Peter Rhodes: It gets worse, Worsley

SOME days before the NHS computer crash and BA’s micro-chip mix-up, my old PC’s screen suddenly filled with dire warnings, klaxon sounds and an American voice telling me to ring this number immediately. I hadn’t a clue what was going on, so I did what I always do in times of PC crisis. I switched it off and went for a long walk.

WHEN I started the computer up again, all the warnings had vanished. I assume it was some low-grade attempt either to extract information, demand a ransom fee or both. Just to be safe, I downloaded all my files on to a memory stick. It took ages but gives me a great sense of security.

ALTHOUGH to be honest, I’d have an even greater sense of security if I could remember where I put the memory stick.

I COMMENTED on Lucy Worsley pronouncing “schedule” as “skedule” in her documentary about Jane Austen. It gets worse. One TV reviewer reports that Worsley twice used the word “ginormous.” Miss Austen would probably shudder and reach for the smelling salts.

THE Guardian this week hailed Channel 4’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s thriller, The Handmaid’s Tale, as “the best thing you’ll watch all year.” How charmingly old-fashioned. It assumes we all view TV dramas as they are screened. The reality is that millions of us watch very little real-time telly, preferring catch-up offerings to suit our schedules. At Chateau Rhodes our 2017 viewing includes past series of Homeland, first screened up to six years ago.

IF you are of a certain age, you will probably remember John Noakes, who died this week, as the daft-as-a-brush Blue Peter presenter, paddling in the excrement of that incontinent baby elephant, or making yet another pointless Christmas present from a wire coathanger and a Fairy Liquid bottle. Think again. Have a look at his 1970s ascent of Nelson’s Column in the days before health and safety. With not even a helmet or a safety rope, Noakes climbs the column on a series of ladders, including one horrific, gravity-defying overhang. One slip and he would have been dead. Yet he shows not a trace of fear, not a hint of regret. I’m not sure whether he was brave or foolish but what a great performer he was.

STRANGEST of all, perhaps, is that the Nelson’s Column footage which makes us shudder as grown-ups today, was watched by millions of kids who were unperturbed. As far as I recall, nobody needed counselling. People were different then.

A SECOND reader takes up the cudgels against the term “lone wolf” to describe a terrorist, a word which denigrates the noble wolf. While we’re at it, he asks for the derogatory term “cowboy” to be banned. He knows his stuff, having worked with cowboys in the Rockies. They were, he says, “particularly hard working, skilled and professional people.”

IMPOSSIBLE to report the above without being reminded of the old gag about the billionaire’s son who asked for a cowboy outfit for his birthday. His father bought him British Leyland.