WITH 40 miles or so of the Vale of York about to be desecrated by a line of giant pylons, against which locals have fought a valiant yet hopeless battle over the last nine years, let us look at a similar, but even greater eruption of pylon vandalism elsewhere.

In Venezuela, 1,000 pylons now carve their intrusive way across the Canaima National Park, which contains the world's highest waterfall. Part of a 430-mile pylon line, the 47-mile link through the park has completely wrecked its special scenic character.

Tourism, the region's main industry, is already suffering - but there's worse. The indigenous people of the region, the Pemon Indians, regard the Canaima as sacred. They were not consulted about the pylons and, as in North Yorkshire, the pylon builders simply faced out their many protests and demonstrations, including road blocks and sabotage of pylons, knowing they would win in the end.

Which they have. And yet, to add insult to injury, while the pylons stride directly through many villages, which currently lack power, not a single watt is being provided to the community.

The aim of the scheme is to open up northern Brazil and southern Venezuela for mining and other heavy industry. So another unspoilt corner of our planet will vanish. The Canaima National Park was one of the first places declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations. So what? So nothing?

Money talks. And, so, interminably, do world leaders. Just a year or two back many signed a document of widespread commitment to the environment. This was at the so-called Rio Summit - yes, in the same Brazil that is now party to ravaging a national park. For Venezuela must pay a fine of £3,300 per day to Brazil if the power supply is not provided.

At whatever level, declarations for the environment are rarely worth the paper they are written on. With a token tweak here, a barely-discernible twitch there, things go on as before. World slum - that's our destiny.

THERE seems to be general agreement that the release of the Northern Ireland terrorists, whose crimes typically include blowing up people queueing for fish and chips, or shooting some person of a different religion when they answer the door, is a regrettable but necessary price for peace. Well I view the releases as a moral abdication.

If the freeing of the terrorists is a symbol of peace, one wonders why the loyalists and republications were released at separate times. A simultaneous release would have given 'both sides' a chance to put into practice the sentiments expressed by Jim McVeigh, the last IRA commander in the Maze, who said: "We offer the sincere hand of friendship to everyone who is prepared to help build a new future for all our people." Witnessing the old adversaries and their families shaking hands might have persuaded doubters like me that peace was achieved.

Meanwhile, what value do you put on Peter Mandelson's assurances that if the peace process breaks down, the terrorists will soon be back behind bars?

Dare I say it - yes, at my now far-from-tender age I dare say anything - until splash headines about 'the wedding of the year' caught my eye I had never heard of Brad Pitt or Jennifer Aniston. Then I read - in the Daily Telegraph if you must know - that Anniston's 'tumbledown' hairstyle was "the cut that launched the image revamps of Cherie Blair and Hillary Clinton." I trust this isn't true. For I would like to think that Cherie and Hillary, mature women who exert not a little influence in many fields, have risen above being slaves to fashion as set by the latest trendy star.