Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on finding a happy farmer, the 'Wild West' internet and why the French struggle with the law

Reconciling EU low with English low

Published
Leave it alone, granny

GARDENING corner. Guess how deep the rain penetrated the soil in the garden at Chateau Rhodes after two days of rain? Just two inches. It may look wet but scrape the surface and the dust is down there.

I WAS impressed with the BBC reporter, whose name I missed, interviewing a farmer about the drought. Too many hacks work from a script, asking a list of questions like a robot, instead of letting the conversation flow. In this case, it flowed in a heartbeat from misery to joy as the farmer, having described his sub-standard crop, of wheat added "but at least it's better than last year." And then he waxed lyrical about what a washout the summer of 2017 was and how glorious are the sunsets of the summer of 2018. And, yes, his yields might be down 20 per cent but he's got the harvest in earlier than ever and now he's having that rarest of farming events - a holiday. According to the old saying you'll never see a dead donkey or a happy farmer. Well done, Auntie, for finding one of them.

I LOVE the latest suggestion that the Brexit vote is the result of people being brainwashed by fake news and prejudice-stoking on the "Wild West" internet. I thought Brexiters were supposed to be either dimwits or geriatrics, or both. Now we are led to believe they were influenced by subtle messages on the interwebbythingy. Granny, step away from the Snapchat.

ISN'T it far more likely that the Brexit vote was rooted in the days long before computers? Having voted heavily in 1975 in favour of the Common Market which was a free-trade area of sovereign democracies, we Brits gradually realised that the real agenda was something called the European Project. We never voted to become part of a European superstate so it's hardly surprising that, given the opportunity at long last, 17.4 million voted against it. It is really very simple. Membership of the Common Market = good. Membership of the United States of Europe = bad.

AND back to the Brexit negotiations and Michel Barnier's continuing struggle with the law. Not with the principle of the law, that is, but the pronunciation. Like so many French who speak otherwise excellent English, his version of "law" comes out sounding like "low." Which is a bit awkward if your profession is trying to reconcile EU low with English low.

THE French at least have no trouble with the English name for a small settlement. That particular heffalump trap is the one that catches Germans who, in the middle of delivering a word-perfect speech in English, will suddenly refer to a willage.

WE Brits are, of course, the worst linguists in Europe and are duly sniggered at by all. A tip: never, ever let a French person hear you say "cul-de-sac."

AS climate change strikes, I am doing the only rational and socially-responsible thing possible. We're off to Devon for a few days.