Peter Rhodes on turbulence, taxation and the departure of a Green legend

The sole Green Party Member of Parliament, Caroline Lucas, stood down before the election, prompting one Guardian reader to comment: “I understand why she feels burned out after 14 years as an MP.” Burned out? Does that count towards her carbon footprint?

Another crop of injuries has been caused by airliner turbulence , this time on a flight to Uruguay . We share the passengers' terror and we sympathise - just as we did the last time, and the time before that. But when does our sympathy begin to run thin? After this latest turbulence, a passenger reported: “Those who were not wearing seatbelts flew away and some were stuck to the ceiling.” It has always struck me as odd that passengers dutifully buckle up their seat belt for the car journey to and from the airport but deliberately choose to fly unbuckled while at 30,000 feet.

It will be some time before we discover that the last-minute media alarms about Labour cranking up council tax to “redistribute” money between the generations was mere hokum or the chilling truth. But I fear that among the new intake of Labour MPs, and more particularly among their selection committees and local activists, are hard-liners who seriously believe that what you regard as your home and your private property is actually an asset of the people, and a magic money tree. We'll see.

Reflecting on our stay in Devon, we wondered why the cottage-hire firm thought it necessary to put no fewer than nine scented diffusers in the property. It is a curious thing but most of the nastiest odours seem to begin with D: death, diarrhoea, dogs, damp and drains. Strange but true.