Peter Rhodes on goaty milk, killer dogs and slagging-off cowboys
Yesterday's reference to goats' milk ice-cream may have looked like an endorsement of goat-based products. Not exactly. As a general rule, you can get the milk out of the goat but you'll never quite get the goat out of the milk.
Spooky technology corner. Our old smart meter was not smart enough to duck when lightning struck Chateau Rhodes a couple of years ago. It was frazzled beyond repair. The power company E.on quickly replaced it with a traditional meter, with the promise of a shiny new smart one soon. Many months passed. A few nights ago Mrs Rhodes and I were talking about ordering a smart meter when the phone rang. It was someone from E.on asking if we fancied a new smart meter. I mean, what are the odds?
Or, in these data-leaking days, could our meter simply be talking to the other chip-driven devices in the house who cyber-blab our conversations to E.on? I've never really trusted that toaster.
After yet another attack by some horrific genetically-engineered dog, Home Secretary Suella Braverman says she has ordered “urgent advice” on banning such breeds. Let us see whether “urgent advice” is any different from the Government's previous policy on killer dogs, namely doing nothing. As the children bleed, you can almost hear the twiddling of thumbs in Whitehall.
A survey claims we can judge a person's character by the coffee they order. Thus, flavoured-coffee drinkers are the happiest and mocha-imbibers are the sexiest while Americano quaffers such as me are “comfortable in their own skin.” This research was commissioned by a world-leading centre of statistical excellence: Dunkin' Donuts
Interesting that Keir Starmer felt comfortable denouncing Education Secretary Gillian Keegan's wobbly-concrete outburst as “the sort of thing you expect from cowboy builders.” I doubt if he would refer to “Indian builders” in such a way. Indians, whether from India or North America, enjoy legal protection. Will no-one speak up for the cowboys?
In what looks like a back-to-school re-shuffle, a local bookshop has re-displayed my book, a modest memoir of provincial journalism, in a section marked “Quirky.” Heaven knows how they choose such categories but my book is now on display next to one entitled Fartology.
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