Peter Rhodes: The cabbage crisis

I WROTE about the Left hijacking the word “progressive.” The assumption is that anything progressive must be good and a “progressive alliance” could – and should – have won the General Election. Columnist Rod Liddle challenges the P-word, making the point that “the last thing you want to hear your doctor say is that your disease is progressive.”

DAVID Davis, widely tipped this week as a possible successor to Theresa May, appears to have stolen my CV. Davis is a slightly overweight, sixtysomething, Yorkshire-born, grammar-school educated husband, Eurosceptic and former Territorial Army officer. What's not to like?

AND off to the dentist to re-arrange an appointment. In Reception, a huge muscular bloke with a big beard was being quietly assured by the receptionist that all their dentists are very understanding about nervous patients. “They don't come any more nervous than me,” I offered cheerfully, hoping to reassure him. But he would not even make eye-contact. It is a reminder that for some people, dread of the dentist is not merely a fear but a full-blown phobia. Given the link between tooth decay and heart disease, it can be a lethal phobia. I cannot remember a time when painless dentistry and drill-free fillings were not promised to be just around the corner. Still waiting. . . .

SO 95-year old George “Johnny” Johnson, the last surviving Dambuster, gets a measly MBE in the Honours list while Billy Connolly, a comedian who doesn't even live in this country, gets a knighthood. Makes you proud to be British, doesn't it?

AND why did poor old Olivia de Havilland have to wait until she was 100 – seven decades after her greatest films - to become a dame? The only people who should be forced to wait that long for honours are sporting “heroes” with dodgy urine samples.

THIS is not exactly a scientific survey but I couldn’t help noticing at the weekend how few family-filled cars were heading down the M5 for the coast. There was a time when, at the merest hint of a half-decent weekend, cars would be piled high with buckets and spades and inflatable boats, joining five-hour jams in the quest for sunshine. If that era has passed, I’m not surprised. Taking kids to the beach to make sandcastles is one thing. Taking kids to the beach, knowing they will sit resentfuly under a towel texting their mates about how borin’ it is, is quite another.

BRACING, wasn't it, to hear Lord Adonis on Today (Radio 4), banging on about how lowering the voting age to 16 would inspire young people and make our democracy stronger? For the record, Lord Adonis' political career – including landing us with that monstrous white elephant, HS2 – was achieved without him facing a single parliamentary election. He wants more voters, but no-one ever voted for him.

AFTER Michael Mosley's healthy-eating programme Trust Me – I'm a Doctor (BBC2) and a flurry of follow-up features in the glossy mags, a reader complains: “You can't get a white cabbage for love nor money.” In all my years in journalism this is the first time I've witnessed a sauerkraut frenzy.