Peter Rhodes: The sultan's wife

SOME pundits say President Erdogan's success in the referendum in Turkey will give him enough power to rule as a 21st century sultan. This is bad news for his wife Emine who will, of course, become a sultana. But maybe, as his nation's currant leader, this is Erdogan's raisin d'etre. That's enough dried-fruit nonsense.

WE all know what ought to happen. If you believe the polls and rely on past experience, Theresa May will be returned after the General Election with a bigger Conservative majority, Labour will be stuffed and Jeremy Corbyn will be sacked. But these are not normal times. Things change daily and the old rules may no longer apply. So I would not put a large bet on any of the above predictions coming true. And we could do worse in the coming weeks than remember Harold Macmillan's warning of the unexpected things that can upset every plan: “Events, dear boy, events.”

THE usual legion of instant experts has been queuing up on social media to assure us that North Korea's missiles which rumbled through Pyongyang last week are not missiles at all but an assortment of plastic and plywood models. See? You can tell by the wonky warheads. One Daily Telegraph reader claims he saw a similar parade in North Korea some years ago and the “missiles” were actually made of wood. Now, this may be ringing a bell with some older readers. Back in the 1930s, before the Second World War, one of the most popular urban myths concerned a friend of a friend who had been on a cycling holiday in Germany and came across a military exercise. And guess what? The German “tanks” were no such thing. They were just cars covered with hardboard sheets to look like tanks, with drainpipes for guns. It's just Adolf pulling the wool over our eyes, right? A couple of years later, thousands of Adolf's tanks, with real armour and real guns, swept the British Army aside and conquered France in a matter of weeks.

IN the meantime, ask yourself this. If North Korea has the organisational genius to get tens of thousands of soldiers and dancers goose-stepping in perfect time, is it really going to spoil things with some wobbly warheads? If only for safety's sake, let us assume the kit works.

LAST words on our recent trip to Cornwall. However they may be marketed, The Lost Gardens of Heligan are not all that lost. It only took us 20 minutes to find them.

LIKEWISE, the “Lost Valley” within the Lost Gardens was remarkably easy to locate. You just buy the map at the ticket office and follow it to the place marked “Lost Valley.” I may be missing something.

IF you believe it is possible to knock somebody out with a cricket bat for just a few minutes, rather than killing or merely stunning them, and if you also believe that a young, terrified and drunken teenager can be forced to rape an unconscious woman against his will, then you presumably think the finale of Broadchurch (ITV) was brilliant. The rest of us acknowledge that some of the acting was excellent. But the plot? Absolute piffle.