Nose hair and knighthoods

How will Sir Keir Starmer be addressed as Prime Minister? He was given a knighthood in 2014 for services to law and criminal justice after he stood down as director of public prosecutions. Yet since becoming a MP, he has tried to shake it off. Labour press releases call him plain “Keir Starmer” and he has persuaded Hansard stenographers not to refer to him as “Sir Keir” in the parliamentary record. This might be a little trickier now he is in charge of the honours system.

Pam’s posies

Sound advice in these turbulent times from poet Pam Ayres. First, on flower arranging. “Put your flower arrangement in front of the mirror, because it can transform a puny posy (that’s quite poetic.) It looks twice as big,” she says. And secondly, on the apparently empowering images of Team GB women rugby players posing in lingerie: “Not strong. Wrong.”

Question Time’s problem

Former Tory councillor and now Talk TV presenter Andre Walker told his viewers: “I have been on Question Time 10 times in the audience which is way beyond what gets you a lifetime ban. I began using fake names by ‘appearance five’. By ‘appearance 10’, the staff recognised me and knew I was not Keith Jones.” Walker blames the BBC’s reliance on quotas to balance the audience, which seemed to matter more than finding new people. If Walker can appear 10 times, so can Left-wing activists. Is this why so many people get turned off by BBC1’s weekly audience question and answer programme?

Crawley Tories never stop

Keen Tories in Crawley were still – as late as Thursday – able to sign up for a “Walking- 2Win” Action Day scheduled for today, with the party’s (losing) election candidate Zack Ali. Walking2Win is apparently easy. The local party says you simply: 1) Go campaigning; 2) Take a selfie and screenshot your step count; 3) Post and share #Walking2Win @walking2win. The party adds: “Training will be provided where necessary.” Will anyone turn up?

Stephen Merchant’s nose hair

The Office co-creator Stephen Merchant has been recalling turning 40: “The aches were starting to appear,” he says. “I remember someone telling me – it might have been Jonathan Ross but I can’t be sure – ‘Make sure you get a good nose-trimmer if you’re gonna be on the TV.’ It’s the ear hair as well as the nose hair. You’ve gotta keep on top of that.” He’s right.

Baddiel and Gabriel

Comedian David Baddiel keeps having awkward moments with pop star Peter Gabriel. One time, Baddiel was disparaging about world music when they were at a party (Gabriel is a champion of it). On a later skiing holiday, Gabriel had asked what Harry Enfield was up to. Baddiel tells Walking The Dog podcast: “I said: ‘He did a few things recently. A thing on BBC2 called Celeb, which was about a faded rock star, in fact.’ I could see his face again fall, and I thought ‘Why have I said, ‘in fact’? It sounds like I’m saying ‘like you. You’ll be interested in a show about a clapped-out rock dinosaur, won’t you, Peter? That’s you!’ We were on a skiing holiday together and on a ski lift when I said that and we had to rumble on for six minutes in silence on this mountain.”

No one beats Kelly

Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes has the right approach to ageing. “To me I’m 39 plus 15, rather than 54 years old – and I’m not prepared for people to say I’m past it,” she tells Top Santé’ magazine. “When I turn up to an event, such as a Parkrun, I have the mindset that I’m not letting any woman of my age or in my age category beat me ... I’m on a roll this year – and I’ve been first in my age category, man or woman, in every single 5k I’ve done. In fact I recently came seventh overall out of 500 people across all the age categories, and that makes me feel bloody brilliant!”

Sleeping readers

Not all of you were knitting the colours of the election as the results came in à la Heidi McCaughey (as reported in this column last week). In fact, judging by your emails, a lot of you were asleep while I was covering the political drama for GB News. Reader Jeremy Dexter said he was “dreaming of the good old days when common sense and sanity were apparent”. Another reader Meriel Thurstan explained her reasoning for having an early night: “Working on an average of an election every five years, this will be the sixteenth during my lifetime. After that length of time a certain ennui creeps in.” You can’t argue with that.

Peterborough, published every Friday at 7pm, is edited by Christopher Hope. You can reach him at peterborough@telegraph.co.uk