Peter Rhodes on impartiality, slow cookery and the village that vanished down a join

As any old soldier will tell you, battles tend to be fought at night, uphill, in pouring rain and on a join in the map. A friend set off for the Yorkshire Dale a few days ago and, having instantly found his destination on his smartphone, decided to check it against his old paper road atlas. 

It took ages to find the village. It happened to be on a join in the map which, when prised apart, revealed “Gig******ck.” Giggleswick: the village swallowed by a join.

I breakfasted in town on Tuesday and, for the first time in my immense lifespan, ordered Eggs Benedict. They were delicious so, back home, I looked up the recipe which turns out to be a slow, loving exercise in melting butter, sifting flour and separating eggs. 

But, of course, slowness has no place in modern life. A hectic online discussion about Eggs Benedict led into fevered speculation on replacing the fresh Hollandaise sauce with something out of a jar and using tinned meat instead of fine York ham. 

And, yes, if you really can't find the time, it is possible to make something you may wish to call Eggs Benedict in a couple of minutes using very little love with low-cal mayonnaise and Spam. Bon appetit - you thoroughly deserve each other.

While I'm slipping into French for a moment, I am minded of my grandson, now five and just back from his first foreign trip, a water-park holiday in the south of France. I asked him whether the French people said “Bonjour” to him. He replied no, they mostly said: “Ne touche pas.”

Vijay Rangarajan, chief executive of the Electoral Commission, says teaching material aimed at preparing school children for voting from age 16 will be “impartial.” Oh, please. As a general rule in life, the more impartial somebody thinks something is, the more partial it actually is. (Apart, of course, from this column which is absolutely straight-down-the-middle gospel truth).