Shropshire Star

Peter Rhodes on a TV legend, a snowflake alert and yet another promise from the Kremlin

With ten new episodes said to be on the way, Frasier is coming back for at least one more series.

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Kelsey Grammer as Frasier

Of course, for some of us the glorious TV saga of two uber-snobby and fastidious psychiatrist brothers based in Seattle, has never gone away, thanks to endless repeats of the comedy which ran from 1993-2004. We all have our favourite Frasierisms. Mine is the phenomenon caused by allowing toast to cool on a cold surface. Frasier termed it “the scourge of our times” but the rest of us remember it as “toast sweat.”

Snowflake alert. My Grandparents' War (C4) featuring the actor Toby Jones carried the warning: “With images and language depicting the realities of war that some viewers may find upsetting.” But in the first place, why would the easily-upset switch on any programme with “war” in the title?

As for the “upsetting” language, as far as I could see it comprised a single word. The programme reminded us that almost 80 years ago, in vicious jungle fighting against a ruthless and barbaric enemy which had raped and tortured its way across Asia, British soldiers occasionally referred to the Japanese as Japs. Smelling salts, anybody?

I may have said some unkind things about Liz Truss but full marks for her standing up against the Whitehall “blob” by scrapping a proposed £15 million public-information campaign on the merits of saving energy this winter. We are thus spared some dopey cartoon characters advising us to turn down the thermostat, wear thermal vests and avoid the temptation to use an electric fire in the back garden. Truss's ban may infuriate Whitehall's vastly overworked Department of the Bleedin' Obvious but it's £15 million well saved.

While the rest of the world may fret about Putin launching nuclear warheads, the Kremlin is much more relaxed. As its spokesperson Maria Zakharova told a news briefing a few days ago: “The Russian Federation, to the full extent, sticks to the principle of not allowing a nuclear war to unfold. We have said and confirmed that many times.”

So that's reassuring. Unless you happen to recall February last year when Putin promised there would be no war of any kind, nohow, nowhere. That was just before he started the war.