IF we want to clean up our streets, then let's call for the Rev Dr Andrew Macintosh. Who? He's the Dean of St John's College, Cambridge. And when the students there got hopelessly, helplessly over-the-top drunk, he named and shamed them. What's more, in a punishment that combined old-fashioned formality with great dollops of natural justice, he ordered the culprits to clean the vomit-fouled lavatories "to the satisfaction of the Lady Superintendent staff".

Quite right too. And I hope the Lady Superintendent was seriously picky about their efforts.

Every Friday and Saturday night in any town there are gangs of young people - of both sexes - who go out drinking with the sole and express purpose of getting drunk. They succeed splendidly. Unfortunately, they drink more than they can stomach, literally, and the evidence is splashed on walls and pavements, in alleys and town centres for us to step carefully round next day. And for someone else to clean up.

A local taxi firm fines people £25 if they're sick in the back of a cab. Magistrates fined a friend's son £50 for urinating in a public place.

Tony Blair once wanted to march drunks to cash machines to pay instant fines for their anti-social behaviour.

How much better to make them clean up their own mess. Especially if they had to do it the next morning when they were just at that queasy, head-hammering, stomach-churning hungover state. Clearing up after yourself is one of the first rules that toddlers are - or should be - taught. It's a pity that some of the country's brightest brains have to be taught it all over again, but they're not the only ones.

Am I getting old, or has it really got much worse in recent years?

Whatever the reason, it is high time something was done about it. And it could be that Dr Macintosh might be just the man to do it.

So if you're off for a night on the town - don't forget your mop, bucket and a pair of Marigolds.

Or you could just drink sensibly. Now there's a novelty.

WHICH brings me to a letter from a reader in Darlington. "We keep hearing about under-age drinking, but exactly what is being done about it?" she asks.

Her 16-year-old daughter has been clubbing regularly since she was 14. She and her friends, all from "respectable" families, are regulars in many of the pubs and clubs in town. "I'm considered strict and old-fashioned because I held out for as long as possible. But find it difficult to say no when all her friends are permitted to go.

"I asked what happened when they were asked for ID and, so far, none of them has been asked. Do the police ever visit these places? If society is to tackle this problem then it has to begin at the beginning and every one should take responsibility including all parents and proprietors of these clubs."

I know that at 17, Senior Son stopped going to one club "because it's full of kids". When he was 14, a friend's mother took photos of her son to all the pubs in Richmond, warning them that he was seriously under-age. The embarrassment factor kept him sober for, oh, at least a week. Under-age drinking leads to all sorts of other problems, many of which don't surface until much later. Or, occasionally, in nine months. We must surely be able to do something about it. But any ideas on what?

PREGNANT Liz Hurley has apparently ditched or been been ditched by the American millionaire father of her baby. Back in London, she has collapsed back into a comfortable relationship with ex-lover Hugh Grant, who is being very Best Friendish , looking after her and driving her to ante-natal clinics.

Could this be a fresh start to their 13-year relationship? Nope.

Hugh might be just what Liz wants and needs right now. But he wasn't exciting enough first time round and, once that baby's born and her hormones settle down, she'll be off and away again - until she needs a babysitter.

THAT the elegant, aristocratic and 81-year-old Duchess of Devonshire is a great fan of Elvis, I can just about believe. Harder to grasp is that glitzy glamorous Cher is apparently a great fan of our home-grown Father Ted. And they say Americans don't understand our sense of humour.

Maybe she's even longing to play the part of Mrs Doyle in pinny and moustache. Can you imagine it?

Oh go on. Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on...

EDUCATION Secretary Estelle Morris hopes to change completely the face of education. So much so, that it will no longer be confined into the school day. Instead schools, like supermarkets and Marks & Spencer, will open from 6am until 10pm to provide lessons for adults as well as children.

Brilliant. Marvellous. Wonderful.

However, schools are currently halving massive problems in finding enough staff to cover the hours 9am- 3.30pm. A few can manage only until lunch-time.

Instead of pipe dreams of an utopian future, wouldn't it be better to concentrate in finding teachers for the school hours we already have now?

THE latest plane crash in New York was dreadful, appalling, an awful tragedy.

However, before we all vow never to get into another plane again, can we just remember that every month in this country nearly 300 people die on our roads. You are more likely to die in the car on the way to the airport than while actually up in the air.

Sorry. That's not really very comforting , is it?

MY favourite quote of the moment is one my husband very pointedly read out to me from the columns of a Scottish news letter.

"The reason women over 50 don't have babies, is that they'd keep forgetting where they'd left them."

Mind you, I could do that when I was 35.