From Mr F. M. M. Steiner

Who needs a shooter and a stocking over their head? Certainly not Rosemary Aberdour, who nicked almost pounds 3m from a charity fund, lied to cover her tracks and brought a hospital to the brink of closure but is still - thanks to logic which Virginia Bottomley may not appreciate - deemed worthy of an almost adulatory half-hour on BBC1.

From Dr Leonard Black

IF I SAY that eating at La Tante Claire is like eating in a very good restaurant in Sydney, that is high praise. The best food in Sydney is the best in the world, using wonderful fresh ingredients and a French approach to cooking that has absorbed Malaysian and Japanese influences.

EVER since the most respected fisherman of the 20th century insisted that a burst of opera could encourage fish to feed, I've been searching for the definitive song to charm my quarry on to the hook. And I just might have discovered the secret.

MOST people won't know that the expression 'peppercorn rent' can be taken literally. But freeholders with a sense of humour may demand any form of rent payment from their lessees. The most eccentric rents seem to be on rural estates where payment is based on local produce - lobsters for a Scottish croft, pheasants for a gamekeeper's house, and so on.

(First Edition)

RIGHT. Time for the Captain's Catch-Up Service, my exclusive guide to the week's other news . . . A gunman who attempted to rob a Hare Krishna temple's jewellery store in Los Angeles was set on by three members of the peace-loving sect, who broke his jaw. A police spokesman said: 'They're nice people, but don't get those Hare Krishnas mad' . . . A baby hedgehog dropped from the sky by a passing magpie on to a barbecue at Holsworthy, Devon, escaped with only a burnt nose . . . Slimmers should not lick stamps, the Shropshire Women's Institute has warned, because the gum contains 5.9 calories . . . Estate agent Jeremy Nicholls was rushed to hospital after being bitten by a caterpillar. Expert David Carter fears the insect was a brown-tail moth larva. 'They are very dangerous if they get anywhere near the eyes' he said . . . And finally, Sophia Loren, a caring mother, has installed a pounds 15,000 fish tank in her sons' Californian home so that they can enjoy their own fresh lobster . . .

A SEARCH for two teenagers who vanished after they tried to swim ashore when their small boat capsized was called off yesterday after rescuers found no trace of them or their boat. Coastguards believe the boat may have tipped over as Stephen Smith, 18, and Nicholas Pelling, 17, of South Shields, tried to haul a fishing net or lobster pot to the surface.

WE THINK of the Oz Clarkes and Jilly Gouldens as being at the sharp edge of flavour recognition. On television they are frequently seen identifying a dozen flavours in a wine: spring flowers, leather harnesses, vanilla, raspberry jam, hay, oak, blackcurrants. Some people think it ludicrous that they can taste everything except grapes in the wine they sip.

A BARRISTER who was at the centre of an alleged plot to murder him with a lawnmower told a court for the second time how he was lured into a trap by his wife and her lover.

This Friday, in the High Court, Mr Justice Potts will make a judgment that could make or break British Nuclear Fuels' Thorp plant on the Cumbrian coast. Lobsters are on his mind.

I was once told that the word 'peewit' was one of the oldest words in the dictionary. Is this correct? If not, what is the oldest English word currently in use? (John Reynolds of Taunton, Somerset).

WE RETURN after the seasonal disruptions to answer readers' queries concerning matters meteorological, kinetic, fiscal and, to begin with, rectal.