Peter Rhodes: Up and away – but when?

ORDER, order! The House of Lords has entered the row over television dramas with some peers complaining about “mumbling” actors. Talk about pot and kettle. Have you ever watched and heard the House of Lords on telly? It is Mumbleland.

“IF you've just solved a major mystery, I think you deserve a treat,” says Enid Blyton expert Jane Brocket, welcoming Jolly Good Food, a new recipe book based on the grub enjoyed by the Famous Five. Well, maybe Blyton's crime-busting Five did need a slap-up spread of cakes and ginger beer at the end of a busy day. The snag is that today's kids – and their parents – use only a fraction of the calories burned off by active children in the 1940s and 1950s. Back then, in days of rationing, a sweet, creamy treat was a rarity. Today, whole families exist on a constant stream of treats. Five Go Down With Diabetes.

THE one thing everybody knows is that the Famous Five washed down their grub with “lashings of ginger beer.” The truth, however, is that this classic phrase appears nowhere in Blyton's adventures.

FOR as long as I can remember, the experts have been predicting the return of the airship. How many times have we seen artists' impressions of giant silver slugs cruising over the clouds. Truth to report, I've only ever seen one in real life. Latest into the ring is an African-based company which is now promising to bring together US airship technology with vast reserves of helium gas in Tanzania. So that's blimps and squeaky voices.

IN the old days, airships were filled with highly inflammable hydrogen which produced some terrible disasters, notably the destruction of the Hindenburg at New Jersey in 1937. Helium is much safer. Helium is inert but hydrogen is ert. Very ert.

AS Hindenburg erupted in flames a radio broadcaster Herbert Morrison, reporting live, was appalled and almost overwhelmed by the catastrophe but kept on talking. In the midst of his horrified, heartbroken and tearful commentary was a phrase which seems quite meaningless yet has passed into history: “Oh, the humanity!”

I'M not sure how the latest diesel-compensation scheme is expected to work. Encouraged by the Labour Government, millions of drivers bought diesel vehicles in the believe that they would save the planet from carbon dioxide. We are now told they kill 40,000 people a year through nitrogen dioxide pollution. Some cities are now proposing a “toxins tax,” to be paid by any diesel driver entering their patch. But Theresa May seems to be hinting that drivers may be offered financial help, but has not gone into any detail. The silliest possible solution, of course, would be for local-council officials to tax motorists and Whitehall officials to hand the money back. So that couldn't happen . . .

A REPORT by the Police Superintendents' Association claims that 24-hour drinking, introduced by relaxing licensing laws in 2003, has led to a massive increase in alcohol-related crime in the early hours. Meanwhile, another report shows that throwing petrol on a fire does not extinguish it, and that bears, after a heavy meal, often head for forested areas.