Best of Peter Rhodes - July 18

Here's a selection of the best of the Peter Rhodes column taken from the Express & Star for the week ending July 18.

PENSION company makes impossible promises. Government watchdog fails to bark. Taxpayers stump up billions in compensation. It's an inequitable life, Henry.

"YOU are eligible to receive a tax refund of £188.50," begins the latest scam, posing as an e-mail from the tax man. It is so clumsy that I assumed it was a joke, not least because the name of the vice-president of HM Revenue and Customs was so clearly made up for comic effect. Sir Alexander Belloc-Brayne, indeed? Pull the other one. It turns out that the unfortunately-named Belloc-Brayne actually exists. Even so, the rest of the e-mail is a scam. Only a real Belloc-Brayne would be taken in. Bin it.

A BUS company advertising for drivers uses the curious slogan "A to B via the land of nod". Presumably the passengers are the ones who sleep, not the drivers.

MAD-APOSTROPHE disease often strikes where it is most embarrassing. The SNP website sings the praises of Scotland - "not least it's well educated and innovative people."

SIR Alan Steer, a headmaster and head of a government review of behaviour in schools, says rude, greedy adults are partly to blame for unruly kids. He is right. Adults on telly are among the worst offenders. Every time Gordon Ramsay effs his way through a kitchen, every time Anne Robinson sneers "You are the weakest link," every time Sir Alan Sugar snarls "You're fired," it makes society just that little bit nastier.

ST MARY'S Airport in the Isles of Scilly advertised for an air-traffic controller - and offered to send job details in Braille. No surprises there, then. The equal-opportunities bandwagon is no place for common sense and who dares suggest that a blind person might not be ideally qualified to move packed airliners around a busy sky? Some years ago I met a young man, totally blind from birth, who was training as a journalist in the earnest belief that he might become a sports commentator. No-one at any stage in his training had had the balls to tell him it was quite impossible. I blame Walt Disney. He told us if we wished upon a star, everything our heart desired would come true. Life doesn't work like that.

I ONCE knew a girl called Bridget Maine who was known, inevitably, as Midget Braine. Such is the plight of kids whose parents fail to consider Spoonerisms. Brad Pitt, having named his daughter Shiloh, now names one of his twins Knox. So that's Shiloh Pitt and Knox Pitt. Over to you, Dr Spooner.

ALWAYS the fiance, never the groom. Lib-Dem MP Lembit Opik appears to have split up with his Cheeky Girl fiancee, Gabriela. As I observed a few weeks ago, Opik has form for long engagements and hardly seemed to be rushing into wedlock this time. "She doesn't want to be his wife or have a baby," says Miss Cheeky's mother. Hardly the ideal qualifications for a fiancee.

HERE is a curious thing. First the wicked Press was told the trade minister, Lord Digby Jones, would be available for photos and interview this week while touring the world famous Armitage Shanks lavatory factory in Staffordshire. Then the press conference became the offer of a phone interview. Then the photo-opportunity was cancelled. Then the phone interview was postponed. My theory is that, given the current state of the economy, the last thing Downing Street wants in the papers is anything involving a government minister looking down the pan.

PITY the poor mutts who popped up in the commercial breaks during The Angels of Edgware Road (C4). The documentary described the heroism of those who, despite their own injuries, stayed to help others after the 2005 Tube bombings. The contrast between their fortitude and the mundane whining of the TV adverts was stark. And now, after the woman who staunched a haemorrhage in the pitch-black, bloodsoaked hell of the Underground, let's hear from the lady with trapped wind.

I THINK I have cracked the secret of the BBC's long-range weather forecast. Just keep saying it'll be lovely the week after next.

THE word "chav" has been deemed offensive by Left-wing academics of the Fabian Society. They claim the term is sneering and offensive towards the white working class. I doubt it. The beauty of the word is that people never recognise themselves as chavs. So the chavviest of folk cheerfully sneer at others for being chavs. In the same way, the word "obese" always applies to people who are somewhat fatter than you, while "ga-ga" describes people who have lost more marbles than you have, even if your store of marbles is pretty damn low. In Government circles it was once believed that "wealthy" meant anyone richer than John Prescott. These things are always relative.

A WEBSITE tutor devoted to improving the nation's grammar asks: "You're writing to Baroness Thatcher- how do you start the letter?" Nearly 200,000 have responded. Given several options, more than seven per cent went for "Yo, Maggie."

WHEN we forget things, we may call it a senior moment. The writer Virginia Ironside says she prefers the term "craft moment". It stands for Can't Remember A ****ing Thing.

THIS bleak little note on the possibility of replacing Gordon Brown as leader comes from the Labour Party's own website: "It wouldn't matter if Jesus Christ was the next leader with the disciples as the shadow cabinet. The game is well and truly up."

MEANWHILE, Gordon Brown may think he resembles Heathcliff, the brooding hero of Wuthering Heights. I have met the man. Take it from me, he's Eeyore.

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