Peter Rhodes: A substitute for Heaven

AFTER last week's item on dodgy TV news subtitles, a reader tells me he recently enjoyed music by Shy Kovsky.

AS I pointed out a few weeks ago, there are two ways to reduce overcrowding and violence in prisons. You can either employ more prison staff or release more prisoners. For a few days it looked as though Whitehall was going to rely on the recruitment option. Now, the chief inspector of prisons, Peter Clarke says it's time to "get a grip" on the issue of prisoners serving IPP (Imprisonment for Public Protection) terms . Under present arrangements, these 3,800 serious offenders are held until it can be shown they are no risk to the public. Yeah, let's start letting 'em out. What could possibly go wrong?

IF we believe everything we are told, Richard Branson's latest wheeze, a supersonic airliner, "can fly from London to New York in 3.5 hours at a speed of 1,451mph." Hang on. It's not even left the ground yet. And let's not forget that Branson's much-heralded space programme is already several years behind schedule. By all means applaud the energy and imagination of the man but don't buy your tickets just yet.

NOW, which publication made the following assertion about social mobility a few days ago: "It is human nature to feel comfortable with one's own." Was it a Ukip brochure, a Ku Klux Klan pamphlet or a handbill from one of Europe's neo-fascist groups? Actually, it appeared in an editorial in The Guardian. Some mistake, surely?

THE surprising thing about the 14-year-old cancer victim whose body has been frozen by order of the High Court is that it didn't happen earlier. Body-freezing, in the hope of resuscitation many years in the future when science can cure all diseases, has been with us for years. Surely there must have been other terminally-ill children facing the vast and hideously unfair abyss of death who have begged their parents for a second chance. What makes this case different is that the divorced parents could not agree on their child's request and so the issue ended up before a judge. It is a dilemma. Who would not try to give a dying child new life? But what sort of court order can commit a family to paying thousands, or even millions, of pounds to a cryogenics company for hundreds of years to come? There is a more practical danger, too. It is that body-freezing might come to be regarded as some sort of cure. Why spend billions trying to unravel the secrets of complex cancers now when we can simply freeze patients and let the surgeons of the 22nd century sort it out? So research stalls and more patients die. This deep-frozen surrogate Heaven might turn into a sort of Hell.

IF whiplash claims are made more difficult, motor-insurance premiums will be cut. If you seriously believe that promise, then it's high time you wrote your Xmas letter to Santa.

TALKING of presents, my eye was caught by a T-shirt with the slogan: "Education is important but playing video games is importanter." I wonder how many teenagers will get one of those for Christmas and say, wow, cool, and miss the point entirely.