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Peter Rhodes on stag-night horror, the odds of getting a blood clot and a new job for the Navy, east of Suez

Read the latest column from Peter Rhodes.

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Peter Rhodes is not a fan of the groom is buried alive in ITV's Grace

What sort of person knows absolutely nothing about the SNP-Sturgeon-Salmond furore in Edinburgh and doesn't care how it all ends up? The answer, of course, is an English person.

Some years ago, shortly before Britain handed Hong Kong back to China, I was skipping across the South China Sea in a Royal Navy inflatable as the lads rehearsed their anti drug-smuggling tactics. This involved two inflatables sandwiching the smugglers' speedboat at up to 50mph.

At this point one volunteer sailor would leap aboard the craft with a razor-sharp machete, slashing through the speedboat's fuel pipes and bringing it to a standstill.

“Sexiest bloody job in the whole Navy,” boomed our jovial press minder. “A lot more exciting than checking the size of Spanish fishing nets in the North Sea in January, eh?”

I was reminded of that trip a few days ago when Downing Street unveiled what it calls the Indo-Pacific Tilt, slewing the UK foreign policy away from Europe and towards the hot, shimmering horizons of the Far East and beyond.

Once again British sailors in tropical whites will drop in for Singapore gin slings at Raffles, or watch the sun come up like thunder out of China.

The difference is that this time the plan is not to build an empire or start a war but to spread goodwill, soft power and British culture and values, to deter drug smuggling and bring relief when natural disasters strike.

The Orient beckons. Suddenly, a career in the Royal Navy looks more attractive than ever to youngsters who are thirsting for travel, thirsting for adventure, or just thirsty.

This wretched pandemic has at least made us a bit better at maths. We understand the percentage risks of getting the disease and dying of it. And thanks to some EU countries banning the AstraZeneca vaccine, we understand the rules of odds and probability when dealing with huge numbers.

For example, if you jab 20 million people, it is an odds-on certainty that in the following days some of them will be knocked down by buses, bitten by dogs or get a blood clot. This does not mean that the vaccine attracts buses or dogs or clots. It just means 20 million people is the size of two Londons and, statistically, all sorts of stuff is bound to happen. QED.

Grace (ITV) is a cop drama. The first episode was last week and the next is promised for later in the year. But I wonder how many viewers will tune in, having switched off in horror half-way through the first instalment at the interment scenes.

As a stag-night stunt, the groom is buried alive with a torch and a mobile. There are some places viewers really do not want to be. Inside a coffin is one.

Engage brain before talking. I woke from a post-lunch nap to hear myself reporting to Mrs Rhodes that the farmer next door had been spraying the fields with artifertal fishiliser.

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