Peter Rhodes: Rip-off at the roadside

ANOTHER example of the insurance industry treating loyal customers like mugs. A reader received her vehicle-recovery insurance renewal at £82.50. She checked the firm's website. The online price was just £69.30. When she challenged the company they instantly dropped the price to the online figure. Simple question. If you can't trust them to be straightforward, how can you trust them to be reliable?

ALL change. After 50-odd years of lecturing us like a kindly but very clever professor, the BBC has promised to eliminate elitism from its documentaries. James Purnell, the Beeb's director of strategy, says the approach will be as "a trusted friend," guiding people towards knowledge rather than bestowing knowledge from a position of authority. Coming soon: The Decline and Fall of the Assyrian Empire, with the Chuckle Brothers.

SCIENTISTS in Massachusetts are reportedly working on a gadget to tell if you're being unsuccessful on a date. The wristband will collect information on heartbeat, blood pressure and movement and vibrate if you seem to be awkward or boring. Let us think this through. Your date is awesomely beautiful. You find your cheeks flushing, your voice going squeaky, your palms turning clammy. If you can just calm down, screw up all your courage and hang on in there, things might improve. Self-confidence is the key. And then, like a sniggering friend, your wristband starts vibrating. Yup, you're a total jackass. End of date.

STILL no definitive explanation of the Birmingham expression "blarting like Friday," meaning to weep loudly. But a reader recalls his father, a Brummie, shouting at the kids to make less noise: "The neighbours don't want you bawling and newting." He was 28 before he realised his dad had actually said "bawling and hooting."

BUT then so much of what we think we hear when we are very young turns out to be something else. A reader recalls her mother exclaiming "skinny rabbit" as she undressed her on bath night. Years later she realised Mum, a farmer's wife, had uttered the words at the moment she pulled the child's jumper over her head and was actually saying: "Skin the rabbit." If you've ever prepared a rabbit for the pot, you'll understand.

WHO will fight for us in the battle to protect the English language? Politicians and national newspapers, perhaps? Fat chance. A few days ago the Guardian gave us the headline: "Trump travel ban: judges skeptical." On the same day, the armed forces minister Mike Penning told MPs that, rather than reduce the number of British troops in Afghanistan, he might increase them. Except that he didn't use plain English. What he actually said was: "We have no plans to draw down . . . actually there is a possibility that we might uplift." Can our wonderful language survive this sort of daily mangling? I am not uplifted. Indeed, I remain sceptical. Or should that be skeptical? Or even skeptikal.?

HACKERS invaded the computer system of a council in Devon. If this were an episode of Spooks or a Jason Bourne movie, the cyber crooks would demand billions of dollars or threaten to wipe out a city. In the Tiverton town council affair, the villains requested £3,000 for the safe return of documents including the allotments waiting list. A very English hack.