Peter Rhodes on murderous chimps, a curious tern and the railway disaster that's looming

How that £54m deal with France to reduce the number of cross-Channel migrants will operate: 1) We give the French £54m. 2) France keeps it. 3) That’s it.

Nature corner. I spent a night on my old boat on the lake and was rewarded at dawn with a close encounter with that prettiest of seabirds, a tern. It observed me coolly for several minutes, wondering what was this strange creature on its perch. If terns could talk this one would probably be saying: “There goes the neighbourhood.”

Something similar may be happening to neighbour relations in Africa where, according to the Daily Telegraph, scientists in Gabon witnessed a lethal punch-up between chimps and gorillas. They believe the former may be eating the latter “due to climate change.” Really? Are they quite sure it’s not due to Brexit?

Water and trains do not mix. It is only now, days after the north German floods, that the scale of the damage to the rail network is revealed. Repairs will cost more than a billion euros. From China come distressing images of amazingly stoical passengers neck-deep in water in Zhengzhou’s flooded underground. These disasters raise an obvious question. Could it happen here? The answers aren’t encouraging.

Eight years ago Transport for London (TfL) produced the Comprehensive Flood Risk Review. It concluded it was “only a matter of time” before the London Underground was seriously affected by floods. Part of the problem is that the Tube has always been designed to cope with inundations caused by high tides, hence the Thames Barrier. The floods that overwhelmed Germany and China, and that terrify planners today, come not from the sea but from sheer weight of rainfall. Germany had a month’s supply of rain in a day and China had a year’s supply in three days. It may be comforting to kid yourself England is better prepared or has gentler weather but the truth is we may simply have been luckier. And you can’t plan anything on the basis of luck, especially when the experts already know that it’s “only a matter of time” before the water is neck-deep in the Tube.

After last week’s item on babies growing into a new social acronym, Spinners (Small People in Nappies), a reader points out glumly that older folk who find themselves pressed into service for child care become Opecs. Old People Employed Cheaply.

The little creatures Opecs are minding are unlike any that have gone before. Until now, a toddler handed a banana would try to eat it. Today’s toddlers, faced with any unusual item, are as likely to hold it to their ear and, imitating adults, listen to it. The march of the mobile phone begins ever earlier.