Would you go round peeping into people's bedroom windows to find out about their sex lives?

Lurk somewhere in the shrubbery with your binoculars so you can get a good view of what they're up to?

Probably not - I hope.

But increasingly, we seem to be spending an awful lot of time between other people's sheets - Ulrika's, Edwina's, Amanda Barrie's, Nicole Applelton's - whether we like it or not

Everyone with a book to sell or a score to settle is rushing into print, often with details that are just a trifle more than we need to know.

And now there's fear of the book that's not even written yet. Sven Goran Eriksson apparently daren't end his relationship with his Italian girlfriend, Nancy Dell'Olio for fear of what she may reveal about him.

Well, that says a lot about the mutual trust and support of modern relationships, doesn't it?

The ex-wife of millionaire Harry Lambert received a £7.7m divorce settlement last year and is going back to the courts to ask for another couple of million. Maybe she should just write her diaries instead.

The great feminist revolution was meant to make women independent. Instead, it seems to be breeding a new form of exhibitionist leech. Seriously unpleasant.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be good for a sex scandal or two - and the subsequent serialisation rights - as Jane Austen might have said had she lived now.

Oh yes, we all enjoy a good gossip and a bit of scandal makes our day, especially when it's someone in the public eye.

But enough is enough. After all the revelations of the past few weeks, I think I've had more details than I can take, from Sven's shoes to John Major's underpants.

What bliss it would be for a while if everyone's private lives were to remain private. And anyone contemplating a torrid affair or two, left their diaries outside the bedroom door.

Chanel your cash

CHANEL have just launched a new range of tights that cost £235 a pair. Gulp. All that money just to snag them as you take them out of the packet.

The Chanel tights are black with a little flower pattern and what's the betting that by the end of next week you'll be able to get pretty good imitations of them off the market for a couple of quid.

Which means anyone foolish enough to spend more than half the average week's wage on a pair of tights, will need to leave the price tag on so that we will know just how much they've spent..

...and how daft they are.

Birthday girl

FOR a birthday treat, most six-year olds would opt for a party, a clown, a trip to the cinema, theme park or play centre.

Madonna's daughter Lourdes, however, went to a retrospective exhibition of the work of fashion designer Gianni Versace.

The rich are definitely different - even at six years old.

Mother love

SCIENTISTS have invented a new gadget that can tell you why your baby's crying. It can interpret the different sort of cry and flashes up a little logo that says "Uncomfortable", Sleepy" "Stressed", "Hungry" or "Bored"

It's a very clever little gizmo. But I think it's been done before.

It's called A Mother.

www.thisisthe northeast.co. uk/ news/griffiths

A MAJOR terrorist incident in Bali and people in this country are given an emergency telephone to ring. Confusingly, it seemed to be a different number on radio than on television.

Why don't we have a standard Disaster number?

Just as we know to dial 999 in an emergency, there could be a similar number for news of major disasters.

In the immediate aftermath of any major incident - be it train crash or terrorist attack - when no one can think straight anyway, surely it would make life easier if there was one well known number to ring.

After all, if banks can reroute calls from our local branch to a call centre in India, then something like a major incident number should be easy- peasy

Published: ??/??/2002