Peter Rhodes: Luck – or hard work?

MORE mishearings. A reader who works in Waitrose says a customer asked him for Bisto gravy graduals. Aahh.

IN that annual ritual which has taken the place of organised prayer, my car has just passed its MoT. And the eternal dilemma, familiar to all of us with old cars, begins anew. Having got its test certificate, do you sell it and buy something newer and more sensible? Or do you cling on to it for another year in the hope that the latest collection of bills will be the last for some time?

THERE is a simple solution to the above dilemma. If you tell your car you are proud of it, reward it with a good waxing and then admire its reflection as you pass the shop windows, you'd regret selling it. C'mon, old friend, just another year, eh?

THE Lake District has been awarded Unesco World Heritage status. So that's more tourists, more litter, more cars crawling through Ambleside and along Windermere. Just what it needs, eh? I know and love a particularly beautiful part of England. It rarely appears in the guide books and it would never dream, I hope, of applying for World Heritage status. Years ago, a friend who is a countryside writer was invited to write about his favourite places in England. He produced the book but kept his really favourite places out of it. There is a lot to be said for keeping secrets secret.

MORE on the theme of holiday-envy. A reader told one of her friends she'd be taking a month-long break in the United States. The response was : “Well, you're lucky. I only had a week in Paignton.” So good holidays are a matter of luck, are they? My reader takes the view that the harder she works, the luckier she gets.

IN any case, you don't have to cross the Atlantic to have a great holiday. I have a friend who has travelled the world and over the past few months has visited Japan and South America. She gets ridiculously excited about her annual week at Corfe Castle.

DID you see the curious court report of the woman who was launching a topless-butler business and invited a lad to send her some suitable photos? He sent her a selection, including one of him having sex with an animal. The lady complained to the cops that the animal was being abused. This being England, the type of animal was not revealed in court at Telford (presumably to spare its feelings) so we have no idea whether it was a maggot, a shire horse, or something in between. The point of this story? It is that everything leading to this court case happened over the internet. In ye olden days, an English lady could spend a lifetime without making the acquaintance of a wannabe topless waiter with a taste for bestiality. In this Facebook age, they are connected at the speed of light. Progress, eh?

A READER asks after my recent item on the Cornish Republican Army (CRA), what initials would the CRA use if it had a Provisional wing? No prizes.