixture. Result: for the first time, we have a greater spotted woodpecker in the garden. It is good to find contentment in small things because the big things tend to be expensive.

A READER asks, when did the fashion industry decide to stitch padded jackets and bodywarmers into horizontal tubes? We are quite lardy enough, she says, without dressing up as the Michelin Man.

PUB-quiz trivia. Correct name of the Michelin Man? Bibendum.

WITH the best will in the world, the latest contraceptive treatment for men, unveiled by scientists a few days ago, is doomed to fail. Why? Because it is delivered by injection. Females, allow me to share a secret with you about the male of the species. Men are cowards and liars. We do not like needles being stuck in us. In the laboratory testing, which was 96 per cent effective at reducing sperm count, male volunteers received two hormone injections every eight weeks. But in real life, how many normal blokes are brave enough to go through that? I foresee a spate of pregnancies caused by men claiming to have had the jab and, when faced with the bonnie, bouncing fruits of their lies, declaring: "Of course, it is only 96 per cent effective."

ON the last day of October we had a day out and returned to find the car, admittedly parked in full sunshine, recording 26.5C on its thermometer. There must be a moment in this global-warming nonsense when temperatures pass from being balmy to being barmy. Mind you, by the time this appears it will probably be perishing.

REJOICE. Space technology is now so advanced that one Mars probe can take photographs of the crater left when another Mars probe crashed into the planet.

IF you ever wondered where the money for these Europeans space missions comes from, just look in the mirror. The EU nations have no choice about diverting billions of euros from schools, hospitals and infrastructure into space research. Under the Lisbon Treaty all 28 nations are committed to the space programme. If one probe crashes, we simply pay for another one. And another. And another . . . .

GREATEST line so far in Poldark (BBC1) came from the amorous Scottish officer McNeil (Henry Garrett ) who thinks he's seducing Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) and asks for one big romantic favour: "Would you consider calling me Malcolm?"

AS romantic TV chat-up lines go, "Call me Malcolm" is right up there with the lad in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet who tells his partner on a crowded dance floor: "You don't sweat much for a fat lass."

BUT why should the very name Malcolm make us smile so much? Malcolm was the perpetually bunged-up mummy's boy in the old Vicks Sinex adverts. These things lodge deep in the national psyche.