Peter Rhodes on Boris’s rude sister and a museum worth seeing

USEFUL excuses for our time: a seagull stole my TV licence.

THEY still do’t get it, do they? Glaciers in Alaska are vanishing as a result of climate change. Millions of tourists are flocking to see them before it’s too late. Don’t they realise how mad it is to jump on a plane or fill up a car in order to witness the results of man-made emissions? The glaciers of Alaska would last a little longer if everyone stayed away.

WHILE Boris Johnson was making himself electable, his sister was making herself unbearable as the unacceptable face of Remain. In the chat show The Pledge (Sky News) Rachel Johnson sounded off about the alleged shortage of Brexiteers on TV discussions: “It is hard to find people who can actually argue for Brexit because it’s such an idiotic proposition.” And there you have it - those of you who do not share Ms Johnson’s fondness for the EU are idiots.

BEHOLD, the authentic, sneering voice of the Metropolitan elite, a grossly privileged class which has done very nicely, thanks, out of our desperately unfair society. Rachel Johnson, a product of private schools and Oxford and a former editor of The Lady, has switched parties from Tory to Lib-Dem to Change UK and was an unsuccessful candidate in this year’s EU elections. Political power is in her family’s DNA. Her father is a former MEP, one brother is an MP and another brother is now Prime Minister. She once declared: “I don’t mind being called snobbish, a pain and a social climber, but being called unkind really hurts.” Her words on The Pledge were certainly unkind to the 17.4 million who voted Leave. Before she has another stab at getting elected, she might consider an apology.

AND off to a museum of country bygones, a much-loved and well-tended museum, reminding us that farming was not always the kind, compassionate, environmentally-aware business that it’s supposed to be today. The modern farmer creates wildflower verges for insects and songbirds, and beams with pride at the number of hare and deer on his land. Back in the 19th century, as a wall hung with some frightful devices testifies, the farmer’s motto was: if it moves, kill it and if it doesn’t move, eat it. There were traps for killing rabbits, hares, foxes, moles, weasels, owls and otters and a pair of badger tongs for doing unspeakable things to Old Brock. There were throwing sticks used by poachers to disable game birds and man-traps used by gamekeepers to disable poachers.

THE English countryside in the 1800s must have echoed to the screams of dying wildlife and the agonised curses of snared blokes. Maybe Countryfile (BBC1) could do a special programme on it. With a suitable warning for the delicate, of course.

A READER tells me she gets a real surge of energy from her favourite herbal infusion. She calls it her fennel-tea kick.