Peter Rhodes on pylons, poles and a useful new form of currency

I no longer calculate tradesmen's services in pounds. These days I find it helps my budgeting to divide the invoice by the sum I am paid for writing this stuff. This creates a new unit of currency: the column. Thus, a plumber to rod the drains costs me two columns and a new window is three columns.

You may be surprised that the latest bill from the electrician for five columns is about twice what I paid for my last check by the eye consultant. What's more, the consultant threw in some minor surgery for nothing, nipping off a tiny skin tag on my eyelid. It's always nice to get something for nothing. After all, I am not made of columns.

The Royal Air Force (preferred pronouns they / them) is reported to be “desperately” searching for pilots, having turned down suitable candidates under its infamous project to discriminate against white male applicants. 

Candidates previously overlooked are being invited to re-apply for training. In the meantime, the RAF may not have enough pilots to fly the fighters but at least they all know that “aircraftsman” was a terribly sexist term and Biggles was a dreadful misogynist.

There is much fuss about Sainsbury's offering alcohol-free beer with their lunch snacks, a move which is said to reflect the astonishing demand for non-inebriating, giggle-free ale. Some members of Generation Z regard any form of alcohol as the work of the devil. They would have shuddered to see the newspaper office where I once worked which, believe it or not, had its very own pub on the premises. Most of us survived.

A sweetener has been announced in the Government's drive to cover the land with pylons and power cables in the drive for net zero. The deal is that people living close to the cables could get £250 a year off their energy bills. From my back door I can already count 19 pylons and poles. If these payments were retrospective I'd be rolling in columns.