Language, ladies: Peter Rhodes on angry mums, missing profiteroles and different sorts of cold

AN insider in retail tells me the home-delivery industry had a hard time trying to meet customers' requirements over Christmas. His most memorable incident was the lady who ordered a cream-filled, chocolate-smothered profiterole table centrepiece. The store was out of stock and sent her a packet of sausage rolls instead.

IT suddenly struck me, while trawling through a number of websites, how few women seem to take part in the Brexit debate. Snarling about remaining or leaving seems to be, by and large, a male activity. Why so?

COULD it be that the women were expressing their views on women-focused forums? I turned to the Mumsnet website which I hadn't followed for ages and vaguely remembered as an inoffensive place for swapping recipes and suchlike. How times have changed. You would not believe the rage, nor the language. Here's one mother describing her two-year-old toddler's behaviour: " "I'm so ****ing fed up of being in tears." Another mum takes exception to one of the many critics of Harry and Meghan with a sharp: "You might be ****ing sick already of a wedding, but I'm ****ing sick of all the whining, complaining, miserable t***s out there." But the most acidic outburst comes from a mum having trouble with the ultimate must-have baby stroller who announces she is "****ing ***ed off with the SmartTrike." Charming.

MEANWHILE, the men still rage about Brexit. My favourite was an online discussion where one contributor denounced Brexiters as racists and bigots and the next texter agreed, claiming the EU Referendum was swung by the votes of 'cabbage munchers in Norfolk'. Technically, that's not racism, but it's not far off.

I SUGGESTED a few days ago that food banks will always be with us, and took flak from those who think they should be closed. So how, exactly, would you go about closing them down? What sort of law would allow you to prevent one citizen giving food to another?

A READER in British Columbia takes us English wimps to task for moaning about cold weather when he and his family endure anything from minus 20 to minus 40 degs. Ah, but there's cold and cold. Let me refer him to Canada in War Paint, an excellent 1917 book by Ralph W Bell which describes how strong, fit young soldiers from Canada 'who know the cold, hard bite of 20 below' suffered in their first English winter with the damp coldness 'eating its way into the marrowbones'. One old soldier shivering on Salisbury Plain exclaimed: "Give me the Yukon any old time." I can believe it. I recall a day seal hunting in northern Canada at 20 below (journalism can be an odd sort of job) and it didn't even feel particularly cold.

FOR the sake of a quiet life, I should add that no seals suffered in any way during the seal hunt.