Peter Rhodes: The answer to bed blocking?

A READER reports buying a pack of ball-point pens bearing the promise: "Suitable for both left and right handers".

HIGHBROW corner. You may not have heard of Alcibiades. He was a great statesman in ancient Greece and gives his name to the title of Thomas Otway's first play. A reader spotted the live television subtitles interpreting the name. Thanks to the miracle of the microchip, Alcibiades appeared on screen as "Alice-eBay-Ads."

A HOLIDAYING reader admits he smiled at a direction sign in Newquay: "Chiropodist - 30 feet."

IF child-fostering had never been invented and was suddenly suggested now, how would the nation react? Probably with a chorus of gloom and doom about taking kids from their parents, tinkering with their cultural roots and making a profit out of parenting. And yet fostering works, providing a bridge from despair to stability for thousands of children. And so could transferring "bed blocking" patients from hospitals to rented rooms in private homes. Yet the moment the idea was suggested by a doctor a few days ago, Britain's endemic pessimism and negativity swung into action with dire warnings of patients being abused and neglected, and property owners making vast profits. Why must we always imagine the worst?

BED blocking is not only a killer but a national disgrace and a waste of NHS funds. The rooms-for-patients plan deserves a properly organised pilot study. It may prove a disaster but I suspect, in many cases, it would be a great success. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some patients fared better in private accommodation, with one-to-one care, than in hospitals with frazzled nurses and a miasma of deadly superbugs. Diarrhoea Ward or No 10 Lobelia Avenue? I know where I'd rather be.

MEANWHILE this mind-set of pessimism and negativity is getting out of hand. It has always been part of the British character but Brexit has turned it into a national paranoia. The internet is bubbling with countless forecasts of imminent Armageddon, from people who cannot possibly know what Brexit will bring and are unlikely to be much affected anyway. I see the Mental Health Foundation now has a website on "Coping with post-Brexit anxiety." It makes you wonder how some folk would cope if the Black Death suddenly reappeared or a meteorite was coming our way.

FEW of us will ever experience flying as the only passenger on an airliner, as happened to Karon Grieve, a passenger on a £46 flight from Glasgow to Crete. But I do recall a trip to the Falklands. On the way out, the massive RAF TriStar was jam-packed with soldiers, islanders and the press party. On the way back the TriStar, built to carry 200 passengers, had just 18 of us, rattling around like peas in a milk churn. Someone suggested cricket but we didn't have a ball. Only when you see an airliner empty do you realise how enormous they are.