Peter Rhodes: The Beatrix Potter tendency

A COUPLE of weeks ago I reported a warning from a lawyer that some police forces issue notices of intended prosecution for motoring offences, long after the lawful 14-day period. A reader who knows about such things says it's wrong to blame the cops because in some areas the entire speeding-fine process is done by civilian staff. Why does this not reassure me?

THAT'S it for another four years. That should be plenty of time for the United States to create the people's party it so desperately needs, a new challenger to break the stifling, no-choice tyranny of Democrat and Republican parties. Change can come, even to the most entrenched systems. In the 1882 operetta Iolanthe, Gilbert and Sullivan confidently asserted that "Every boy and every gal / That's born into the world alive / Is either a little Liberal / Or else a little Conservative." But by the time a boy born in 1882 reached voting age, the Labour Party had been founded and everything changed.

FROM next month, anyone dialling 999 to report a fire in the West Midlands will be able to send a video image of the incident to help firefighters decide how to react. And if they don't respond to a genuine picture of your fire, you can always send them a clip from The Towering Inferno. The camera cannot lie? Wanna bet?

YOU can only admire the courage and perseverance of the young film makers who scrambled on to a storm-lashed, sulphur-drenched volcanic island in the South Seas to record the life of a million penguins for David Attenborough's Planet Earth II (BBC1). But once their amazing footage was brought home to the UK, something very odd happened. It appeared to fall into the hands of the Beatrix Potter tendency. Nature, red in tooth and claw, is transformed into Happy Families. First, the animals are divided into two groups. The heroes (penguins, iguanas, etc) are announced with cheerful, plinkety-plunk music. The villains (snakes and giant lizards) have deep, ominous tunes. The stitching-together of isolated events to turn the penguin saga into a Disney-style story of caring Mum, brave Dad, adorable Chicks and wicked Skua was patronising. Now, we discover that some footage was scrapped because the dead baby penguins looked too human. Oh, please. Is this serious natural history or Mrs Tiggywinkle: The Musical?

PLANET Earth II is not the only nature programme to humanise animals. The annual Countryfile (BBC1) calendar has images of animals made to look like little people. This year's winning photo is a vole that resembles a startled old man in a fur coat.

A NUMBER of readers have rightly taken me to task for linking patriotism to singing the National Anthem. As many of you have pointed out, republicans can be patriotic. One goes much further, declaring that God Save the Queen "refers to an imaginary cloud fairy looking out for a really privileged person." Given up on the OBE, then?

I RECENTLY complained about the weather. A reader tells me he seems to recall that Screaming Lord Sutch, founder of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, suggested towing the British Isles 500 miles south so that the British housewife could dry her laundry outside. See? The simplest solutions are so often the best.