Peter Rhodes on collapsing bridges, Corbyn's fight back and the tasty world of journalism

So why does a bridge in Genoa that's only 50 years old suddenly collapse? I remember a guide in Rome a few years ago telling me about the condition of the city's most massive creation and the decline of its people: "Two thousand years ago we Romans could build the Coliseum," she said. "Today we can't even keep it clean."

WE don't want people vaping on the buses, agreed? Whatever the health experts may tell us of its alleged benefits, vaping is just plain antisocial. It not only stinks but, worst of all, it shows exactly where the vaper's breath - great, billowing clouds of scented breath - is going. You are suddenly made unpleasantly aware that you are breathing in someone else's expelled air. Revolting.

THE Labour Party has complained to the press regulator Ipso over coverage of Jeremy Corbyn's attendance at a cemetery in Tunisia. The papers accused of misrepresenting the event are the Sun, the Times, the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Metro. The Labour-supporting Guardian is not included in the complaint. And yet that is odd because one of the most informative, unbiased and yet damning accounts of Wreathgate is by the Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland. His painstaking dissection, including his comments on Corbyn's own "unsustainable" account of proceedings, is headlined: " For Corbyn, precision and honesty are the way out of this wreath mess." You can find it at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/15/jeremy-corbyn-honesty-labour-wreath-mess

OWN up. How many of us begin to understand yesterday's rejoicing about Greece completing its EU bailout and thus transforming its economy? If some idiot lent me £250 billion, my finances would be transformed, too. Whether the lender would ever see a penny of his money again is another matter.

AH, the glamour of journalism. After endless applications and all that lobbying by family and friends, you finally land a job as a graduate trainee on a London tabloid. So will you be reporting from the front line in Syria or presenting a brilliant new analysis of Brexit? Not exactly. The story of the hour is that M&S has launched what it claims is the best ever prawn sandwich. But does the claim stand up? So you, with your degree in politics and your new pinstripe suit, are duly sent into town by the Daily Mail to buy the M&S prawn sandwich and eight other competing sandwiches from Boots, Aldi, Tesco and so on. Your introduction to journalism is to dissect each of those sandwiches and count the number of whole prawns. We all had to start somewhere.

STILL on food, American researchers claim carbohydrates may not be as bad for us as the experts once told us. Be wary. All this latest research means is that a little more bread in your diet is probably harmless. That enormous, steaming, mouth-watering, sauce-dripping, spaghetti-bolognaise sandwich you've just made is probably not.