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1 week ago | 
expressandstar.com | Peter Rhodes
Donald Trump’s trade deals are in stark contrast to the the stance taken by World War I US President Woodrow Wilson - columnist Peter Rhodes compares the two and takes a look at the EU flag and Thomas the Tank Engine’s 80th birthdayWatch more of our videos on ShotsTV.comand on Freeview 262 or Freely 565Donald Trump takes a different view to previous US presidents - like Woodrow WilsonDonald Trump demands Ukraine's vast mineral wealth in exchange for political support.
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1 week ago | 
expressandstar.com | Peter Rhodes
Great excitement at Chateau Rhodes where the Openreach team are due today to install our super new full-fibre connection. Incidentally, if this column fails to show for a few days, you'll know the connection is not so super, after all.
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2 weeks ago | 
expressandstar.com | Peter Rhodes
It's not all fun in the sunshine, especially if you're only five inches long and wearing a thick fur coat. We spent a couple of hours trying to save a young mole. Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.comand on Freeview 262 or Freely 565When the soil dries out, moles are forced to the surface, to be picked off by everything from buzzards to farm cats.
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2 weeks ago | 
expressandstar.com | Peter Rhodes
Figures to ponder. Number of full-time Government staff currently working in Whitehall: 95,000. Target number after latest staff reductions announced this month: 83,000. Number of British civil servants administering all of India and her 300 million population in the 19th century: 1,200. Does work simply expand to fit the workforce available?
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3 weeks ago | 
expressandstar.com | Peter Rhodes
Oops. In Tuesday's column I described a 2003 canal trip to Hednesford. As some readers have pointed out, there is no canal at Hednesford. Apologies all round. I was, as the kids say, misremembering another town. Brownhills. Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.comand on Freeview 262 or Freely 565Yesterday's column ended with me connecting the BT Smart Hybrid kit which, in the event of a broadband fault, switches my service from cable to mobile in a split second.
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3 weeks ago | 
expressandstar.com | Peter Rhodes
Owing to what we used to call the magic of the microchip, some versions of this column a few days ago omitted the name of the Staffordshire town whose accent Timothy Spall adopted when playing Barry in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. It was Hednesford. Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.comand on Freeview 262 or Freely 565In 2003 I was dispatched “up the cut” to write a series of features which later became a book, A Black Country Voyage. It was not all plain sailing.
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3 weeks ago | 
expressandstar.com | Peter Rhodes
Star columnist gives his latest views on the hot topicsOur changing language. The simplification of English rolls on. The last time I dealt with a certain company, it offered a brochure. The brochure is now “the look book.”When did this infantilisation of our language begin? I suspect a milestone on the road came when the telephone people decided we Brits could no longer cope with “telephone directory” and renamed it “phone book.”According to Hamas, babies and children are starving in Gaza.
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4 weeks ago | 
expressandstar.com | Peter Rhodes
That great national treasure Timothy Spall earned his place in history this week, reading Winston Churchill's 1945 “This is your victory” speech in the nation's VE-Day celebrations. Funny how things turn out, isn't it?
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1 month ago | 
expressandstar.com | Peter Rhodes
Star columist Peter Rhodes gives his views on working from home, unsmashed boat gangs and moreWe once lived next to a family whose little girl played the recorder. It was a hideous noise. She did unspeakable things to the National Anthem, or was it Greensleeves ? It all sounded the same. Now, at last - relief? The Royal Schools of Music report that the recorder has become the most “given-up” instrument, dropping in popularity among school children from 28 to 14 per cent in ten years.
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1 month ago | 
expressandstar.com | Peter Rhodes
Future-guessing. April 2025: Trump buys Ukrainian mineral rights from Kyiv. May 2025: Trump sells Ukrainian mineral rights to Moscow. Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.comand on Freeview 262 or Freely 565In the wimpish spirit of our age, tickets for the National Theatre's new production of Hamlet come with trigger warnings of madness, grief and coercive behaviour. Given Ophelia's watery demise, I'm surprised there isn't a warning about falling into rivers.
