AN American academic has declared Sunderland the bottom of Britain's creative league because it does not have hip and gay areas or a big enough arts scene.

According to Prof Richard Florida - and yes, that's his real name - this is the way our towns and cities must develop if they are to thrive.

But somehow I don't think the people of Sunderland will be rushing to open Californian-style caf bars, gay nightclubs and art galleries on every street corner. Because they know that Sunderland, with its reputation for being a down-to-earth, hard-working, productive city, full of life and humour, is great the way it is.

Prof Florida says: "You cannot get a technologically innovative place unless it's open to weirdness, eccentricity and difference."

Doesn't he realise if we force his ideal hip, gay and arty scene everywhere, nowhere will be different? Britain would turn into one great, big, boring homogeneous mass, full of identikit towns.

The professor has declared Manchester - with its Canal Street gay community and science and technology institute - our "creative capital" and says it is the hottest place to live in Britain.

But surely that means Sunderland is the coolest. If its residents do continue to hold out against the weirdness and eccentricity Prof Florida says we all should be embracing, I think they should keep it quiet. Because everyone will want to live there.

I CONFESS. I used to be a Big Brother addict. But that was the first series. Now we're on to series four I detest it. It is no longer an interesting social experiment, flinging people of different backgrounds and ages together and watching as sparks fly and the group dynamic develops.

This time, Channel 4 has cynically selected a group of young, attractive people and put them in a set with shared shower rooms, a hot tub and generous quantities of alcohol, designed to encourage intimacy. Bookmakers have even been giving odds on the prospect of on-screen sex, while one tabloid has offered £50,000 to the first couple to "bonk on TV". Why would anyone over 30 want to watch it - unless they're sad voyeurs who enjoy salivating over what sexually active young folk get up to? I thought that's what porn mags were for.

I DON'T understand why Polar trekker Pen Hadow has been hailed a hero. He didn't discover anything new about the North Pole. That has all been done before. His was a personal test of strength, endurance and stamina. But, taking the risks he has, as the father of two children under five, he has proved himself to be monumentally selfish too. Now rescuers who airlifted him from treacherous ice to safety say he put other people's lives at risk. What a bigger hero he would have been if he had sacrificed his personal quest to stay at home with his young family. Of course, lots of people do this, they just don't get the pubic accolade.

YOU know that irritating advert- the one with Sixties music, where a boy and girl are walking through the park? Grinning manically, she shrieks: "I love to shop. I live to shop. And I want labels, lots of labels." I can't believe it makes anyone want to rush to the North-East shopping centre it promotes. It leaves me worrying that the poor girl needs psychiatric help.