Peter Rhodes on courtroom cobblers, non-PC greetings and how Eric Bristow is remembered in the Falklands

I THOUGHT the public sector was being educated to address people correctly. A reader tells me he has a relative in hospital in East Anglia. Every time he telephones the place he is greeted with "Allo, moi luvverly."

ERIC Bristow has died far too soon but the darts legend may have achieved an unexpected immortality 8,000 miles away. In the Falkland Islands, the helicopters used by civilians and UK military in the years after the 1982 war were provided by the aviation company Bristow. Inevitably, the squaddies called the helicopters Erics and, all these years later, the term is still in use.

HERE we go again. A burglar is killed by a householder and the burglar's family tell the media that he was "a gentle giant." This is one of Ye Olde Courtroom Metaphors which have been trotted out for centuries to excuse the inexcusable. I spent years reporting from courts. I lost count of how many times the most vicious and unrepentent criminals were painted as diamond geezers by their friends and family outside the courtoom and by their barristers within. After a while you learn to decipher these weasel words: "He's a rough diamond" (thug). "He's a gentle giant (fat thug). "He's fallen into bad company (thug who hangs around with other thugs). "He is thoroughly remorseful" (thug who has been caught), and so on.

I ONCE saw six young thugs up for sentencing, each provided with a legal-aid lawyer paid for by you and me. One after the other, with not a hint of shame or embarrassment, those half-dozen solicitors solemnly assured the magistrates that their client was a fine young chap who had simply fallen into bad company. Lawyers who waste court time with ludicrous excuses should be ordered to spend a few hours in the cells for contempt.

I REFERRED a few days ago to the Daily Telegraph assuring its readers, on the flimsiest of evidence that "a Russian hit squad" had smeared nerve agent on the Skripals' front door in Salisbury. When there is no evidence of a single assassin, how can the Telegraph be so sure that a whole squad was involved? And then came the news that two guinea pigs and the family cat had also died as a result of the incident. Is this the squad? Are these the shadowy perpetrators? I'm not sure how a guinea pig would reach the door handle but let us not rule out the cat.

BUT the great news is that it looks like no-one will die. Once the Grim Reaper is taken out of the story, everything changes. We can actually smile. I can even tell you about the reader who asked if Novichok was made by Cadbury.

CHANNEL 4 News presented the latest developments, guinea pigs, cats and all, and it sounded like an episode of those glorious spoof-news comedies from the 1990s, The Day Today and Brass Eye. And now, Alan Partridge with reaction from CIP, the Campaign for Irradiated Pets...