Peter Rhodes: We never voted for this

I HEARD a weather forecaster this week refer to sunny spells on "the extreme south coast." Not to be confused with the moderate, mild, rational or marginal south coast.

BRIGHTHOUSE, the so-called rent-to-own retailer, has been ordered to pay nearly £15 million to compensate about 250,000 customers and has been denounced by the Financial Conduct Authority for not being a "responsible lender." A reader reports getting an email, allegedly from BrightHouse, offering a refund and requesting his bank details. It's a scam. Bin it.

RESEARCHERS at Glasgow University reported a couple of years ago that, while English regional accents are vanishing, Scottish accents are thriving. If you doubt that, listen to Jamie Harron, the 27-year-old from Stirling jailed in Dubai for allegedly touching a man's hip, talking to reporters when he arrived at Glasgow Airport. It may have made perfect sense to everyone in Stirling but we Sassenachs were struggling.

THIS sort of interview must pose a dilemma for the TV companies. Imagine the diplomatic incident if the BBC, Sky or ITV started using subtitles for interviews in Scotland.

I REFERRED a few days ago to the Co-op bank ending its policy of sending addressed envelopes with credit-card statements and trying to pretend that we customers asked for it "in our quest towards a paperless future." Making the public think they support some new policy is commonplace. Take the revelation this week that drivers may soon be prosecuted for any litter dropped from their car - even if somebody else dropped it. Part of Whitehall's justification for this is that a survey revealed 81 per cent of us are angry about the amount of litter on our roads. Well, of course we are. But it's a quantum leap from that to accepting the principle that Citizen A can be punished for the sins of Citizen B. Once that notion gets into English law, where will it end?

I WONDER how many of us driving older diesel cars which have now been branded T for Toxic in London, will do exactly the opposite of what the clean-air lobby expects. At a stroke, the market value of our old bangers has been reduced, so we are hardly likely to rush to the showroom and trade them for a shiny new model at a whopping loss. We are far more likely to keep on running them for as long as possible. We bought our diesels in the belief that they were not only economical but also better for the planet. The science changes, the politicians do their virtue-signalling and we take the hit.

A READER tells me she plucked up her courage, strode into a local shop and complained about the "tasteless and grotesque" Halloween decorations which featured blood-stained handprints on the shop window with the warning: "No-One Leaves." Good for her. The media moguls may own the airwaves but the streets are still ours. Defend them.

OUR changing language. A reader emails to say he is "taking up the cudgels" on a local issue. In a post-cudgel age, this is an old expression ready to be updated. Take up the light sabres, the baseball bats, the nunchakus? Over to you.