Peter Rhodes on the wobble test and squeezing pensioners out of the economy

CAPTION No room for the old 'uns? (IMAGE OF TRAIN)

I've passed the wobble test, thanks. This is the one, based on research in Brazil and embraced by some experts over here, which claims a link between how long you can balance with one foot on the ground and your life expectancy. If you lose your balance in less than 10 seconds, it's bad news.

I achieved a heartening 30 seconds. But it needs stressing that none of these DIY medical predictors ever comes with any sort of guarantee. You may be able to balance on one foot for hours on end, but what's going on in the rest of your brain?

Here are the instructions for doing the wobble test: “To standardise the assessment, people are asked to take off their shoes and socks and place the front of the free foot on the back of the opposite lower leg, while keeping their arms by their sides and their gaze fixed straight ahead.” Be honest. By the time you got to the end of those instructions, could you remember the beginning?

Inconsistency corner. The Daily Telegraph carried a fine feature by Michael Deacon on how old folk, millions of whom do not have a smartphone, are being squeezed out of the economy. For example, plans to close railway ticket offices and put booking entirely online could mean “most pensioners simply won't be able to travel by train any more”. Little by little, says Deacon, “you're being frozen out of the digital world”.

The inconsistency? On the back page of the features section containing Deacon's thought-provoking piece is a Daily Telegraph “subscriber exclusive” for a new novel and an evening with the author. You can either book online or scan the QR code. If you ain't digital, you ain't invited.

You'd think the cheating, conniving scammers who go to great lengths to make their robbing emails look exactly like a genuine message from BT would be clever enough not to post it to me under the heading: “Massage From (B.T)”.

The Church of England's solution to the war in Ukraine? The Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines, suggests Ukraine should give up the Donbas region in order to get a ceasefire. So whatever happened to “Thou shalt not steal”?