Peter Rhodes: A question of gender

AS another Chelsea Flower Show slips into history, I reflect once again on the endless joys of gardening and how profoundly grateful I am that people find time to do it. Other people.

SUCH is the march of the mobile phone that many landline phones barely ring from one day to the next. In fact, this week comes a new landmark; it is now reckoned that half of all landline calls are nuisance calls. I took one only yesterday. A call-centre lady, speaking in a strong Indian accent began, in all seriousness: "Hello. My name is Cherie Johnson." I informed her that my name was Father Christmas. We hung up at the same moment.

WHEN will they ever learn? In the 2001 Census, nearly 400,000 Brits declared their religion as "Jedi knight." In this year's competition to find a name for the UK's new research vessel, more than 100,000 voted for "Boaty McBoatface." You might imagine that by now the authorities would have realised you can no longer ask the Great British Public a sensible question and get a sensible answer. We are now told that the 2021 Census may include a question on our sexuality and gender. Let me be the first to out myself as Neutral McNewtface.

THE university of East Anglia has advised students not to throw their mortar boards into the air at their graduation ceremonies but to choose the "safer" option of miming the throw and having images of mortar boards digitally added to the photos. How many students have been slain by falling mortar boards is not disclosed. If the traditional graduate headgear is so dangerous, perhaps students should throw something else into the air, something light that all students possess and will cause no injury. Unpaid electricity bills, overdraft refusals, county-court judgments and so on.

THINGS were much more dangerous in my day for those of us who got our qualifications at technical colleges. We horny-handed sons of toil had no namby-pamby mortar boards but celebrated our success by chucking typewriters, trowels, coal shovels and lump hammers into the air. Inevitably, a few unfortunate students were killed on graduation day but, as our lecturers told us, we were about to enter the workplace and most bosses didn't want unlucky employees anyway.

MORTAR-board trivia. The original medieval mortar boards were worn by senior lecturers and were soft, harmless hats. In 1950 inventor Edward O'Reilly and a Catholic priest Joseph Durham filed a patent for a mortar board with a glass-fibre stiffener to make it more sturdy. And a lethal weapon was born.

ANOTHER pointless bank holiday is at hand in England. Why we have so many at the wrong times of the year is lost in the miasma of history. So, too, is the difference between them. Why is it that some bank holidays see business as usual, with all the shops open, while others are tumbleweed events with nothing stirring in the high street? It is all very odd.

ACCORDING to a report this week, with some hospital operations you get a free pair of scissors. Other items left inside patients include swabs, gauze, needles and ballpoint pens.