Peter Rhodes on the Birmingham Pub Bombings inquest, a great moment in TV drama and the case for old bangers

THE inquest into the 1974 Birmingham Pub Bombings will not try to identify any of the individuals who planned or carried out the bombings. But it will investigate whether the security forces failed to act on any warnings before the explosions. Ignore the IRA, give the police and MI5 a hard time. Not exactly the inquiry we hoped for, is it?

BEST TV moment of the week was surely Chief Supt Bright (Anton Lesser) in Endeavour (ITV). His wife has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and Bright is desperate that a second opinion might offer some hope. And then he discovers that Britain's top expert on this form of cancer is the surgeon who has already diagnosed his wife's condition. I can't think of another actor who could handle that moment of realisation, despair and dignity quite as well as Anton Lesser. He is one of Britain's busiest, best and longest-serving actors. Time for something in the Honours List?

I USUALLY enjoy the Home Counties homespun dad-wisdom of the Daily Mail columnist Tom Utley. But I winced to read of his plan to take part of his retirement nest-egg and buy "a brand-new car for us to tootle around in our dotage." Are you mad, Utley? Are you, indeed, Utley mad? The moment you drive a brand-new car out of the showroom, it drops in value by anything up to 40 per cent. Plus, you may be invited to hand it over to a pair of hoodies with machetes. Better to buy a second-hand car with all the bugs driven out of it and zero robber-appeal.

AND if you yearn for that lovely smell of a factory-fresh, brand-new car, I can only offer the advice of an environmental physician, admittedly some years ago, who told me the odour came from a cocktail of plasticky substances and was best not inhaled.

SCIENTISTS report a boom in the population of Britain's carnivores, from weasels to badgers. The weasels we can cope with. Badgers are another matter. If you believe Springwatch (BBC1) and suchlike propaganda, badgers are shy and timid creatures. In real life they are big, bold vandals, ripping up our lawns on the urban fringe. Soon they'll be coming to a town centre near you. When badgers are thundering down the high street in gangs of a dozen, shouldering little old ladies off the footpaths and eating Yorkshire terriers, you'll wonder why Kenneth (Wind in the Willows) Grahame got so soft and sentimental about them.

TO the delight of naturalists, the pine marten, too, is on the increase. My friends in Germany report that over there this pretty little carnivore, known as the marder, has a reputation for devouring the wiring and other parts under a car's bonnet. Part of the problem is the trend for using recyclable materials in vehicles. Parts that were once made of metal, glass or plastic are now made from straw, flax and sugar cane. Seriously, did nobody guess what would happen? Yummy.