Peter Rhodes on competition for Auntie, an overdue classic and what happens when a telly series takes over your town

In these days of Covid, furlough and possible redundancy, there's always somebody worse off than you. A Daily Telegraph reader complains that having ordered “seasonal vegetables” in a pub, “I was thoroughly disappointed to receive a dish of broccoli and carrots.” How perfectly ghastly. The end of civilisation as we know it...

I referred yesterday to my 1930 copy of Siegfried Sassoon's classic Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. It is an old library copy. The library sticker shows it was borrowed only twice, the first time on December 12, 1938, the second time on February 16, 1939. As there is no sign of cancellation or sale, I can only assume the second borrower nicked it. I shudder to think what the library fine would be by now.

Sassoon had a timeless way with words. This referred to the Tommies of 1916 but applies just as well to most folk in most centuries: “Life, for the majority of the population, is an unlovely struggle against unfair odds, culminating in a cheap funeral.”

Two groups are planning to create news organisations to compete with the “politically correct” BBC. If you need to know why the Beeb deserves more competition, consider its news priorities at the weekend. Covid is raging, the US elections are in full fury, thousands of university students are being told to stay away from campuses and more than 10,000 Covid conspiracy activists crammed into Trafalgar Square. Yet for the BBC, from dawn with Today (Radio 4) until BBC News at 10pm, the lead story was the death of the American actor, Chadwick Boseman.

And who in the Beeb dare suggest that Boseman's death, though tragic and untimely, was perhaps not the biggest world event of the day - especially for a BBC audience with an average age of 60-plus? A rival news channel? Bring it on.

Channel 5's remake of the James Herriot best-seller All Creatures Great and Small which began last night, was filmed in the Yorkshire Dales town of Grassington. And good luck to Grassington, now cast as Herriot's fictional Darrowby.

Depending on what you are and how you live, having your neighbourhood turned into a film set can be a blessing or a curse. The Cornish village of Port Isaac, better known as Portwenn in Doc Martin (ITV) is rammed with fans of the series in and out of the traditional tourist season. Great news if you're running a gift shop or a cafe but hell on earth if you're a villager just trying to get home. Grassington is already at visitor capacity during the summer. Heaven only knows what global fame, courtesy of James Herriot, will bring it.

We stayed in Grassington nearly 30 years ago when our little girl was four and getting her first introduction to her Yorkshire roots. Having travelled all day, she stepped warily from the car into Grassington's pretty little market square and asked: “Do they speak English here?” Aye, lass, 'appen.