Peter Rhodes on the appeal of dinosaurs, townies' toilet habits and a risky outlook for teachers

Terms for our time. Bosses of an estate in Dorset have complained about the behaviour of urban tourists who poured into the county during last year's summer easing of lockdown. The visitors are accused of “wild toileting.”

From the Times: “The NHS app will become a digital Covid certificate allowing people to use their phone to prove they have been vaccinated or tested negative.” Note the automatic assumption that everybody carries a smartphone. It may be impossible for politicians, journalists and anyone under 25 to believe but millions of Brits live perfectly contented lives without a smartphone. According to recent surveys, between 30 and 40 percent of people aged over 65 are smartphone-free.

So any Covid certificate that depended on a smartphone would effectively force millions of people to buy something they do not want. This would be great news for the phone makers (who I dare say have been busy lobbying) but it's a monstrous intrusion into private life, liberty and domestic budgets. There is also the tiny complication that about 70,000 smartphones are stolen every year. If your Covid certificate is on the smartphone that's just been nicked during your holiday in Mykonos, you're stuffed.

According to reports, Ghana is getting free supplies of Covid vaccine as “one of the poorer countries.” Ghana is a blessed land, rich in coal, gas, oil, gold, diamonds and fertile farmland. It is not a poor country but a very rich country, with a few super-rich people and a lot of poor people. Like so many places, it has an abundance of most things, except fairness.

Our grandson's first birthday brought him two dinosaur birthday cards, a dinosaur T-shirt, dinosaur dungarees, dinosaur shorts and dinosaur socks. You see a pattern emerging?

It is a great mystery how dinosaurs, the biggest, scariest creatures ever to stalk this planet, have become the decoration of choice for toddlers. Thousands of little rug rats will drift off to sleep tonight close to a pterodactyl mobile or a brontosaurus wallpaper while cuddling their favourite stuffed T-Rex. If the dinosaurs were not already dead they would have died of shame.

Pandemics make strange policies. This summer, exam grades will be decided not by professional markers but by teachers. The great thing about markers is that they are anonymous, remote and live far away. In the fever of chasing grades, markers are unlikely to be threatened, blackmailed, bribed, seduced or beaten up. Teachers, on the other hand . . .

Last week's item on Donald Trump being “if not inept then not entirely ept,” reminds a reader of a line from Private Benjamin (1980). A sergeant warns his recruits: “Beware, there are minefields out there. Most of them are inert. However, some are ert.”

Incidentally, while “ert” is not a word, “ept” may be. One online dictionary defines it as a back-formation from “inept” meaning skilful and knowledgeable. But it's not allowed in Scrabble.