Peter Rhodes on uni fees, water thieves and the epic task of repairing a leak in a wood

The burst pipe lay deep underground in a thick forest. It was the most difficult and inaccessible burst some experts had ever seen. Yet Southern Water somehow assembled a team and the machinery to cut down 50 trees, excavate a massive hole, cut out the huge old pipe, and replace it with a new section.

Of course, our vital utilities should never fail, or be allowed to crumble by bosses skimping on maintenance for quick-buck profits. But when things do go wrong, as they always will, we should give thanks for the brain, brawn and dedication of ordinary working blokes like the Hastings crew who took on what looked like an impossible task and sorted it. And all this over a bank-holiday weekend.

You may have been horrified at reports of low-lifes stealing pallets of bottled water intended for the waterless Hastings residents. But it's nothing new. A few years ago a block of flats near us lost its water supply and Severn Trent rushed to deliver a consignment of the bottled stuff. Within a few hours half of it had been filched by outsiders. Or, as some people call them, scum.

A friend's daughter at an English university is paying £9,000 a year in fees. Her friends, from half-a-dozen European countries and South Africa, pay an eye-watering £38,000 a year, plus rent. These are the prices, outrageous and unfair, that students are facing in a process which charges billions of pounds a year for degrees which were once free for anyone with the brains. The system has gone horribly wrong and young people are suffering untold stress and debt as a result. Education, education, miscalculation.