Peter Rhodes: In the dark over Bright

RIDDLES for our time. A reader writes: “If you report a burglary and then order a pizza, who do you expect to arrive first, the cops or the pizza man? This is presumably one of those riddles with no prizes.

THE nationwide obesity epidemic doesn't affect only humans. A reader saw a couple setting off with their plump labrador for a walk in the Yorkshire Dales. The first stile through the dry-stone wall was one of those ancient ones, made with two upright stones and a narrow gap between. The labrador was too fat to squeeze through and too heavy to lift over. End of walk.

A FEW days ago on the subject of curious first names, I mentioned my great-grandfather, Bright Laycock who was named after the great Victorian reformer John Bright and asked: “150 years on, who's going to saddle a little boy or girl with Bright?” The answer, as a number of you have pointed out, is the family of 19-year-old Bright Enobakhare, the Nigerian-born forward with Wolverhampton Wanderers. Only a columnist born with no trace of the football gene could possibly have missed that one.

USING something called a supercomputer, the Met Office tells us we must expect record winter rainfall “over the next few years.” By pure coincidence, this announcement came on Monday of this week. At the same time, I was consulting the BBC weather website which told me that, at that very moment, my postcode was dry and would remain so all morning. It was chucking it down. I have a lot of time for the Met Office. Looking ahead two or three days, it is much more accurate than it ever used to be. But there are times when it doesn't even know what the weather is doing now. And guesstimating what the weather will be doing years from now is like trying to nail seaweed to a pinecone.

WHITEHALL'S plan to ban petrol and diesel vehicles from our roads by 2040, announced a couple of days ago, is presumably based on the hope that technology will deliver stronger and longer-ranged electric vehicles. At present, it takes a brave, or extremely rich, motorist to invest £40,000 in a car with a range of only 150 miles and no towing capacity. Unless we get a new generation of electric engines, we can kiss goodbye to the joys of caravanning. And what becomes of the traveller community is anyone's guess. One contributor to the Caravan Club website writes glumly: “Now you know why the travellers have kept their horses.”

MEANWHILE, some mathematically minded folk have been doing the sums on how much power recharging several cars at the same time will demand from the average household wiring system. One Daily telegraph reader predicts “Circuit breakers would pop or wiring would melt.” He wonders whether every house in the land will have to be rewired.

IF this is the case, let me make a prediction: the contract for the national-rewiring programme will be won by a company with at least one former MP, Lord or senior civil servant on the board. It's a great pity we can't extract energy from one truly enormous British resource. Cynicism.