Peter Rhodes: LGBT and what else?

THINGS to do on a rainy day. The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford has a folklore exhibition featuring "a collection of objects highlighting folk traditions of Oxfordshire including a Morris dancer's outfit, whit horns, lighting appliances and a lace maker's dick pot."

LAST week's item on the unexploded bomb found in a Greek city made me wonder how many UXBs are still buried and how long they might last. A few centuries from now, in a blissful age when war is long forgotten, I foresee a team of experts being called to a deep excavation in Germany where a mysterious cylinder has been found. Where did it come from? What is that faint ticking? And what is the meaning of the ancient goodwill greeting in chalk: "This one's for Adolf"?

THANKS for your continuing accounts of truly awful first dates. A reader tells me of an over-confident lad who took his girlfriend on a hot-air balloon flight and romantically proposed to her at 2,000 feet. She turned him down. They were stuck in that balloon basket for the next 45 minutes with the pilot and by the time it landed the mood on board was positively polar. Moral: always plan your escape route.

A READER says he likes the term "de-extincting," as applied to woolly mammoths, and wonders what other things might be de-extincted. He suggests good manners, respect for elders and Beer at Home means Davenports. Any other suggestions for the de-extinction list?

INCIDENTALLY, good luck with de-extincting respect for elders. The snag is that it has probably never existed. Who was it who said: "The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise"? It was Socrates, writing about 2,500 years ago. No change there.

AN Appeal Court ruling this week suggests the law may soon permit civil partnerships, currently restricted to same-sex couples, for heterosexual couples, too. But could the whole process be overtaken by the astonishing rise of gender rights? There is growing pressure for people to be able to "self-identify" their gender. Lawmakers in California have proposed a "non-binary" choice for people who wish to be neither male nor female on official documents including birth certificates and driving licences. In a world where people can be any gender they choose, or none, any couple could qualify for a civil partnership simply by claiming to be the same sex.

MEANWHILE, one US university already offers a choice of six gender identities for new students: male, female, trans male/trans man, trans female/trans woman, gender queer/gender non-conforming and "different identity".

CONFUSED? It has hardly started. One online guide offers no fewer than 81 definitions of sexual possibilities and gender-identity issues. The supposedly enlightened and all-embracing banner LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual), is already old-fashioned and restrictive. Progressive types prefer LGBTQIA or, for those open to even more options, LGBTQIA+. I dare say it will one day be expanded to LGBTQIA+LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWYLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH which will not only cover just about everybody but also benefit tourism in Wales.