Peter Rhodes on raisins, car tax and a beautiful illusion in the countryside

A small ripple of applause, please. I have just halved my personal best time for taxing the car online, from four minutes to two.

The good news is that technology makes such chores easier than ever. The bad news is that, despite all the computer power, roadside surveillance kit and automatic fines, about 498,000 vehicles on UK roads are untaxed. Extraordinary.

A reader describes the rare experience of entering his local NHS pharmacy brandishing a private prescription. The queue moved aside, the pharmacist directed him to the front of the queue and called him “Sir.” He admits a brief flush of superiority, followed by a worrying impression of how the aristocrats in Paris must have felt in 1789 as the peasants started greasing their tumbrils and oiling the guillotine. Two-tier medicine? Non, merci.

I cannot be the only person who, on hearing Donald Trump posting it was “a great time to buy,” instantly thought “insider trading.” Trump is uniquely powerful. He has the power to send stock markets up or down with a single unexpected message. He and his inner circle have the chance to make enormous acquisitions when the markets fall and to reap a fortune when – thanks to another Trump diktat – they bounce back again. The process may all be squeaky-clean and properly monitored but one Democrat senator has already declared: “I’m writing to the White House – the public has a right to know.” The question is whether America these days, where nothing seems to matter except money and the acquisition of power, even wants to know.

“Discipline, exercise and five raisins a day.” The secret of Liz Hurley's beauty, according to one columnist (a female columnist, naturally).

A couple of years ago, the farmer across the valley gave his hedges a good hard trimming. The result now is a quarter-mile fringe of pure white blackthorn blossom. At first sight it looks like a huge wave breaking on the beach. Look again and it's a cavalry charge coming at you. The slender black trunks are the fetlocks of a thousand galloping stallions; the white blossom is the hussars' plumes and the clouds of dust they have kicked up. This natural illusion will be with us for only a few spring days but the memory lasts for ever.