Peter Rhodes on kilts, kidneys and a building society buying a bank

One of Taylor Swift's dancers, Kameron Saunders from Missouri, says he feared “cultural appropriation” by wearing a kilt on stage in Edinburgh. But he was assured by a kilt salesman that he could wear the tartan with pride. I was reminded of a friend who bought a house in Scotland and was told at a kilt shop that, even as a Sassenach, he was entitled to wear two tartans, one for his surname and the other for simply living in Argyll. As Wikipedia tells us, the kilt “may be worn by anyone regardless of nationality or descent.” Especially when there's a sale involved.

Mind your kidneys, Major Tom. . . . New research led by University College London suggests the human body may be unable to cope with long missions into space, with radiation causing organ failure and kidney stones. These health problems threaten manned exploration of space – for which we should rejoice. What are we thinking of, spending billions of dollars trying to land human beings on Mars when robots can do the job better and we have so many problems to solve on Earth?

For all we know, our dicky kidneys could be part of some great celestial plan. As He created Man, did the Almighty contemplate this aggressive biped He was assembling, and decide on a minor modification to restrict such a dangerous species to Planet Earth, thus preventing him from rampaging through the universe?

“Gabriel?”

“Lord?”

“Pass me that jar of kidney stones.”