Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on how to kill a spy, how the internet spans the world and a chance for women to be men for a day

I still cannot get used to the reach of this interwebby thing.

Published
Vince Cable - nostalgia?

NO, you're not the only one thinking the Salisbury nerve-agent attack is odd. If the Kremlin wanted to bump off a spy, what's wrong with the traditional bullet in the head? Why muck around with a lethal, unstable substance which has to be mixed under laboratory conditions, which may kill the target's daughter (not to mention innocent passers-by) and which is instantly traceable to its country of origin? Of all the many ways to bump off Sergei Skripal, a phial of Novichok seems the weirdest.

AFTER campaigns such as March4Women, NotMyJob and International Women's Day, I am made shamefully aware how many women seem to be desperately unhappy about the unfairness of being female and, presumably, think being a bloke is much easier. I am therefore delighted to announce the Tofad Programme. It is inspired by the "empathy bellies" worn by some caring, considerate men who want to know how it feels to be pregnant, and hobble around wearing a padded suit with a weighted, swollen abdomen. Under the Tofad Programme, women can become a man for 24 hours. Firstly, they will be surgically equipped with a fully functioning male thingy. Next, they will get a large injection of testosterone which will not only make the thingy work, but also make them fantasise about sex 20 times a day which is apparently the average for a young male (in later life one's thoughts turn to flatpack). And then, perked up by the male hormone and equipped with this curious appendage which cannot decide whether it's a battering ram or the last turkey in the shop, they will be released into society.

I BELIEVE women would come away from the Tofad (Todger For A Day) experience with a much better understanding of the male of the species. They might come to see men not as rampaging beasts but as models of restraint. On the other hand, they may thoroughly enjoy the experience and refuse to hand back the equipment. The NHS has the devil of a job getting old crutches back, so you can imagine the problem.

VINCE Cable says many older folk who opted for Brexit, "were driven by a nostalgia for a world where passports were blue, faces were white and the world was coloured imperial pink." Really? And how many older citizens has the Lib-Dem leader interviewed to arrive at this curious conclusion? Might it not be that older voters remember voting for a free-trade area of six nations, ended up in a superstate of 27 countries and decided this was no place for the UK to be? To lump all Brexit voters into the white-face, pink-map brigade is as foolish as suggesting that young people voted Remain because they're all a bunch of wimps, frit to death of change and terrified by a challenge. Clearly, a ludicrous notion.

I STILL cannot get used to the reach of this interwebby thing. On Monday I mistakenly referred to Patricia Routledge's character as Dot. It was, of course, Kitty. The error was pointed out by a reader in Ottawa.