Peter Rhodes on stuck sofas, a double-edged diagnosis and a manifesto pledge to win over Terry and June
A poll-company boss says the Tories may be doomed at the next general election because “Terry and June are no more.”
He’s referring to the long-running BBC sitcom in which Terry Scott and June Whitfield played a middle-class Home Counties couple. But were the pair ever identified as Conservative supporters? I’m not sure.
As far as I remember (and it’s a long time ago), neither Terry nor June ever claimed to vote Tory. Indeed, I seem to recall a two-line political gag from the show which went: “Are you a member of any organised political party?” to which Terry’s response was: “No, I’m a Liberal.” Or was that Hancock?
Anyroad, if the Tories have lost the middle-class vote, here’s a three-word solution to bring the nation’s Terries and Junes flocking to the fold. Scrap inheritance tax.
Researchers at King’s College London are working on a test that could reveal your risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease more than three years before it is diagnosed. So that’s 40 extra months of knowing the unthinkable. And that’s progress?
Delivery men in Bournemouth tried to get a large sofa into a couple’s home but it wouldn’t fit and was abandoned halfway up the stairs. Legal action follows.
Perhaps the householders should have used an old pal of mine who clears houses and has an uncanny three-dimensional perception. Show him any item of furniture and any given home and he’ll tell you instantly whether the former will fit into and through the latter. A rare skill. I daresay undertakers have it, too.
As the title suggests, Why Coups Fail (Radio 4) is a programme examining why overthrowing governments is not easy.
The explanation I like, blaming simple human cowardice, was coined 400 years ago by the writer John Harington: “Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? / For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” True then, true now.
Lawyers claim that Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts could not have “frollicked” in a bath, as she claimed, because the bath is simply too small.
Nice try but it is a golden rule of frollicking that, given a degree of enthusiasm, no space is too small or too unlikely. Think back. Tennis star, waitress, broom cupboard, baby. . . ?
