Peter Rhodes on flying bombs, sexy Spitfires and what do they mean by 'peaceful'?

Meanwhile in the rubble of Gaza, Hamas is somehow still lobbing missiles into Israel. But this should not make us assume that this war will rage on for ever. Missiles, far less visible than armoured divisions, are sometimes the last signs of defiance by a beaten enemy. In 1945 the last German V1 “doodlebug” flying bombs and V2 ballistic missiles struck England at the end of March. By that time Germany was in ruins, Hitler was only a month away from killing himself and the war would soon be over. Maybe this war will wind down in the same way.

Keir Starmer infuriates the comrades by declaring: “Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism." Maybe he could have phrased it better, like the veteran Labour MP who once told me of Thatcher: “I just wish I could do for my people what she has done for hers.”

“Rizz” has been chosen as the Oxford 2023 word of the year by a panel of experts. No, I've never heard of it either, probably because it is mostly used by Generation Z, or Jen-zed, as they term themselves, the kids born between 1997 and 2012.

It's difficult for us of the post-war Boomer generation to keep up with the latest terms; something is always lost in the translation. Rizz, for example, is said to describe a person's ability to attract a romantic partner. So a rough translation that Boomers might understand would be “Triumph Spitfire.”