Peter Rhodes on a tax rebellion, phone-queue music and an actor who's happy being unwired
Scientists at Reading University warn that global warming may create worse turbulence for airliners. British Airways announces the return of free in-flight hot drinks. Spot the problem?
Culture corner. I loved Pekka Kuusisto's dazzling rendition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons at the Proms. But isn't it odd how such a sublime work became best-known as background music on your phone while you're waiting to be connected? Every time I hear the Four Seasons I expect a voice telling me they really value my custom and I am now 79th in the queue.
Time alone will tell whether Britain signing up to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) will yield the post-Brexit benefits the Government claims. Needless to say, the BBC seems to have made up its mind already. From the sceptical, negative tone used in the news report on Radio 4, you'd think someone had died.
Surprisingly, I appear to have something in common with 35-year-old actor Michael Cera, one of the stars of the new Barbie movie. A Guardian interview, which approaches him as some sort of rare and endangered species, reveals that – shock, horror - he does not possess a smartphone. How, asks the interviewer, does he survive? Cera speaks for all us smartphone refuseniks when he says he survives pretty well, thanks.
The Guardian, clearly horrified, asks: “What about when he has a spare 30 seconds and desperately needs to save himself from agonising boredom?” Cera admits sometimes he gets bored, but so what? Maybe he should follow the example of some older smartphone non-owners. We carry a cheap, user-friendly device which has instant fast-forward and retrieve functions and can dispel boredom for hours on end. It's called a paperback.
Some Tory MPs are reported to take a dim view of proposals to scrap inheritance tax, on the grounds that it will be seen as a bung to the rich. Maybe so. But isn't it likely that anyone inheriting a big, tax-free wodge of money will put it in a fund to pay their own care-home fees in the future, thereby saving the Government a fortune?
On the other hand, a Bentley would be lovely...
