Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on TV brain freeze, the blight of smoking and politicians incapable of being embarrassed

Read today's column from Peter Rhodes.

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Jennie Bond - frozen

APPARENTLY, a new royal baby has been born. I'm surprised there hasn't been more coverage.

APPARENTLY, Liverpool FC won some sort of football match this week. I'm surprised there hasn't been more coverage.

APPARENTLY, hundreds of MPs have abused the Parliamentary expenses system so badly that their credit cards have been suspended. I'm not in the least surprised there hasn't been more coverage.

ACCORDING to the Daily Telegraph which exposed the original expenses scandal 10 years ago, the body set up to ensure transparency in Parliamentary spending actually tried to block the Telegraph's request to see the latest figures. It was eventually overruled by a former High Court judge, Sir Robert Owen, who commented: "There is no exemption from disclosure for information that may embarrass." This is a principle worth defending, even if it sometimes seems that some politicians are utterly incapable of being embarrassed about anything.

MEANWHILE, back at the royal-baby coverage, the BBC's chief royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell embarrassingly loses his train of thought in mid-broadcast. While some snigger and sneer, his predecessor, Jennie Bond, admits: "I once had brain freeze live on air – a lot of correspondents do." She recalled a freezing morning outside Highgrove when, as she got the cue to start talking, she suddenly thought: "I’ve no idea which prince it is or what the story is." Well, that may have been brain freeze. On the other hand, as older viewers may recall, Ms Bond admitted in her autobiography that she occasionally went to work without wearing knickers. It can be more than your brain that freezes.

AND off to see the nurse for my annual blood-pressure review. It began, as always, with the dark accusation: "So you're an ex-smoker, aren't you?" According to the Bible, there is great joy in heaven over a sinner that repenteth. I can only report that the same sentiment does not apply at the BP clinic. I stopped smoking 45 years ago and yet the black mark is still against my name and, lo, there is no joy.

DID we all hear the Green Party spokesman on Today (Radio 4) making his election pitch with: "As Greta Thunberg says . . ."? It is disturbing when grown-up politicians start invoking the creed of little girls as though it were holy writ. Most of what Miss Thunberg says is what adults have told her.

IT is vaguely sinister, too, to see the media producing their own Greta clones, like the strident little vegan activist, aged 15, wheeled out by Channel 4 News a few days ago to harangue us all. As I forecast last week, this is all getting a bit Joan of Arc-ish.

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