OUT of work? Fancy a change? Become a burglar. Thanks to the Government's latest start-up initiative, the ranks of this already overcrowded profession are sure to swell.

For the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg (he of the expensive taste in wallpaper) has thrown his irresistible weight as the Government's top law dog behind the 'guideline' from the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, that most first-time burglars should not be sent to jail.

According to Lord Irvine, we, the public, lack faith in prison as a punishment for burglary. It's true that faith in any public service or institution is stretched pretty thin at the moment. But most of 'the public' I know feel that criminals who break into people's homes deserve to be locked away unless there are very special reasons for leniency - the exact opposite to what is now to happen.

Already the 'Woolf' guideline has led to a drug-addict burglar who admitted burgling seven homes, on the basis of information gleaned while working in them as a painter and decorator, being 'punished' with attendance on a drug rehabilitation course.

Another drug-addict guilty of an equally odious offence, burgling a neighbour's home while she was in hospital, has been dealt with similarly even though he had 11 previous burglary convictions, and when arrested, emerging from the burgled house, was carrying a meat cleaver.

On the same day, a man who stole from churches was jailed for four years. Granted he admitted 517 offences, but all were thefts of petty cash - no church treasures. Many drunk drivers don't get four years. And in sparing that painter-decorator burglar from prison, the judge told him that ordinarily he would have received 18 months - less than half the sentence imposed on the church thief.

Yes, Tony Blair, our criminal justice system needs root and branch reform. While burglary and gun crime might be topics of the moment there's a whole raft of issues, including wildlife crime and anti-social behaviour like creating excessive noise, on which the law is well out of sync with changing values.

KEIR Webster, lighting expert at Durham's Gala Theatre, is proud of the lighting scheme he has devised for the city's Millennium Square, where the theatre stands. "People have said they have seen it from five or six miles away, which means it is doing its job,'' he observes.

But is the scheme's 'job' to enhance a Durham City streetscape - or illuminate the night-sky of Durham County, at the cost of more light pollution?

Royal Mail shapes up to problem of large letters - ran a newspaper headline. Good, I thought. The dear old PO has recognised the problem presented by most post boxes, whose apertures are too small for the larger items now more commonly posted, particularly by the increasing number of people working at home. Many times I have had to wait by my local box, to hand a too-large envelope to the postman. And I'll not only have to go on doing so but sometimes pay more for the inconvenience. For the headline anticipated higher charges for large or non-standard items.