Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on a curious moustache, cobblers on stage and buying those last-minute Valentine blooms

Read today's column from Peter Rhodes

Published
ITV's detective drama series Endeavour

THIS is the time of year when our screens fill with seductive ads for that cool, chic, elegant new kitchen you always promised yourself. Never quite turns out like that, does it? I woke up a few days ago and went into our kitchen to find one of next door's kittens licking porridge off a spoon. So chic.

I BET you're dying to know how my intensely cultural evening with Richard II went. In a word, terribly. This was a remote screening of the National Theatre's controversial version with all the actors in modern dress locked in a room with no doors or windows There is, of course, no reason why Shakespeare cannot be performed in a giant box. In the same way, the FA Cup Final could in theory be played in a church hall with a wooden ball, three goalies and five centre-forwards. It's just that while theatregoers react to experimental theatre by stroking their chins and talking intensely about the claustrophobic agony of monarchical power, footie fans recognise cobblers as cobblers and are not embarrassed to say so.

ANYWAY, we left the show early (one of the joys of remote screening is that you can walk out without offending the actors) and got home in time for Endeavour (ITV). I had no idea that 1960s police sergeants in Oxfordshire were obliged to wear the uniforms and moustaches of Mexican park-keepers.

A COUPLE of readers have taken me to task over last week's item about the BBC getting £5 million from the EU. One pointed out that this money was purely for research and development (so that's all right, then) and the other said it was only a tiny fraction of the BBC's overall budget. But if it was such an infinitesimal amount, wasn't it unwise of the Beeb to accept it in the first place? Has Auntie accepted any more money from any other foreign powers? I think we should be told.

SOME TV and radio reporters are telling us that Brexit is "fewer" than 50 days away, presumably thinking "fewer" makes them sound better educated than "less." In fact, less is better. Fewer should be used for items that can be counted, but not for time. As the BBC News Magazine puts it: "We say less than six weeks, not fewer than six weeks, because we are not referring to six individual weeks, but to a single period of time lasting six weeks." Sorted?

BUT then we all make mistakes. The pop group Trogs mentioned in Monday's column should, of course, have been Troggs.

'TIS the eve of Valentine. This is the night when, traditionally, the male of the species discovers that the most expensive flowers in the world are the ones bought in a garage on the evening of February 13, and the most spine-chilling threat is the one from the bloke behind the garage counter: "Your choice, mate. Take ' em or leave 'em."