Peter Rhodes on thumbscrews, half-crowns and some curious TV locations
Curious, isn't it, that while we cheered, clapped and banged kitchenware to honour the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic a few years back, not a single saucepan was beaten in support of NHS England when Keir Starmer scrapped it at a stroke?
Canada does not wish to become the 51st state of the USA and will resist Trump's annexation plan to the bitter end. But this is becoming a world where rules and respect have no place, and things are decided not by principles but by Big Men with big armies and massive egos. If the worst happens, the most appropriate flag for the United States would be one not with images of 51 stars but 50 stars and one small thumbscrew.
Last Thursday, before talks in Moscow had even started, GB News had a running TV headline telling us: “Donald Trump threatens Russia president to accept 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine this week or prepare for economic ruin.” I couldn't find any report to support this headline on any news website or even on GB News online. So was it a simple mistake or wishful thinking?
After my recent item on consumers getting reduced electric bills if their view is blighted by new pylons, a reader recalls a relative whose farm in Shropshire was criss-crossed with pylons and cables after the war. The deal was that the farmer was paid half-a-crown per pylon per year to compensate him for what he called “those damned eyesores".
PS: for younger readers, “half a crown” was one of the biggest and most useful of the pre-decimal coins. “The war” was something that happened between 1939 and 1945. What the coin and the war have in common these days is that hardly anyone seems to know anything about either.
The Au Pair (C5), an everyday tale of Mafia-scale baby selling, ended with the familiar advice: “If you have been affected by the issues in this programme... etc”. It occurs to me that you may be troubled that the settings, supposedly in the Cotswolds and France, look entirely unCotswoldsy and not in the least French. Turns out it was filmed in Ireland. The O'Pair...?
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