Peter Rhodes on limericks, loos and scary NHS tests

WE got to Oakham by way of Uppingham, one of those towns that sounds like it should be in a limerick poem but isn’t. Unless, of course, you know better. There was a young fellow of Uppingham.... Off you go.

GOOD luck with the new online NHS test to establish the true age of your heart compared with your real age. If you get a really low result it means your heart is strong enough to keep you alive long enough to die of cancer. They say knowledge is power. Knowledge can also be scary.

AND how strange, after last week’s warning that there is no safe limit for alcohol, that the online heart-age test doesn’t ask a single question about your boozing. Something doesn’t add up.

WE are staying in a hotel that calls itself a resort. Among the things you won’t find in such places are unisex bogs and gender-neutral changing rooms. Why not? Because they are revolting, disgusting and embarrassing. People despise them which is why you will find them mainly in places where organisations either wield monopoly power over the people using them, or are desperate to virtue-signal their gender-neutral awareness: councils, municipal baths, big corporations, the BBC, etc. Mixed loos and suchlike are rarely found in situations where people have real choice because, given the choice, Jo and Josie Public will go elsewhere. Separately.

IS anyone surprised at the latest report showing that women and girls are many times more likely to be sexually harassed in mixed changing rooms than in the single-sex sort? Anyone could have predicted it. Unisex facilities, intended to make transgender people feel at ease, are a happy hunting ground not for the trans community but for old-fashioned weirdos, flashers, gropers and paedos. This wickedness will surely end in tragedy with a child being raped, abducted or worse in a mixed changing room. And then, after the event, politicians will finally accept that it’s better to keep people safe than in caving in to every tub-thumping pressure group.

I HAD a moan recently about British hacks who insist on using Americanisms such as GOP (Grand Old Party, meaning the Republican Party) which are meaningless to Brits. A reader directs me to a survey which revealed that 30 per cent of Americans who voted Republican didn’t know what GOP stood for either. “Government of the People” was one suggestion, proving that hope springs eternal.

IN the meantime, I have been approached by a fairy. Some days ago I wrote about women who genuinely believe they are fairies. Some became aware after seeing little flashing lights and I, in my nasty, cynical way, suggested it might be the onset of a detached retina. I am duly taken to task by Fairy Karen who says when her lights started she consulted an optician who said she had perfect vision. She now wears reading glasses. But not flying glasses, it seems. Worrying.