Peter Rhodes: Oh, what a kerflaver

OUR changing language. A kerflaver, invented accidentally by a pal at the weekend, is a cross between a kerfuffle and a palaver. It's a bit like a palfuffle.

THE Great Gavel Delusion continues. A few days ago I commented on the fondness of film and TV directors to equip judges with these little wooden hammers – even though gavels have never been used in English courts. Latest sighting is a gavel in the final episode of the Beeb's otherwise excellent Decline and Fall.

WE hacks all enjoy a witty headline but the golden rule is that a headline should reflect the seriousness of the report. So I winced at one newspaper's treatment of the claim by Scotland Yard detectives investigating the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko that they, too, were poisoned and suffered diarrhoea. The Sunday Times headlined it: “Cops got the trots in Moscow.” A tad insensitive, perhaps?

I REPORTED recently on fears in the City that British families are borrowing far too much in order to drive new cars. An estimated £30,000 million is owed on so-called personal contract purchases. Steve Baker MP, a member of the Treasury select committee, says this bubble resembles the sub-prime mortgages scandal which precipitated the 2008 crash. Scariest of all is a recent 54 per cent rise in applications for pay-as-you-drive deals from low-income households. And what's missing from this bubble, yet again, is anyone saying to the consumer: “No. You can't afford it.”

HOWEVER, there is some sanity in the system. Be warned that some mortgage lenders are now taking a dim view of would-be borrowers who already have a whopping great car loan. Driving that swanky new limo could cut your mortgage-borrowing power by up to £30,000. Still, you can always sleep in the car.

THE cry “Snowflake generation!” goes up when students complain about the new Antony Gormley statue at the University of East Anglia. Include me out. Gormley's human figure is standing at the edge of the library roof, six storeys high. The only possible interpretation is that this is someone contemplating suicide. The university says the statue provides “both spectacle and surprise.” You don't have to be a snowflake to regard it as the most appalling bad taste.

TOLD you so. I commented recently on the Tomorrow's World effect, the tendency of brilliant inventions to vanish without trace. Last month British researchers unveiled a graphene-based sieve which is claimed to turn sea water into clean drinking water. How could it possibly fail? And then this week comes news of a rival invention. It is a zirconium-based chamber called a water harvester, created by scientists in California, which can allegedly extract water from the surrounding air, even in deserts. Great news for Sahara dwellers but not such great news for the sieve people.

MY eye was caught by an image in the Daily Telegraph of an old chap at the Justice for Northern Ireland protest. He was hardly incognito. He wore an RAF beret with RAF cap badge, an RAF tie and an RAF blazer badge. He was carrying a large RAF flag. The Telegraph described him as “an Army veteran.” I bet he was thrilled.