Peter Rhodes: Titter ye not

SOMETHING called the Clean For The Queen campaign hopes a million people will tidy up towns and villages in time for Her Majesty's birthday in April. Good luck with that.

YOU detect a right royal tone of cynicism? Damn right. In my experience, every time the authorities announce a crackdown on littering, the result is big, scary wardens pouncing on any little old lady whose till receipt happens to blow out of her handbag, while studiously ignoring large yobs chucking their chip papers over the cemetery wall.

MIND you, I understand the wardens' dilemma. A few days ago a large, stubble-chinned man who was walking towards me in the high street screwed up a piece of paper and threw it in a shop doorway. I quickly did the coward's calculation. What makes a bigger mess in the street, one piece of paper or my blood and teeth? I avoided eye contact and walked on by. As you do.

MY first reaction this week, on hearing a pile of mud-soaked Iron Age timbers and pots unearthed near Peterborough being described in all seriousness as "Britain's Pompeii," was to roar with laughter. And then in my ear I fancied I heard the kindly words of Pompeii's most famous resident: "No, no, it's cruel to mock. Titter ye not."

A READER tells me he phoned his local radio station to be told he was the first caller of the day and thus qualified for the mystery grand prize, if he could answer one simple maths question. By chance, he has a degree in mathematics. The prize was two front-row seats at a Justin Bieber concert. The crucial question – what is two plus two? Without a moment's hesitation he replied: "Potato."

I'M not sure I believe a word of the above yarn. But I never entirely dismiss the conspiracy theory that the chief purpose of local radio is to rot the nation's brains.

YOU know how it is when you think you remember something, yet common sense and logic tells you it cannot be so? This week, following the announcement of the Government's new safer-alcohol limits, a health writer in one of the nationals recalled that when the NHS was founded in 1948, the list of approved medicines included alcohol. My memory, from the early 1960s when I spent a week in hospital having my tonsils removed, was of one chap at the end of the ward getting two bottles of stout with his evening meal. So was there a time when Mackeson was prescribed on the NHS? All memories gratefully received.

ONE of my younger readers, a mere lad of 71, sympathised with my piece about getting rid of an old and much-loved pair of boots but tells a happy tale of bargain-hunting. His walking boots cost him £100 when he bought them 15 years ago. They are now worn out and although the current retail price is £180, he snapped up a brand-new pair on eBay for £74. If only more old 'uns had the confidence to shop online.

PS: The reader with the new boots tells me although he bought them some months ago, he is still using the old ones. "At my age," he explains bleakly, "if I wait long enough maybe I won't have to use the new boots." I suspect I may be dealing with a fellow Yorkshireman.