Peter Rhodes: What do Bridget Jones and Margaret Thatcher have in common?

I HAVE been looking out all year for the headline which says everything about modern Britain. It popped up a few days ago in the Daily Telegraph: "Free London cheese festival descends into chaos due to overcrowding and protesting vegans." Perfect.

HOW did Margaret Thatcher and Bridget Jones ever get into the same Woman's Hour Power List? Simple. Both wanted a successful career that would shatter the glass ceiling and propel them to stardom. And both realised that it helps if you're married to a millionaire.

I WROTE some days ago about the dream of the 1930s that machines would liberate us from manual labour, leaving us free to do creative things such as writing poetry and making mandolins. A reader points out that he already makes mandolins in his spare time and he enclosed some images. I am seriously, deeply impressed.

THE ultimate small-print disclaimer. I've just installed a cat flap to facilitate our moggie's Xmas party-going. It comes with a sticker declaring: "This product will not prevent unwanted animals or people, including small children, from passing through the pet door . . . and the purchaser accepts full responsibility for oversight of the opening it creates."

SO Farewell, Michael Nicholson, the veteran ITN reporter and war correspondent who has died at 79. Back in 1992 he and I were among six hacks selected to fly into besieged Sarajevo on the first RAF Hercules to deliver food and medical supplies. On the night before the flight we were told there was a chance the Serbs might try to shoot the plane down. Our pilot, Sqn Ldr Derek Tingay, was later awarded the Air Force Cross. As the citation put it: "The situation in this beleaguered city was perilous as there was the ever present threat of attack from ground forces and no guarantee of safety when the aircraft had landed." So in fatalistic mood on the morning of the flight, I met up with Barry Batchelor, the Press Association photographer, on the fourth floor of the hotel. We were weighed down with computers, cameras, files, helmets and the other paraphernalia of war reporting, and decided the only way to carry everything was to wear our flak jackets. We got into the lift. As it stopped at the next floor, Nicholson got in. Cool, steel-grey, unruffled and the fearless veteran of many wars, he looked this flak-jacketted pair of provincials up and down. "Expecting trouble in Reception, are we?" he asked.

OUTWARDLY cool and unemotional, Nicholson was so distressed by the suffering in Sarajevo that he smuggled an eight-year-old girl out of an orphanage, brought her back to Britain and adopted her. Tough hack, soft centre.

A READER complains about the number of motorists driving without lights. Listen. When a driver is fully occupied chatting on his mobile while texting on his iPad and simultaneously trying to watch the movie on his laptop, how can he be expected to remember the lights? A little consideration, please.

INCIDENTALLY, a pal in the car industry tells me we ain't seen nothing yet. Apparently the 2017 models are more like communication hubs than motor vehicles, designed to keep the driver in touch (some would say, distracted) at all times.