Peter Rhodes: Bad news for the Glums

STRANDED on a desert island, Robson Green is the star of Robson Crusoe: A Surprising Adventure (ITV). The constant surprise, and irritation, is that Green pronounces the name of his hero as Cruzoe. Is it a Geordie thing?

FOR amateur weather forecasters, this is a significant week. According to the Diall of Daies published in 1590, each of the first 12 days of January predicts the weather for the year to come. The afternoon of January 8, for example, indicates the weather for June. And today's weather is a sort of summary for 2017's weather overall. Do not throw away ye olde seaweede.

OH, dear. It's been another terrible week for those people variously described as Bremainers or Remoaners. They deserve a new name, something to capture their growing acceptance of Brexit, coupled with undying dismay. I toyed with Les Miserables but that's far too European. So instead, let us call them the Glums.

HAVING spent months warning darkly that new trade agreements could take a decade, the Glums watched in horror this week as Boris Johnson met the Trump team and sewed up some sort of understanding with the Yanks over coffee. Okay, it's not a proper trade agreement but as we are gradually discovering, you do not need a trade agreement in order to agree to trade.

BAD news, too, for the Labour Party which discovered this week that Jeremy Corbyn is still Jeremy Corbyn. Old party members despaired as the Dear Leader announced his dream of slashing the "utterly ridiculous" salaries of top football stars, captains of industry and so on. Corbyn has had 30 years in Parliament to come up with a coherent, grown-up plan for the New Jerusalem and he delivers something confused, contradictory and unworthy of a school debating society. The anguish echoing around the Left is heartfelt and venomous. Is Corbyn simply not up to the job? One Guardian reader emailed: "Jeremy has two Es at A-level, which wouldn't matter if it didn't constantly show." To make things worse, Corbyn's salary cap isn't even a policy. He's just "got a view on it." Corbyn is paid £138,000 a year for this sort of stuff. The phrase "utterly ridiculous" springs to mind.

I WAS looking for an address on Google Earth and zoomed in on the street images, as captured by the Google camera vehicle. By chance, it had passed the scene just as a plump lady bent over to get her shopping from her car. Click! And her posterior was snapped for posterity. Although her face is blurred to prevent recognition, she knows who she is and so do all her neighbours and I fear her rump has become a local landmark. A friend helpfully told me the address I wanted was "the second on the left after The Arse."

I WROTE yesterday about most cops not being keen on carrying firearms. Long ago, on exercise deep in a jungle with Arkansas National Guard (it is a long story), their quartermaster offered me a huge Colt .45 pistol for the week. I declined, explaining I had quite enough to carry, thanks. He was polite enough but I got the impression that anyone in Arkansas who didn't want a gun was regarded as slightly mad.