Peter Rhodes on stylish dressing, revolution in the countryside and a word with two meanings

In an unguarded moment last week I revealed that my latest online purchases included a fleecy nightshirt and a pair of Crocs. A reader asks: “Surely one doesn't wear the two together?”

Certainly not, sir. As any reputable etiquette book will confirm, the only acceptable footwear with a nightshirt is a pair of British Army boots with well-polished toecaps. The Crocs should be reserved for more formal attire. In the party season I usually twin my Crocs with the gold lamé jump suit. Strangely, I don't get invited to many parties.

I referred a few days ago to a film being screened. Screen is one of those exceedingly rare words in English that have two separate and quite opposite meanings. If you screen a movie you hope lots of people see it. If you screen your garden you hope nobody does. One for the pub quiz.

Behold, the Daily Mail thunders forth on the alleged unfairness of the anti-Covid tiers: “Across the country, bucolic villages . . .have suffered the same miserable fate as teeming, disease-blighted cities.” So instead of a few massive tiers drawn on the map, why not award lower-tier status to disease-free towns and villages? You might start by establishing how many settlements might be involved. It may surprise you.

The United Kingdom has more than 48,000 hamlets, villages, towns, suburbs and cities. Try drawing your tier frontiers around that lot. And while you may be affronted about your bucolic little homestead being lumped in with a nasty old city, give thanks. As long as you share the same rating you will not be invaded by those ghastly, teeming, disease-blighted city folk swarming into your shops and pubs.

Surprised at the number of settlements in Britain? I recall doing some research a few years ago into “thankful villages,” those places where the lads who went off to fight in the First World War all survived. The historian Arthur Mee found just 32 of them, having trawled through the records of 16,000 villages in England alone.

The EU system of farm subsidies is a sort of Robin Hood in reverse, robbing the poor old taxpayers to pay super-rich landowners. The new system, announced on Monday, will reward farmers for planting trees, restoring hedges, encouraging wildlife and preventing flooding. It is a glorious revolution, so why haven't we heard more about it? Probably because it means admitting that a generally unpopular government has done something right. It must have broken the Guardian's heart this week to report the new system and admit: “Even critics of Brexit see the changes as positive.” Never thought I'd see that.

One of the experts on Gardeners' Question Time (Radio 4), recorded with a virtual audience online, apologised after uttering the phrase “happy to pollinate your bush.” From the roars of laughter we can assume that virtual audiences are just as earthy-minded as the real thing.