Shropshire Star

Peter Rhodes on the Googling of snobs, a worthless IRA apology and that sluggish Brexit petition.

Read today's column from Peter Rhodes.

Published
No escape from Google. Photo: Craig Baerwaldt.

I DON'T want to be a party pooper but until this new anti-Brexit online petition for a "People's Vote" gathers 17.4 million signatures, equalling the 2016 Brexit vote, no-one should get too excited.

REMEMBER, too, that in the Referendum nearly three years ago, no fewer than 16 million votes were cast for Remain in just 15 hours that the polling stations were open. Compared to that astonishing, nationwide blizzard of Remain votes, today's online poll is turgid indeed.

WHAT they say: "Personally, I am a great admirer of Theresa's hard work, courage and tenacity." What they mean: "After you with that knife sharpener, Boris."

GOOD to see the BBC's Attenborough-in-waiting Chris Packham getting drenched in whale-snot in Blue Planet Live. Fortunately, he is one of the few wildlife presenters who actually enjoys the smell and taste of the creatures he meets. Give him a few big gobbets of grass-snake slime to smear on his hands and he's a happy man. Weird, but happy.

THE astonishing power of the internet to deceive continues with a report that one in six Instagram users have posted images of other folks' houses and passed them off as their own home. Some pretenders have even ordered new furniture and curtains, used them for a photo-shoot, and then sent them back to the store. Mind you, for every rich-myth the internet creates, another one is demolished. For years the English have given their homes grand names to make them sound posh. But the all-seeing cameras of Google Earth reveal that The Old Vicarage is a modest semi, the Old Grange is an end-of-terrace and The Manor House is a campervan on bricks next to the tip.

A FRIEND is back from holiday in Westward Ho! which is the only English town or village with its own exclamation mark. Mind you, I've always thought a village near Guildford really ought to have one. Let us start the campaign today. Effingham!

AN IRA source tells the Birmingham Pub Bombings inquest that the atrocity was not murder but an accident. Isn't it amazing how accidents can happen when you plant large quantities of explosives in public places and set the timers running? The IRA had another unfortunate series of accidents on Bloody Friday, the bloody event they prefer not to discuss. On Friday July 21, 1972, they detonated about 20 bombs in 80 minutes in Belfast, killing nine people and maiming 130. The IRA commander later declared: "There was no intention to kill anyone that day." Quite so. just a series of unforeseen mishaps involving high explosives and detonators. Move on, shake hands, amnesties all round. Except, of course, for British soldiers.

I REFERRED last week to a blissful boat trip around Hong Kong with a PR lady from the HK government. She told me that, only a few month before, she had informed her parents in mainland China that she was now working in public relations. "You mean prostitution?" inquired her anxious mother.