Peter Rhodes on carrying babies, a slur on anglers and Doctor Who's female-friendly sonic screwdriver

DOES anybody out there have a backstop to prevent the endless use of the word "backstop"?

IS it racist to feel misled when a company you're dealing with online, which has a British-looking name and a website featuring Union Jacks and Royal Mail logos, turns out to be based in China? The parcel intended for me was delivered to the wrong town. The company responds: "Dear customer, we are sorry to inform you that the address can’t change when the item is in transit. We suggest that you make another transportation to your place when it arrives." As clear as mud.

PIERS Morgan was probably guilty of some terrible hate crime this week when he suggested that Daniel Craig carrying his baby in a papoose showed that 007 had been emasculated. In Morgan's book, real men carry kids in their big hairy arms. As night follows day, women took to the twitterwaves to declare that there is nothing so manly as a bloke carrying his baby in a papoose. And there's nothing so embarrassed as a bloke whose woman feels she has to tell the world that he's manly. Some things are better left unsaid.

PERSONALLY, I was never a great fan of the face-to-face baby carrier. There is something unsettling for both parties in having your baby's little face just a few inches from your own for any length of time. The grown-up feels the need to perform using the obligatory nursery language ("Who's my little woopsy-wopsy princess, then?") and the offspring, being a captive audience, is nervous of what The Big Entertainer is going to do next. This may explain the projectile posseting from which, strapped in your papoose, there is no escape. There was much relief all round when our baby-buggy arrived. Real men push buggies.

GENDER-stereotype alert. Doctor Who (BBC1) now in a female incarnation (Jodie Whittaker) made the feminist point that men are violent clots who instinctively reach for guns and bullets. The new Doctor uses her brain instead and disarms the robot-snipers by creating an electro-magnetic field. In the interest of balance, I should point out that the Doctor's famous sonic screwdriver has been adapted for female use. It now carries the instruction: "Lefty loosey, righty tighty."

NEW research suggests that fish which are caught and then released are unable to feed properly because the hook damages their lip. Reports referred to anglers "throwing the fish back." This is an offensive term. Genuine anglers never throw a fish anywhere. They handle their catch gently, if only because they want it to be fighting fit for the next weekend. I have never understood coarse fishing but they do seem to respect their prey. And so, too, do we game fishers. The difference is that we knock the trout or salmon on the head and have it for tea. Which is, of course, the fish's fault for being delicious.

RED, white, purple, black? Poppy rage. It has started. We need a backstop.