Peter Rhodes on street football, irritating soundtracks and going batty for bats

Hard-wired into many human brains is the conviction that there was once a time when rosy-cheeked children loved nothing more than slamming a leather football around the street (jumpers for goal posts, naturally), and residents leapt for joy when the council put up a “Play Street” sign in your neighbourhood. The truth was grittier and often punctuated with shouts of “Oi! Go an' play dahn yer own end.”

I seem to recall footie in the streets usually ended with someone shouting at you for denting his car or presenting your dad with a bill from the glazier. And God help the budding Bobby Moore whose scorching shot dumped your neighbour's weekly washing on the muddy ground. Those “No Ball Games” signs were put up for a good reason. And if the authorities remove them, I dare say the citizenry will re-paint them.

Simon Schama's 2006 series The Power of Art is getting a re-screening (BBC4 and iPlayer). It is still wonderful to behold but no less irritating to hear. Who thought it was a good idea to let a pianist bash the same bass note for an eternity, like a particularly irritating five-year-old? In what media school are narrators encouraged to talk for 20 seconds and then fall silent for the next 20 seconds, to the stage where any reasonable chap would shake Schama and ask: “Are you sure you're all right, old man?” Too clever by half.

New cells at a prison near Newport, South Wales, have been delayed after an eco-inspector discovered three bats. I can believe it. I have a friend whose home extension was delayed for six months after the experts found not one bat but three tiny bat faeces which, as the batman pointed out, did not prove residency and may have simply been left on a flying visit. Remember, a charming old word for insanity is “batty.”