keep kids safe from pervs - put them all up a chimney

I am a man betrayed. Despite my hard work driving up standards at this paper, readers continue to desert me in droves.

Unbelievably, our series on raising your IQ to be as successful as Posh Spice didn't bring in the big numbers I had forecast. I don't know, maybe if I'd included Becks' IQ too and got it up to double figures.

Still, a prophet's never recognised in his own land, is he? And frankly my readers wouldn't know me if I fell on them, which as you know, I regularly do in various casinos.

DUMB So-called marketing experts keep telling me I'll need to dumb down to really capture the mass market but it's simply not in my nature. I refuse to go the same way as the BBC and that's that. I believe in the big, intelligent read, and the old adage - inform, educate and last but not least, entertain.

TOTTY So next week we'll get Carol Vorderman to adjudicate in the topless cookery competition as planned. Top totty but, I think you'll agree, a bit on the scary side, and prone to ranting bossily about margarine.

Still, can't have everything in the one woman, I suppose, which is why I have to get through so many.

Like me last week you were probably appalled to discover my old mate Peter Mandelson has declared 13 freebie trips around the world in the past few months. I mean, he's only a backbench MP. What can he be doing with the rest of his time? Any decent politician would have fitted in a world cruise or a trip to the sinbins of Thailand as well.

That's one reason why I never went into politics; too easily bored, you see. I'd be found in a coma in the midst of some deadly committee meeting about shrinkwrapping kippers and David Steel would have to perform a mercy killing with his ceremonial mace.

Although actually this has turned into one of the more interesting weeks politically, with the launch of a by-election somewhere out near the airport.

FLAKES Apparently John Reid has resorted to canvassing in a converted ice cream van to persuade parents Labour are child- friendly, what with the surprising lack of poster sites. He's doing a brisk trade but won't sell 99s because "there are no flakes in the Labour party". He takes it badly when you enquire about his wafer thin majority though.

There was panic earlier in the week when a dodgy character was reported hanging about school gates in a dirty mac with a bunch of lollipops, but it was just Donald Dewar trying to reassure parents that their opinions really, really matter to him.

But those Keep the Clause posters in Ayr are giving local children nightmares with their cheerful little messages like, "Gay Dad - not so much a pop band, more a curse upon humankind." My particular favourite is "Section 28 - the only thing protecting your kids from Freddy Krueger."

The people have spoken and we have to listen. And as a man in regular digital contact with the Zeitgeist, I am thinking of aiding the campaign by demanding the reinstatement of various other good old traditional British values.

WIFE I've come up with some slogans that would look good on posters: "Keep violence out of schools - batter some manners into your children at home." "Support the sanctity of marriage - don't let your wife out of the house to get a divorce."

I also think putting small boys back up chimneys would entertain tourists, while keeping children out of the clutches of pervs. A win- win situation all round.

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