Peter Rhodes on catch-up TV, counting crowds and are public inquiries a waste of time?

WE can send a spacecraft all the way to Mars to make the most microscopic examination of the planet's surface. But we can't count how many people took part in a march through London.

CURIOUS how the clever technology of catch-up TV can turn a day in 2019 into something like that classic 1973 episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, when Terry and Bob are desperate not to hear the result of a football match before it's screened. I spent Monday trying not to hear what happened in the final episode of Baptiste, screened the night before. Almost made it . . .

ACCORDING to the Guardian, pressure is growing for a public inquiry into Brexit. It would investigate such things as how the referendum came to be called, Mrs May's red lines, Britain's negotiating strategy, and so on. Here's a better idea. Let's not bother.

PUBLIC inquiries are a great way of kicking the can down the road for another few years. They are a Whitehall industry, creating jobs for lawyers and politicians and demonstrating that, if Westminster doesn't know how to carry out the instructions of the people, it certainly knows how to spend the people's money. Barely a year has passed since the Institute for Government reported that most of the £639 million spent on the 68 public inquiries held in the UK since 1990 was wasted. Only a handful have ever been followed up to ensure their recommendations were implemented. The report concluded that the chief purpose of inquiries was "to relieve political pressure in difficult circumstances." Brexit has been a long, divisive and expensive process. Let us not throw good money after bad.

ON the other hand, a quick, cheap public inquiry might sort out that entirely unregulated area of life, the agony-aunt business. My eye was caught this week by a typical column where a woman explained that her husband had run off with his girlfriend. Husband called on wife to sort out the divorce details but they ended up in bed. The agony aunt's advice to the wife was to "end the deceit and tell his girlfriend what has transpired." And what if the girlfriend promptly sticks a knife in the man? Lots of advice is on offer, but where's the quality-control?

I HAVE only to drive a couple of miles up the road to find the route being prepared for the high-speed railway that nobody wants or needs. Gentle meadows and lush woodland are being crushed and cleared to make way for a screaming behemoth, in order that Londoners may get to Birmingham 20 minutes quicker. HS2 - a swathe of ruined countryside surrounded entirely by tears.

AND yet common sense may prevail. There are whispers that the line north of Birmingham may never be built. And if they're not going to build the top bit of HS2, what on earth is the point of the bottom bit? One big demonstration of political courage and we can shunt HS2 into the sidings.