Peter Rhodes on a transgender victory, a dodgy yuletide recipe and a dim view of war from the Lib-Dems

OUR changing language. Sky says it "invested" £160 million in its Team Sky cycling venture before deciding to quit. So that's an investment, is it?

WE are told that the BBC Christmas edition of Poirot will draw comparisons between the rise of fascism in the 1930s and the modern-day Brexit movement. That is not only gravely insulting but bonkers. Just look at the history of empires in Europe, from Napoleon via the Kaiser to Adolf Hitler, and ask why anyone should put their faith in this new empire. And then ask yourself why it is that the sort of people who took up arms to fight against the aggression of earlier centuries are, to a large degree, the sort of people who voted for Brexit. It takes a monstrous cartwheel of logic to portray the EU as the good guys and those who want to be free from the EU as neo-Nazis. But then we live in astonishingly dim times.

TAKE Vince Cable who, in all seriousness, told Radio 4's Any Questions that a no-deal Brexit would be "like bombing our own country in a war." Perhaps the Lib-Dem leader might care to apologise to the people of British towns and cities whose homes, streets and race-memories are still scarred by war. If Sir Vince thinks an adjustment in our trading arrangements is comparable with an air raid, he really should get out more. Starting in Coventry, perhaps?

WHAT makes the BBC's £87 million bill for rebuilding the EastEnders set most irritating is the suspicion that this soap and others like it contribute to the general coarsening of public life. More than 20 years ago a solicitor pal identified a condition where people, who would once have queued patiently and talked quietly, assume from repeated exposure to Albert Square, that it is perfectly okay to push, barge, bully and bawl. He termed it "EastEnders Syndrome."

WE had the neighbours round for pre-Xmas dinner. There were eight of us: two soft Brexiters, two hard brexiters, three unsure and one fervent believer in a People's Vote. No blood was spilt.

THE planned meal was venison and Guinness casserole. I was sceptical from the start. In my limited experience, meat in ale usually sounds better than it tastes. Sure enough,this upmarket melange of diced deer and Liffey water turned out startlingly bitter and was consigned to the freezer until we can think what to do with it. Two simple, plump and unsophisticated chickens stepped forward as last-minute substitutes and united us in jovial lip-smacking. Drumsticks have charms to soothe the savage Brexit.

IN what has been hailed as a victory for transgender rights, school pupils in Brighton will be taught that "menstruation must be inclusive of all genders." Doesn't it sometimes seem that in the headlong pursuit of equal rights at all costs, the problem is not boys having periods or girls possessing penises but adults of whatever gender talking absolute testicles?