Peter Rhodes on bulls, Brexit and two very good reasons to invite the German president to the Cenotaph

IT is a good idea to invite the German president to the Cenotaph on Armistice Day. Even if we don't know who he is. Even if we weren't aware that Germany had a president. We should invite the President, who is Frank-Walter Steinmeier, for two good reasons. Firstly, it will draw a veil over generations of mistrust and bloodletting between Britain and Germany, two very similar nations who, left to their own devices, get on rather well. Secondly, it will irritate the hell out of the French.

WE set off on a walk, following the footpaths through farmland near Chateau Rhodes. Entering one field, we met two cows, three calves and a bull the size of a house. I seem to recall reading in a book that mixed-sex and mixed-generation groups like this are settled, content and harmless. And then the bull started bellowing and we fled. Book-larnin' is all very well until you meet a bull that hasn't read the same book.

FAREWELL, Labour. Goodbye, the Lib-Dems. Now comes the only conference that really matters. Over the next few days the Conservatives will bury their differences, hammer out a Brexit deal acceptable to every MP and to our EU neighbours and arise, refreshed and invigorated, to prepare for another 20 years of government. Only kidding.

THE best Theresa May can hope for is to delay the next General Election until the constituency boundaries have been redrawn, as suggested by the Boundary Commissions, and the number of MPs reduced from 650 to 600. This, depending on your politics, will either redress a long-standing and unfair bias in favour of Labour or bloody shift the bloody goalposts for another bloody Tory swindle.

A READER denounces me for my "nit-picking" attacks on the BBC. He obviously has deeper pockets than me or a great fondness for nits. After paying £800,000 to settle the Cliff Richard shambles, TV licence payers may soon be shelling out again to defend the BBC from another serious libel action. The Beeb has claimed that the president of Ukraine secretly paid £300,000 for a meeting with Donald Trump. The president's lawyers say the allegation is untrue and "strikes at the core of his personal dignity and integrity”. So what on earth possessed the Beeb to run such a high-risk story which is frankly of zero interest to British viewers? Or are we supposed to buy our licences and not ask such questions? Pick the nits out of that.

OOPS. A couple of days ago I wrote that the classic American headline, on a report that people living in rural areas didn't like movies set in the countryside, read: "Hicks Nix Sticks Pix." The headline appeared in Variety newspaper in 1935 and actually read: "Sticks Nix Hick Pix." There. Much clearer.