Peter Rhodes: At last, the "Oh, s***!" button

AND so off for a day in the wilds of Rutland and Lincolnshire, that big, beautiful and blissfully traffic-free corner of England where red kites flutter in the skies and big yachts scurry across the inland sea that is Rutland Water. I have sailed there a couple of times and never quite got my bearings. It is reassuring to know that in a country so small, it is still possible to create artificial lakes that are just as easy to get lost on as natural ones. Ideally, England would have a few more mega-lakes but people can be very Nimbyish about seeing their homes vanish under water. I have to report no progress at all on my plan for Lake Banbury.

STILL not sure about red kites. True, they are very pretty in a show-offy, continental sort of way but I prefer the solid, stately progress of our native buzzards with their haunting shrieks high in the sky. Great birds.

SO would you mind showing the viewers how you waggle your toes to provoke a ferocious attack by your wild-eyed and clearly demented cat? The punter obliged, the cat sank his claws into the foot and there was much wailing and blood and fur. A succession of owners allowed themselves to be moggie-savaged for the cameras. Psycho Pussies: When Cats Attack (C5) was one of those programmes which sets out to tell us something about animals and ends up telling us more about humans. Is there anything people will not do to get their 15 minutes of fame on the idiot-box?

THE headline on a grisly tale from South Africa tells us: "Python chokes to death after eating porcupine." To which the only possible response is, serves him right.