Peter Rhodes: The man who bought the Great Train Robbers' frying pan

I HAD an invitation from a friend to a lecture on the future of literature which would make the point that old-fashioned ink and paper is dead and the way forward is with the internet. The invitation was on a postcard, in an envelope, with a stamp.

IF, like me, you live in daily dread of scammers, this'll scare you. Reported a few days ago, it concerns a Halifax customer whose credit-card details had been fraudulently used some time earlier. He received a letter claiming the bank wanted to talk to victims like him, and he would be contacted by market researchers. Suspicious, he rang the bank to be told the letter was "definitely a scam" and to ignore it. Later, it emerged that the letter was entirely genuine. As he puts it: "Halifax's anti-fraud team is telling people a letter it sent about fraud research is a fraud when it's actually not." The question it raises is obvious. If the banks can't spot a bank scam, how the hell are the rest of us supposed to?

MORE of your not-so-close encounters with celebrities. A retired police officer recalls the foul stench of the butcher's van he was put in to guard a 1960s pop group being spirited away from their Birmingham venue to avoid a crush of fans. The van doors were yanked open and four lads clambered in for the short, secret trip to their hotel. They were John, Paul, George and Ringo. Another reader recalls his time with the RAF in Berlin in the 1980s. He attended the British Military Hospital for a routine medical, to be told his appointment had been taken by someone else. And who was this patient given priority? Rudolf Hess.

THE most endearing celebrity-brush so far is the reader whose claim to fame is knowing the man who bought the frying pan used by the Great Train Robbers at their bolt-hole in 1964. Gangsta-cred, or what?

SURPRISE, surprise. Most of the "children" who applied to come to Britain from the Jungle at Calais turned out to be adults. And some of those who got through the vetting system and arrived here this week look suspiciously old. Does anyone in authority care? Of course not. The sole reason for bringing these young people to Britain is to demonstrate that the Government is doing something that looks compassionate, without opening the floodgates. And if that means turning a deaf ear to dodgy testimonies on the lines of:"Yeah, he's my 15-year-old brother and I haven't seen him for 18 years," so be it.

MODERN film makers go to extreme lengths to keep anachronisms out of shot. These days, you are unlikely to see a gladiator wearing a wristwatch or a helicopter soaring above Camelot. But not so long ago, things were different. A few days ago I watched the 1966 version of A Man for All Seasons, starring Paul Scofield. The acting is excellent, the costumes gorgeous and the settings perfect. And then Sir Thomas More's dog wanders into the scene. A pedigree yellow labrador in 1530's England? Methinks not, forsooth.

HOW much did the Great Train Robbers' frying pan cost? I'm told it was auctioned for £50, and it wasn't even non-stick.