Peter Rhodes: Mrs Slocombe and her cat

PERILS of predictive text. Only a last-minute check prevented the TV naturalist appearing in this column yesterday as Christ Packham.

THE M20 in Kent was closed after a lorry carrying a digger collided with a footbridge. Bizarre, isn't it, that in an age when military radar can detect a tennis ball over Siberia and the driverless car is becoming a reality, that we still can't stop lorries, furniture vans and double-decker buses slamming into bridges?

TRYING to recreate Are You Being Served? (BBC 1) was a brave venture by Auntie Beeb and, like the curate's egg, was good in parts. The problem is that the gentle, nudge-wink innuendo that made us titter in the 1970s wouldn't even raise a smile in 2016. So the double-entendre had to be ramped up to the sledgehammer-comedy level where no-one even pretended to believe that Mrs Slocombe (Sherrie Hewson) owned a cat. Incidentally, did anyone else spot the resemblance between this Mrs Slocombe and the Tory MP Anna Soubry?

OH, the sense of moral superiority. In the scared, jittery States, Donald Trump demands "extreme vetting" of immigrants. In wicked, repressive France they ban the burkini on beaches, and former president Nicolas Sarkozy calls for the burka to be banned throughout his nation. In liberal, enlightened Britain we not only permit the burkini but stage demonstrations in support of it. My, what a fine and tolerant people we Brits must be. I admit I share in the feel-good glow.

HOWEVER, if we Brits had been through the French experience, would we be quite so laid-back? If the Islamist gang who targeted the Bataclan in Paris last November had instead stormed the Royal Albert Hall, killed and mutilated 90 British fans and wounded another 200, what would our reaction be? My guess is that it would take only a couple of major atrocities in Britain for the views of Donald Trump and Nicolas Sarkozy to suddenly become mainstream. Let's hope we never find out.

REJOICE, for Labour has sorted out its union issues and, after a little anxiety, this year's conference will go ahead. This is excellent news, for a party without a conference is like a carthorse without a cart. It had occurred to me that, if all else failed, some kind soul might offer Jez and Co the use of a large brewery and a copious supply of alcohol, just to see what they actually can organise.

BLACK-face Morris dancers have been banned from next year's folk festival in Shrewsbury to avoid causing racial offence. The Morris men claim they are merely celebrating an ancient tradition in which men disguised their faces to avoid being recognised by their employers. Really? And how does that explain the curious fact that 30 years ago you rarely saw a black-face Morris side (team) and today they are everywhere? The eagerness of Morris sides from Devon to Yorkshire to black up in order to celebrate this alleged Welsh border tradition is puzzling, to say the least.

IF in doubt, follow the advice of the composer Sir Arnold Bax who famously said: "Try everything once, except incest and Morris dancing."