Peter Rhodes on university profits, meeting Ms Jonsson and rehabilitating the rattlesnake

In his latest Sunday Times column, the former Top Gear presenter savages a young waiter in a hotel who wasn't quite up to Clarkson's standards, denouncing the clearly identifiable lad as slovenly, thick and “six foot of teenage gormlessness”. That's not clever, it's bullying.

There was a time when British universities took the brightest of school leavers and gave them – free of charge – an education in the technical, commercial, political and language skills that the nation needed. There was never any doubt that British universities existed to serve Britain.

Times change. The universities of the 21st century, overseen by vice-chancellors on massive salaries, exist chiefly to make a profit. And because foreign students pay more for their courses than home-grown students, some universities are cramming their courses with overseas applicants. According to one study, thousands of British teenagers will be elbowed out of their dream courses this year by foreign students.

To rub salt into the wound, these bright young foreigners take home knowledge acquired in Britain that will make their home countries even more competitive - against Britain. Joined-up thinking, anyone?

After spiders, sharks and wolves, rattlesnakes are the latest baddie animals to be reinvented as goodies. Researchers in California say these reptiles are sociable, sentient and capable of emotions. Try telling that to my generation which grew up with Davy Crockett and the Lone Ranger and learned from their split-second expertise with a Colt .45 that the only good rattler's a dead rattler. Who ya gonna believe – Kemosabe or the boffins?

Following last week's gripping item on my mild case of face-blindness or prosopagnosia, a reader asks: “This condition that you have; how do you know that you're interviewing the person you're meant to?” Fair point. Guess how long it once took me, in a small, half-empty restaurant, to find Ulrika Jonsson? Ages.