Peter Rhodes on canal tales, flattering the Brits and a soft spot for a little town

In 2003 I was dispatched “up the cut” to write a series of features which later became a book, A Black Country Voyage. It was not all plain sailing. On our first night we were harassed by some teenage scumbags at Walsall and forced to sail off into the sunset. The next likely mooring, a pub, was taped off as a police crime scene and by the time we reached the next moorings at Hednesford it was pitch-black. We were cold, knackered and miserable and someone had forgotten the bacon.

So imagine our joy the next day to wake up in brilliant sunshine and find ourselves next to Tesco where we bought everything we needed for the full English breakfast. To this day, when I hear the naval term “safe haven” I always think of Hednesford. 

Today is my birthday. There was a time when they happened every 12 months but now they come around every few minutes and tend to get a bit predictable because I only ever request the same three presents. So here I am, clinging to hair, teeth and eyes, with my annual top-up of Crocs, chocs and bubbly. Today I find I am younger than the King but older than the Pope. How did that happen?

Trump lays it on a bit thick, doesn't he, praising Britain to the heights as he graciously awards us a trade deal, like a jolly old uncle slipping you a counterfeit fiver. He loves Britain, loves the Brits and simply adores Lord Peter Mandelson's English accent which has always struck me as middle-class English with a hint of Kaa, the menacing python in Jungle Book. But c'mon, Donald, stop all this flattery. Don't cosy up to the UK. Just buy it.

Boffins have unveiled an experiment to increase the reflectivity of clouds. The plan is to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching our planet and thus reduce global warming. It is predicted that some of these “cloud brightening” experiments will happen over Britain or, as it will soon be known, the North Pole.