SEVEN people dead in an accident... if it were just a road accident in Texas, we would never have heard about it. A plane crash in America might have merited a paragraph or two.

Instead, the news of Columbia's dramatic disintegration has dominated the news over much of the world.

Film company Paramount has pulled a trailer for a film about a space shuttle crew in trouble, thinking it would be too sensitive. They are apparently even wondering whether the shuttle scenes should be changed.

Yet every day people die in car accidents, in trains and boats and planes or are murdered, or abducted, raped or kidnapped - but the studios make films about just these things and we, quite cheerfully, watch them.

So what's the difference?

Maybe it was just the drama of the occasion, those trails of fire shooting through the sky. Maybe because it seems such a peculiarly horrible way to go.

Or maybe it was because those astronauts are still the last great explorers left. There's hardly a place left on earth that hasn't been charted and documented, where, when emergency strikes, you can't get on your phone and be airlifted out.

But space... you can talk to earth, even send e-mails and smile for the camera. But when it all goes wrong, you are on your own. There is no way home. Just the empty vastness of it.

And maybe that's what we recognised as old-style heroic. And that's what we saluted. Because even in these glib, sound bite, shallow celebrity ridden days, we can still recognise the old fashioned bravery of the space explorers.

HOW much have you wasted on your gym membership this year then?

A new survey reckons that around 15 million people invested in gym membership, fitness equipment or fitness videos - and half of them have already given up.

We early morning regulars recognise them, the New Year Resolutinists. They come with shiny new trainers and designer or super Lycra swimsuits and swim-faster goggles. For the first week they're there every day, starting before us, finishing after. Then they miss a day or so... then they come later... leave sooner... pressure of work, you know.

And by the time it comes to Valentine's Day, they've vanished completely - until they're back next New Year with their trainers just as shiny.

So now they're not only just as fat and unfit as they were but they're broke and feeling guilty as well.

Next year, remember - the best thing to give up at New Year is the practice of making resolutions.

STEPHEN Clark was convinced his wife Sally hadn't killed their two sons. So convinced, that he gave up his job, sold his house and kept battling until he found the overlooked evidence that freed her. He believed in her.

Jill Morrell fought a similar campaign for hostage John McCarthy - badgering politicians, the Foreign Office, keeping his name in the papers so his case couldn't be forgotten. Even though her life moved on and they eventually went separate ways, she devoted five years and more of her life to him.

In both cases, it would have been so easy for the one at home to give up, to accept the official line that Sally was guilty or that the Foreign Office was doing all that could be done for the hostages. But they didn't.

Valentine's Day is coming up. A day of hearts and flowers, soft centred chocolates and soft centred sentiments. A day when we will all be thinking of love.

And a good day to remember that love isn't personified in a dozen red roses or even a diamond ring or any other flash gesture - but real love proves itself in that rock solid belief and enduring loyalty that will not be sidetracked.

But after three years of the bleakness of prison life, let's hope Sally Clark gets her dozen red roses too.

FRANKLY, Sandra Lennon must be dotty. She's the 57-year-old grandmother who had fertility treatment to have her son Joshua, 30 years after her second child. Interesting that judging by press photos she looks at least ten years older than she did a year ago. A whole load of sleepless nights and dealing with an energetic toddler isn't going to do much for her energy levels. Bad enough coping with teenagers at her age, let alone tinies.

And by the time he's 18 she'll be 75. Is this fair on the lad?

Well, possibly not. But we're all living longer, healthier lives, so there's a decent chance she'll see him through to adulthood. And he's starting off with two proud, involved, together parents, which is more than many babies have.

It's just the thought of collecting the pension at the same time as the child benefit that would throw me.

Published: 05/02/2003