Peter Rhodes: The last resort?

A READER suggests before this year is half done, that the abiding phrase from 2017 will be “in our thoughts and prayers.”

AND yet is life really so grim? A reader recovering from facial surgery says it only hurts when he laughs. And was not until this week that he realised how much of his day was spent laughing. Ouch.

PROFESSOR Marcel Levi, head of a London hospital, says patients approaching the end of their life should be advised to take a holiday rather than suffer painful and prolonged treatment, often to little effect. He may well be right and the time may come when the NHS offers patients a choice -a shorter life but a better ending. You'll know things are getting dodgy when you pick up your prescription and it's a one-way ticket to Barmouth.

STRANGE sign above the washbasins in the loos at a service station: “A nailbrush can be obtained from the cashier.” In the history of motor travel has anyone asked the cashier for the nailbrush?

PRINCE Harry says none of the young royals would become king or queen, given the choice, but would take the throne out of their sense of duty. It is curious that the oldest child of the monarch is denied a right taken for granted by every other child in the kingdom. The right to dream of being a train driver, a firefighter or a football star. The right to choose your own life.

THE Duke of Edinburgh was in hospital for two nights, just long enough to miss the tedium of the state opening of Parliament before reappearing, right as ninepence. That's the great thing about being 96. You can throw a sickie whenever you want.

NEW research suggests there could be a health risk in the poor quality air breathed by pilots and cabin crew on airliners. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has emerged from the fetid confines of an airliner feeling like death warmed up. It always strikes me as odd that NHS health checks always want to know how much we drink or smoke but never ask how often we fly. Who knows what they might discover? Or what the authorities might like to keep quiet.

A TUBE driver from London was enchanted by Jeremy Corbyn's gig at Glastonbury, recalling: “He was fabulous, friendly, meeting everyone, pulling pints at the bar, taking selfies. He was talking about Grenfell tower. He said no one should have to live in those conditions.” Well, of course he did. That's the great thing about spending 30 years in sulky, backbench opposition, either to your own party or the other lot. You can wallow in hindsight, polish your man-of-the-people act and underline the bleedin' obvious time after time, knowing that, because you have never done anything, no-one can blame you for anything. Jeremy Corbyn promises to build the New Jerusalem but has never laid a single brick, let alone decided on the cladding.

CORBYN chose Armed Forces Day to ignore the armed forces and strut his stuff at the pop festival. That grinding noise? Clem Attlee turning in his grave.