BEEN to Blackpool lately? Did you have a good time? If you're between 15 and 30 and were as drunk as a skunk, then you probably did. Otherwise, it was probably the nearest you'll get to Hell while your heart's still beating.

Blackpool, once noted for fresh air and fun, was never a place for the refined. That's what made it appealing. It was a seaside postcard brought to life - blowsy and vulgar, cheeky and cheerful, a place where you could let your hair down, have a good time and still feel safe.

Not any more. The cheekiness has turned into pornography and the good humour into something seedy and threatening. Saturday afternoon in the sunshine should have been Blackpool at its best. At the Pleasure Beach and the Sandcastle, families no doubt enjoyed the fun. But along the front... Groups of young girls on hen parties stagger drunkenly along, many of them barely dressed. Inevitably, they meet the gangs of equally drunken lads. After a 20-second exchange of profanities, one of the lads grabs a girl's breast - well, it was hanging out of her low-cut top. The girls giggle, one of the lads throws up. And no one else takes a blind bit of notice. Not surprising, really, as another couple are getting down to much more serious business, right there on the pavement, next to the vomit. Ah, the romance.

At least those kids have youth as their excuse. What hope for the gang of 50 and 60-year-old women, equally drunk, wearing equally provocative clothing, rolling raucously along. Definitely old enough to know better.

Meanwhile, the music blares, bored bouncers patrol the doors of pubs and clubs and the air smells heavily of beer and grease and things we'd rather not think about.

The Blackpool tourism website offers tasteful cross stitch kits of the town's coat of arms. Down on the front, the souvenir shops are preoccupied with willies in every shape and form, a few of them funny, most of them just plain revolting. There's no attempt here to put things on top shelves or out of the sight of children. If you want a glittery wig or a fancy mug, then you'll have to trawl past some mind boggling tat that will give young children a very warped view of sex.

Out on the pavement there are slot machines selling naughty knickers and posing pouches. A girl wearing thigh high boots, a mahogany tan and precious little else is advertising something. She's wearing a scarlet thong which has a set of three-inch spikes protruding from it. A toddler looks. The spikes, the thong, the almost naked bum, are right at his eye level. He looks away bewildered, sticks his thumb in his mouth and clings closer to his mum. And this is family fun?

Actually, it's clearly not much fun. Because the really sad part is that everyone, apart from the drunks, looks so miserable. They look glum and unhealthy and ratty - especially with their children as they blunder aimlessly along looking for more things to spend their money on. Meanwhile, the beach is almost empty.

This is Britain's most popular resort. Which says a depressing amount for Britain today. It is grubby, sleazy, unpleasant. It makes you want to go home and scrub yourself clean. And the so-called Golden Mile is not an area out of sight, easily avoided, this is Blackpool's claim to fame, its shop-front.

To be fair to Blackpool, there's a ban on drinking in the street (as if some of the visitors could possibly drink any more). Shopkeepers are quick to clean up on their doorsteps. There are constant police and ambulance patrols. The staff on the trams are smashing.

So I hop on the next one and trundle down to Fleetwood. If Blackpool in the sunshine is so horrible, I daren't think what it's like after dark.

FANCY yourself as a Lord or Lady? As a result of the end of the peer show, they've got a few vacancies in the new improved streamlined House of Lords. Anyone can apply - as long as you're a decent respectable sort of a person.

You'll have to supply your own ermine, of course. On the other hand, you get a daily allowance of £81.50. Closing date is November 17 - don't all rush.

PARENTS are to be told how to help their children to learn, in a new Government campaign this week. The advice on reading will be included in three paperback books which the Government is producing for parents. Yet another patronising, money-wasting exercise.

Parents who want to help their children already do. And if they want to know how, they ask their child's teacher who is the best person to tell them.

Parents who can't or won't help their children, aren't going to be suddenly converted by a paperback they pick up in the supermarket. This new initiative is apparently costing millions of pounds. Money that would be far better spent on employing more teachers to do the job. Even a child could spell that out.

I'M staying calm in the petrol crisis - largely because I'd filled up just before the blockade bit.

But - like thousands of other parents - I have to get Senior Son, his books, bedding, clothes and crockery to university at the weekend. Will I still have enough to get to Manchester and back?

So if you see this bedraggled gypsy with a wheelbarrow hitching a lift at the side of the M62 on Saturday, you'll know who it is.

CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown apparently doesn't drive, so has never had to queue for petrol or to pay for it.

Now why doesn't that surprise me?