Peter Rhodes on croaking women, an absent friend at Springwatch and the pure terror of a "zombie knife" attack

SO. Having gotten used to one American import, namely the starting of sentences with "so," a reader points out a new irritation, namely the female frog-croak. As he puts it: "It is the Americanism of drifting the end of sentences into a deep croak. Our youngsters are taking this on board at an ever increasing rate. " Can't argue with that. Yet some Brits must share the blame. A croaker-in-chief is Myra, the humourless American head of comedy in Episodes (BBC2), and yet she is played by the Scottish actor Daisy Haggard who in real life talks perfectly normally.

WELCOME back, Springwatch (BBC1) but we do miss Martin Hughes-Games who, for "private reasons" has decided to stand down from the show. The banter between him and Chris Packham was always a delight. Take the human nature out of Springwatch and all you've got is nature.

I DOUBT if 2018 will produce a more shocking image than the "zombie knife" incident in Croydon a few days ago. Usually, we only pick up the aftermath of stabbings; the grieving family, the roadside shrines, the endless, meaningless piffle from ministers, "community leaders" and senior cops. This time, thanks to a dash-cam, we saw the full, terrifying process of a minor traffic bump between driver and cyclist turning into homicidal rage.

THE casual way in which the cyclist drew a machete-size knife from his belt and attacked the car to get at the driver tells us how commonplace knife-carrying is in London and how such ferocious weapons are sometimes used without thought, or without even speaking. We don't know the full facts yet. But the irrational escalation in a matter of seconds was chilling. The knee-kerk response seemed to be: you have knocked me off my bike, therefore I will kill you. How to stop such crimes? There is no need for random stop-and-search by police. A concealed metal detector could pick up a blade this big from a considerable distance and prevent yet another tragedy. Young men carry knives in the capital because cops and politicians let them. Watch the zombie-knife footage a few times. Can you think of a better reason not to live in London?

NOT much surprises me in this wicked world but I was shocked at what I found on a Google page about the Croydon zombie-knife incident. Next to a selection of news-video extracts of the attack were a couple of "Shop Now" pop-up adverts for similar weapons available online, one for a "Gerber Gator Machete" at £26.50, the other for a 13ins "Zombie-war stainless steel hunting knife," yours for just £9.75 on eBay. Politicians tells us they are doing everything possible to stop such sales. Yeah, right.