Peter Rhodes: How to slip a tip

AH, the fantasies of ladies of a certain age. As Monty Don screwed some plant supports into her garden wall on Big Dreams, Small Spaces (BBC1), one blissed-out woman admired his craftsmanship while muttering enigmatically: "What a waste of a Monty." Whatever did you have in mind, madam?

STAFF at Harrods claim the world-famous London store keeps 75 per cent of tips intended for staff. Curious. You'd think that Harrods customers would be past masters in the upper-crust art of slyly slipping a fiver to anyone they wish to reward, without the bosses even spotting it.

WE live in an age of platitudes and pointless slogans. Someone managed to drop their shopping bag over the bridge in our park. It lay forlorn on a buttress beside the river for some days, its logo declaring to passers-by: "Inspire Someone Today." You could start by inspiring them to be more careful.

IN an interview about his life and times, the former champion figure skater Robin Cousins says his saddest time was the sudden death of his mother at 82. Her husband got up to make her a cup of tea and returned to find she had died in her chair. "It was awful," says Cousins. Such is the insoluble dilemma of death. A long drawn-out dying can be hell for the sufferer but gives the family time to adjust to the approaching loss. A sudden death is merciful for the deceased but "awful" for everyone else. Having lost one parent slowly and the other suddenly, I reckon a quick departure is generally better.

WE all know what a humanitarian crisis is, thanks. It is clinics in Africa filled with dying victims of famine. It is Ebola ripping the heart out of nations. It is the Kurdish people fleeing their native land and being massacred on the way by Saddam Hussein's butchers. Delays in treatment by the NHS may be infuriating, dangerous and a national disgrace but they are not a humanitarian crisis, as Red Cross leader Mike Adamson suggested a few days ago. He is guilty of the modern habit of pointless exaggeration. In the same way, you hear people seriously suggesting that Donald Trump is a Nazi, Maggie Thatcher was a fascist or that any muddy garden is "like the Battle of the Somme." For the record, Trump has not ordered the gassing of six million Jews, Mrs Thatcher never preached fascism and an unkempt flower bed does not cause 60,000 casualties in a single day. Time for a little moderation, please, if only out of respect for the millions who perished in real humanitarian crises.

BY pure coincidence, a despairing reader refers me to a gardening website telling us how moles take only a couple of days "to turn your perfect lawn into a scene from the 'battle of the Sohm'." Ye gods.

TWO years after the Hatton Garden deposit-box raid in London, police are investigating a woman's claim that £7 million worth of her gold is missing. Apparently she was unaware it had gone until after the trial, which ended almost a year ago. You know how it is. Some of us mislay an umbrella, some a pair of gloves and some £7 million worth of gold. I believe this, having recently mislaid my scepticism.