Peter Rhodes: A new Britannia? We've already got it

IN the debate on gender stereotyping, I referred recently to that ancient institution, the battle of the sexes. A reader tells me his strategy is total capitulation at every opportunity. He regularly asks his wife: “What do you want doing wrong next?”

AS the anniversary of Princess Di's death approaches, the Daily Telegraph website included a feature headed: “Who was Princess Diana and what happened on the night of her death?” It was a timely reminder that the Paris tragedy happened 20 years ago and that millions of under-30s or newly arrived readers have only the vaguest idea who she was.

THE enduring mystery is that the Princes William and Harry clearly adored both their mother and their father, even though Charles and Di loathed each other.

I WROTE about the Swedish train operator MTR Express agreeing to name a locomotive Trainy McTrainface. It is worth recording why. The company says the name “will be received with joy by many, not just in Sweden.” I can't imagine a British company or government department doing anything simply to bring pure joy to the people.

THE successful European tour by Prince William, Kate and the kids has inevitably raised the claim that trips like this would be much better if we had a Royal Yacht. Royalists get all misty-eyed at the memory of Her Majesty stepping ashore in foreign parts from the immaculately polished Britannia. Wouldn't it be grand to build Britannia II? No it wouldn't, for two reasons. The first is that even the biggest royal yacht would be dwarfed by some of the mega-vessels owned by the global elite of Middle East princes, Russian oligarchs, dodgy businessmen and Mr Bigs of the drug industry. There is no joy in seeing our Royal Yacht being tossed around by the bow wave from some flashy leviathan which has been paid for by cocaine. The second reason is that we actually have a magnificent Royal Yacht which, conveniently, already carries the Queen's name. HMS Queen Elizabeth is our shiny new 65,000-ton aircraft carrier. For the next few years it will have no aircraft and no conceivable military purpose. Let us therefore paint it white, deck it with bunting, stuff the fridges full of Pimm's, fly the Royal Standard and send it around the world to spread goodwill. And if it accidentally bumps into one or two megayachts and sinks them, so much the better.

PS: HMS Queen Elizabeth has a flight deck as big as three football pitches. This means it could not only do royal cruises but could host the World Cup, too.

THE veteran hack Charles Moore asks why the fact that something has “prompted outrage on social media” is considered newsworthy. Good point. In pre-laptop days, newspaper letters editors were bombarded with angry letters in bright hues and often underlined. The writers were known as the “green ink brigade” and their bonkers letters went straight in the bin. Why the Twitter equivalent is treated as anything important is beyond me.

AFTER a couple of spinal twinges, I typed “bad back” into Google and found this priceless tip: “You know you're getting old when your back goes out more than you do.”