A natural cure for badgers

A SHARP-eyed reader points out that Britain's Nuclear Bomb: The Inside Story (BBC 4) was narrated by John Shrapnel.

THE war against garden-wrecking badgers continues. One reader suggests using nematodes, little bugs which feast on the leather jacket larvae which the badgers are digging out. Another reader tells me human urine is a great deterrent, and probably easier to source.

WHAT a despicable generation we Baby Boomers are. First, we avoid wars, rationing and National Service. Then we get free education at grammar schools and university. Then we buy big houses at £4,000 a time. And then we retire early. Now comes research showing that the post-war kids, the most blessed generation in the entire deeply unfair history of humankind, consume more booze than most other age groups. Well, who wouldn't? Cheers!

THERE are two things you can never impress on today's struggling Millennials. The first is how expensive things were back in ye olden days. A shirt could take half a week's wages. A spare tyre meant financial meltdown. And the most I have ever spent on a car was £4,650 for a second-hand Toyota Celica – and that was 32 years ago. The second thing Millennials can't grasp is that if you spend half your income on smartphone rental, posh coffee, endless i-Gizmos, brand-new cars on the HP and a string of holidays, it's no wonder you can't afford a house.

WE all know this classic claim about the stifling bureaucracy of the European Union: The Lord's Prayer runs to 66 words, the Ten Commandments has 179 words, the Gettysburg address 286 words, yet the EU regulations on the sale of cabbage run to a staggering 26,911 words. Sadly, this much-repeated accusation is entirely untrue and seems to have originated in the United States, not Europe. Similarly, the old one about the EU banning bendy bananas is pure fiction. But when all the much-loved myths are stripped away, what cannot be denied is that since Britain joined Europe, the EU has pumped out about 40,000 rules, regulations, directives and court verdicts. It has been a 60-year lawyer-fest and there is not a corner of our lives which is not governed by some Brussels diktat. How strange it is, therefore, that nowhere in this mountain of bumf and this Sargasso Sea of red tape is there any mention of an EU state being required to pay an exit fee if it decides to leave the Union.

THE EU-exit figures being touted for Brexit by our Euro-masters vary from £40 billion to £100 billion. We may have to pay something but at least let's start the bidding with a more realistic figure. A nice round number. Zero.

THE local-council elections suggest that Ukip voters are turning to the Conservatives, increasing the chance of a Tory landslide in the June 8 General Election. Let's hope Theresa May realises this is a mandate to sort out Brexit and not, whatever Boris Johnson may say, a mandate to start bombing Syria.

“ANOTHER wet day with no rain.” Farmer standing in a shower in Farming Today (Radio 4), explaining why one isolated downpour cannot fix this three-month drought.