Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on professional laughers, painful operations and why Brexit could save the EU

A message for the idiot in row C.

Published
Kneedless pain?

OUR changing language. One pundit declared this week that "the optics are not great" for Mrs May. How old do you have to be to assume this is a reference to getting a full measure of whisky? (In its latest usage, "optics" simply means how people perceive things).

OFF to the theatre where I had the misfortune to be seated next to a professional applauder. Just as the Victorians had professional mourners to weep, wail and lament at funerals, so some theatre-goers seem to be in the auditorium solely to laugh, cheer or clap at full volume whenever a particular actor appears on stage. They don't laugh properly but produce a braying "Harharhar!" And the message they put across is not "Wow, this is a brilliant production!" but "That bloke on stage, he's a mate of mine and I'm bigging him up." It's tedious for the audience and must be embarrassing for the actor who cannot utter a word without getting gales of guffaw from the idiot in row C.

OXFORD University experts say up to 50,000 patients who have full knee replacements each year could benefit from a simple, cheaper partial replacement which brings a faster recovery. Anything that reduces the ordeal of the full knee op - including the pain afterwards - should be welcomed. I once interviewed a surgeon who performed both hip and knee replacements. The difference, he said, was that after patients had one hip replaced, they couldn't wait for the other hip to be fixed. After a knee operation, patients were not so keen to go back under the knife.

IF the EU referendum, the greatest exercise in democracy in British history, had resulted in victory for Remain in 2016, I believe we Brexiters would have quietly thrown in the towel. We may have no desire to be part of the Great European Empire but, hey, that's democracy. But that was two years ago and since then we have seen a sinister, anti-democratic gathering of dark forces hell-bent on wrecking the Brexit process. If they were to win at the final furlong and frustrate the wishes of 17.4 million Brits, can anyone see the anti-EU side gracefully accepting defeat?

TO be the loser in a fair vote is one thing. To be defeated after the vote by a cabal of the rich, powerful and self-important is beyond endurance. It is also stupid. Have the plotters really thought it through? Those who are today gleefully hoping to overrule the Referendum may find themselves trying to govern a country which will not only be ungovernable but will become the rallying point for other dissenting EU nations. The EU-zealots don't seem to understand that the best hope of holding the EU together is to let Britain go. If not, dear Brussels, we will be the thorn in your side, the stone in your shoe, the spanner in your works, the enemy within.

MY eye fell on the obituary of an old soldier who reportedly served with the "Seaforth Islanders." A hinfantry regiment, perhaps.