Peter Rhodes on Requiem, rust and the ultimate virtue-signalling accessory

SADLY, I've had no reaction to last week's piece asking about your experiences with the cash-for-cars industry, so I can only assume it's doing a fine job The item did, however, flush out a retired dealer who, back in the 1970s, made a living selling Italian cars fresh from the factory. They rusted away almost as soon as they came off the car transporter. He just wanted to apologise.

SAUERKRAUT is being hailed as a health food but how many jars lie unopened in kitchen cupboards? Lord knows what they use to tighten the lids but I have visions of big, hairy Bavarians swinging on a 20ft wrench. When people ask what do you eat Saurkraut with, the answer is a sprained wrist.

IN the Beeb's new shock-horror ghost yarn Requiem, Matilda (Lydia Wilson) is a brilliant musician who, in moments of stress or passion, makes manic music with her cello. A cello, the most ethereal and haunting of all instruments, is perfectly cast. I can't help thinking how many other instruments the writer, Kris Mrska, toyed with before settling on the cello. A ukulele would never work. Nor a kazoo, trombone, euphonium or big bass drum. At times, I found myself wondering how Matilda's crazed compositions would sound on the swanee whistle. Like a chorus of enraged Clangers, I fear.

ONE reviewer referred to Requiem as "this fine Friday night horror." Sweet, old-fashioned thing. All six episodes are available on iPlayer and I bet half the Beeb's audience has already watched the lot. Spoiler alert: the ending may seriously strain your credulity.

AGAINST the odds, plastic drinking straws have emerged as the ultimate target of the plastic-pollution campaign. The Queen's royal residences and the Scottish Parliament have announced they are no longer using them. And we lesser mortals can now demonstrate our commitment to the Last Straw Campaign by solemnly declaring we have banned plastic straws from our homes. Just hope no-one asks embarrassing questions such as a) how exactly did you dispose of your straws? and b) how many times did you fly last year? Plastic straws may be ideal accessories for virtue-signalling selfies but in the great scheme of things they add up to tiddly-squit.

AS the row over salaries at the Beeb rumbles on, here's a question. Where do you think the BBC gets its news from? Much of it comes from BBC minions doing exactly what you are doing now, poring through local, regional and national newspapers and lifting likely stories. It is one of the ironies of this game that the handsome silver-fox male or the pert lippy-glossed female who reads the TV news from an autocue is probably earning 10 times as much as the reporter who uncovered the story in the first place. Inequality is not always about gender.

AFTER a priceless horde of ancient beads and suchlike was stolen from an archaeological trust's warehouse in Canterbury, a spokesman declared: "Their real place is in a museum." So why weren't they in a museum?