Peter Rhodes on unwanted horns, unpaid loans and trying to predict the Grim Reaper's arrival

In the same way, freedom of expression does not include the freedom to sound your car horn during the two-minutes silence on Armistice Day. Idiots.

The news that millions of pounds of unpaid student loans will be paid by the taxpayer sparks fury on the internet, especially when it involves money borrowed by kids who dropped out of uni. 

I came across one boss complaining that some graduates he interviews are barely able to write and do simple sums. He says it's no wonder some kids cannot complete a university course and asks what our primary and secondary schools are doing. Fair question.

A prediction. One hundred years from now, people of the 2020s who work a five-day week will be regarded with shock and revulsion, in much the way that we gasp and wring our hands at the plight of children being set to work in cotton mills and coal mines in Victorian times.

“What?” our great-great-great grandchildren will ask in horror. “You mean those poor, downtrodden 2020ers had to get out of bed every weekday and work for eight hours without a break (except for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, tiffin, tea and a swift one at the pub on the way home)? Why, this was slavery.” 

On second thoughts, we may not have to wait 100 years for such opinions to erupt. I sense it already. Admit it, Five-Day Folk, aren't you feeling like victims?

Next week sees the second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024-25. It comes with the assurance this week from its promoter Kim Leadbeater MP, that it will apply only to patients with less than six months to live and the Bill will contain the “strictest protections” against coercion. We shall see.

However, during the past few weeks of earnest debate, how many of us have been stunned by the admissions of doctors who frankly confess they haven't a clue how long some terminally-ill patients might live? Six days, six months, six years? Elephants in the room don't come any bigger than this.