Peter Rhodes on a problematic peerage, fines for parents and the modern sin of over-smiling

I WAS walking in the park yesterday and encountered a council worker, a black bloke carrying two large bags of rubbish. I smiled and said "good morning" and he did the same. No issues there? Dream on. According to Robin di Angelo writing in the Guardian, I may be guilty of the modern sin of "over-smiling." Di Angelo, an academic who writes on racial identity, says: "Over-smiling allows us to mask an anti-blackness that is foundational to our very existence as white." So tomorrow, I will be more careful in the park. I will smile a little less, while regretting my innate anti-blackness that is foundational to my very existence and trying, at the same time, not to commit the crime of under-smiling. Or I could just avoid the park.

THERE are dark mutterings in Whitehall that Commons Speaker John Bercow may be denied the traditional peerage when he retires, in revenge for his alleged meddling in the Brexit process. But why would Bercow want to be Lord Bercow at all? His family coat of arms which he unveiled in Parliament with great pride in 2011 carries symbols of his commitment to minority rights and bears the stirring motto: "All Are Equal." So what could be more equal than slipping gracefully into retirement not with an ermine robe in the House of Lords but with a beige cardigan, a little semi in the suburbs and the title "Mr Bercow." Unless, of course, all are not actually that equal.

IN the meantime, can we insist that TV and radio interviewers do not let the "People's Vote" politicians escape from the studio without answering the following question: "If there was a second referendum and the majority again voted Leave, would you then support that vote in Parliament?"

PEOPLE take their children on holiday in school term time for all sorts of reasons. Some are simply feckless. But others, unable to juggle leave from two or more employers, are desperate and face the prospect of no family holiday at all unless they break the rules and pay a "fine" of £100 or more. Lancashire County Council is considering raising this to "up to" £1,000 per child. This is the sort of penalty we associate with cases of assault or burglary. That may be a suitable punishment for the feckless but it's a wicked imposition on the genuinely desperate. And who decides which is which?

A READER of tender years says my struggle with a particularly complicated electric fire is purely because I am old. There is an assumption among younger people that, because they can successfully operate a smartphone, satnav and egg timer, they are masters of the technological universe. And then they get their first home, encounter their first central-heating boiler and make a phone call that is a rite of passage towards maturity and a proper sense of humility. It begins: "Dad? Can you come over . . ?"

• Peter Rhodes will be speaking at Wolverhampton Literature Festival on Sunday February 3 at 11am. Admission free. Click here for more details.