Shropshire Star

Peter Rhodes on America's love affair with guns

A NEW report on the roll-out of smart energy meters encouraged me to be a better consumer. Professor Benjamin Sovacool of Sussex University describes the project as a missed opportunity with "a lack of consumer engagement and insufficient information." Dead right. The electrician came, installed our smart meter, left an instruction leaflet and vanished. The only advantage I could see was that the meter reader who used to pry around with a torch in the cobwebby recesses of our broom cupboard, was suddenly out of a job.

Published
The Las Vegas massacre

BUT there is much more to smart meters than having your usage calculated by a computer miles away. I found an online tutorial on YouTube. There are so many functions on this meter, so many bells and whistles and new ways of calculating present and future usage that you could spend hours learning them. But to what end? Life is too short. I quickly got fed up with the tutorial and now regard the faintly-glowing smart meter as a useful little night light.

BEFORE the blood had even dried on their T-shirts and skirts, some survivors of this week's Las Vegas massacre were singing the praises of the US Constitution which declares: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” And if the aim of guns-for-all is to create a militia, then simple logic says the people must be permitted not only shotguns and sporting rifles but military-grade weapons like the ones unleashed by Stephen Paddock.

THERE is really no point in us Brits engaging the US gun lobby in America's guns debate. We think they are bonkers. They think we are wimps. After every massacre, the response of thousands of Americans is always the same. Buy more guns. About 30,000 Americans are killed by guns every year and yet still in millions of US hearts beats the notion that guns make you safer. Over the past 40 years the number of guns owned by US citizens has doubled to more than 300 million. It is believed there are now more guns in the United States than people. (And if you Limeys have a problem with that, it's 'cos you're all wimps).

IN GERMANY, a donkey called Vitus caused £30,000 damage by chewing a McLaren supercar. The owner suggested the creature must have confused the orange car with a carrot. Next day brought headlines such as "Donkey bit car thinking it was carrot." Reality check, please. Donkeys have been eating carrots for thousands of years. If a donkey went on Mastermind, his specialist subject would probably be carrots. No donkey yet born could confuse a two-ton supercar with his favourite three-inch vegetable. This yarn was proof of the oldest adage in journalism: never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

THE donkey caper reminded me of an exercise with the TA. During the night the cows sharing our location licked the paint off one wing of a Land Rover. I do not believe the cattle mistook a green Land Rover for a green vegetable. But I dare say the paint tasted interesting.