Peter Rhodes on a royal seduction, wise words on race and a budget plan to bring down a balloon
"If we spent half the time not talking about the differences but the similarities between us, the entire planet would have a shift in the way we deal with each other." Wise words from Idris Elba, star of Luther and The Wire, who says he has stopped identifying as a black actor because he doesn't want to be "put in a box."
Good luck with that, Idris. But the actor is up against a growing form of madness which seems hell-bent on defining us all by our colour.
You know the sort of thing: if you're white you're privileged and if you're black you're a victim. The actor's plain common sense is a stab at the heart of such nonsense, and will not make him popular in some woke circles. He could be in line for the J K Rowling treatment.
Amanda Barrie, 87, says she was approached many years ago to introduce the then-teenage Prince Charles to the arts of love. It may strike you as beyond belief yet the plan contains the sort of blunder that smacks of real life. For of all the actresses the prince's aides and advisors could select to take his virginity, what idiot thought Ms Barrie was the perfect seductress? She says she was of "questionable sexuality" even then and today lives happily with her wife. Anyway, 'tis all academic because she turned down the offer.
But you can't help wondering whether the clots who thought Amanda Barrie was the ideal woman to deflower the Prince of Wales were the same clots who, some years later, thought Lady Diana Spencer was the ideal woman for him to marry.
Rishi Sunak says Britain is ready to shoot down any dodgy balloons spotted over this blessed plot of ours, at any time. Now, hang on a moment . . .
We are frankly a bit short of jet fighters these days and many of our missiles have been sent off to Ukraine. So before scrambling a brace of Typhoons and unleashing a volley of Sidewinder missiles at £300,000 a pop, should we perhaps organise a national whip-round?
Failing that, I propose a budget balloon interception. We send up a couple of Tiger Moths and poke it with a stick.
