OK, would you like your holiday snaps on view for all the world to see? And not the carefully posed ones where you're smiling nicely and breathing in, but those taken when you're just pottering about, eyes screwed up against the sun, hair scraped back and all bulges seen to their best advantage.

They are the sort of pictures we rip up before we've even left Boots counter. We don't want to look at them ourselves, let alone show them to anyone else. So why should the famous be any different?

And now it's open season on celebrity bulge. Anna Ford lost her case when she claimed that pictures taken of her in her bikini in Majorca invaded her privacy. We all remember how upset Judy Finnigan was some summers ago when she was pictured bulging out all over on the beach.

These aren't top models. They're not people who make their living by flaunting their bodies. Indeed, they do their best to keep them decently covered. So there can be no possible justification for spying on them in their off-duty hols.

And now it's the turn of the two princesses. The Duchess of York's children were pictured last week on holiday in their bikinis. And no, they didn't look like supermodels. They looked like little girls at a particularly vulnerable and self-conscious age. And I bet it will be a long time before they relax happily on holiday again.

Imagine if it were your little girls. Horrible, isn't it? There are enough bikini wearing bimbos who long to have their pictures in the paper, so it seems pointless picking on those people who would hate it

Everyone's entitled to a bit of privacy on holiday. Even newsreaders, even overweight TV presenters. And especially little princesses.

WHICH is worse - being treated unfairly or being patronised? The Liberal Democrats are planning all-woman shortlists for parliamentary candidates.

Terrible idea. It's being as unfair to men as men have been to women for centuries. What all candidates want is to be chosen on their merits. Women selected from such all-female shortlists will never be taken seriously. It smacks of the worst sort of tokenism.

And occasionally, the best man for the job might be, well... a man.

TEACHERS used to live in the school house. Policemen lived in police houses. Nurses lived in nurses' homes. Many jobs and professions had accommodation provided.

Now in whole swathes of southern England, housing has become so expensive that ordinary people can't afford to live there any more. My niece, house hunting in a part of Buckinghamshire where a million pounds is considered a bit on the cheap side, says that even doctors can't afford to live there, so what chance for nurses?

Young nurses and teachers are moving out of London in droves because they simply can't afford to work there. So why not go back to the old days of providing accommodation? Schools could provide shared houses and flats for young teachers at a peppercorn rent. It would save them the hassle of trying to find anywhere to live and give them a year or two to establish themselves, save some money before they moved on.

Yes, it would cost schools money, but probably a lot less than footing an enormous bill for supply teachers. Sometimes the best ideas are the old ones.

SPOTTING Christmas decorations at Easter is old hat now, but I have just spotted my first Queen's Golden Jubilee souvenir - a thimble in a gift shop in Seahouses. Like a swallow signalling summer, I fear the tea-towels, mugs, plates, and musical models of Buckingham Palace cannot be far behind.