Peter Rhodes on the rarest of names, the bill for HS2 and history captured in a tin of cocoa

WHEN choosing a name for a baby, how can you find something really special? My eye was caught by one of the state-school students questioned by the Guardian this week about why they didn't apply for Oxford or Cambridge. This bright 19-year-old, who declared: "I didn’t know anyone in my social circle who wanted to go there," is called Unique Clarke.

THE EU-flag wavers outside Parliament continue to amaze and bewilder us. Ever since we voted to remain in the Common Market in 1975, through all the panic over Maastricht and anguish over the EU Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty, we have been repeatedly assured that if Britain ever wished to leave the EU, it was a simple matter of repealing an Act of Parliament. No lie told by either side in the Referendum campaign begins to compare with this monstrous whopper which has been trotted out by politicians from Ted Heath onwards. Today, with Theresa May in power and yet powerless, we glimpse an altogether more disturbing possibility, that we have sleepwalked into a superstate – from which there is no escape. And the hardest thing to understand is that British people are rejoicing in the street at the prospect.

WHEN the £50 billion HS2 was first announced, I got some stick for referring to it as "the £100 billion HS2." My argument was that all big projects cost at least twice as much as we expect. Today, sources in the Treasury are suggesting it may cost "more than £100 billion," which I suggest we immediately interpret as £200 billion, especially after this week's excellent Panorama (BBC1) looked at the ruinously underestimated cost of acquiring land and homes on the route. None of this would matter if a) we needed HS2 and b) if anybody, apart from Lord Adonis and HS2 executives, actually wanted it.

A FEW thousand years from now, archeologists may dig up the 250g tin of Sainsbury's cocoa I bought this week and learn an immense amount about British society in the 21st century. The miraculously intact label will tell them that cocoa could be used for drinking or baking and every 4g portion contains 0.5g of saturates. The tub contains 62 portions, is suitable for vegans and is produced by responsible farming. There is an allergy alert for the milk-intolerant and the offer of a full refund if you don't like it. The lid can be widely recycled but the can is not recyclable.

UNFORTUNATELY, among all this verbiage, there is no advice on what to do with this miraculous brown powder. How can you drink it? How can you bake with it? Not a hint. One little can says so much about our modern world where we are drowning in red tape and legalese but desperately short of sensible advice.

INCIDENTALLY, while we all accept that "contents may settle in transit," the cocoa powder occupied only three inches of this five-inch can. This will tell the archeologists of the future that, however wise they thought they were, the Brits of 2018 hadn't a clue how much 250g was.