Peter Rhodes: An unfortunate mistake?

ACCORDING to The Drifters in their 1962 hit: "On the roof, it's peaceful as can be / And there, the world below can't bother me." I was on the roof at the weekend. It was not in the least peaceful and the world below, or at least the fear of making sudden contact with the world below, was extremely bothering.

BUT what is a chap to do when one tile slips out of place and the bill for a lad, his ladder and his scaffolding tower to spend five minutes putting it right does not bear thinking about?

FUNNY things, roofs. From the ground they look close. From the top of the ridge, the ground seems an awful long way away, the airliners seem to be skimming your back and you panic slightly when you put a foot over the edge of the roof and cannot find the ladder. The job took me about ten minutes, saved a hundred quid and proved once again that, if you are in good health, there is not a lot of difference between being in your 30s and your 60s, apart from getting scared sooner.

OUR changing language. When I was in school the plural of roof was rooves. The word seems to have passed out of use. The Oxford Dictionary has: "Rooves as a plural for of roof is dated, but not incorrect." Just like so many of us.

IN March 2004, a year after the US/UK invasion of Iraq, I interviewed Tony Blair's spin doctor Alastair Campbell. There was not an ounce of remorse or a word of apology, just a bull-headed conviction that Tony was a great man and his critics were all liars. Then what of the changing of words in the Downing Street briefing paper making the case for war? A mistake, Campbell insisted. Lest we forget, the "mistake" was to change a document on Iraqi security without consulting the author. In the original version, Saddam's intelligence force was said to be "aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes." In the Government's version this became "supporting terrorist groups in hostile regimes." A lie, surely? "No," insisted Campbell. "It was a mistake. How many mistakes of that sort get made in newsrooms every day? A lot, right? Do people have to beat their chests about it for the rest of their lives?" In the wake of the Chilcot Report, looking back on that interview, I can only conclude that in the Blair Government of 2003, words such as truth, lie, mistake and responsibility changed their meaning the moment you entered Number Ten.

I REFERRED a few days ago to the word "cosmeticised" being used to describe the rehabilitation of Nazi rocket designer turned US space-programme leader Wernher Von Braun. A reader points out that the German scientist, who designed the rockets which fell on Britain in 1944-45, failed to impress the American satirist and singer Tom Lehrer. In his song about Von Braun, Lehrer told of the "Widows and cripples in old London town / Who owe their large pensions to Wernher Von Braun."

THANKS for your emails on the subject of prosopagnosia, the inability to recognise faces. A reader tells me she thoroughly enjoyed George C Scott's performance in the 1958 movie, The Old Man and the Sea, until the credits appeared. Turned out to be Spencer Tracy