MY three-year-old keeps looking out of his bedroom window, staring at the rooftops, and I know what he's thinking. Where's Spider-Man when we really need him?

The thing is, he and his older brothers, aged six, eight and ten, who adore the comic book superhero, are being pursued by a band of greedy Hollywood media moguls who will stop at nothing to get their hands on their pocket money.

For months now, the bad guys have been targeting small and vulnerable youngsters with an aggressive marketing campaign, persuading them to buy everything from official Spider-Man dolls to dressing-up suits, party plates, suncaps, sweets and pyjamas.

Hardly surprisingly, little boys all over the country have, as a result, been salivating at the thought of seeing their hero on the big screen.

But what the baddies didn't tell these youngsters, while pocketing a small fortune from their lucrative Spider-Man merchandising aimed at children under 12, was that they won't be allowed to see the film.

This is because some of the scenes in the film, unlike the cartoons, are extremely, and realistically, violent. And it's not just the British Board of Film Certification that thinks so. Barry Norman, and most other reviewers I've read, while full of praise for the film, seem to agree.

Columbia films apparently refused a request from the BBFC to bring out a children's version of Spider-Man with the most violent scenes cut out because of the costs involved.

I can't help thinking that the killing these cynical meanies expect to make from follow-up sales of videos and DVDs to those who haven't seen the original film affected their decision.

When we called into Marks & Spencer's recently, the lady in the children's department was apologetic about the price of the Spider-Man pyjamas, which start from 6-7 years and cost £16. "They're more expensive than usual because we've had to pay more for the official Spider-Man merchandise," she said.

Isn't Spider-Man the superhero who sticks up for the little guys and fights injustice and exploitation? Was he ever more needed than now?

THE smiling Muslim woman we saw on our TV screens this week, happily sending her son off on a death mission with the words: "You are going to paradise," made chilling viewing. I couldn't believe she really was his mother. Wasn't it more likely this video, released to the media, was a propaganda stunt, designed to encourage more suicide missions? Because what she did went totally against nature.

But, if it is true, this inhuman creature, hailed a heroine by the Hamas, is surely more terrifying than Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and all the others put together.

WE were surrounded by people in England shirts cheering Mick McCarthy's side on as the Ireland match played on the big screen behind us in a restaurant bar on Fathers' Day. My sister tells me there are similar scenes, in reverse, in pubs everywhere in Ireland, as Irish fans appear to regard the English team as their honorary home side. Is football, at last, succeeding where politics has failed?