THE British couple at the centre of the Internet baby auction have been described as "desperate" for a child. But Alan and Judith Kilshaw are only desperate in the same way that I am desperate for a £150 pair of pink snakeskin, pointy-toed, high-heeled ankle boots.

The Kilshaws already have two young boys of their own. She has two older daughters from a previous relationship. But they say they longed to have a daughter together. This is not a couple driven to the brink by the agonising pain of childlessness. They have had their family, and are probably at the end of their childbearing years. They just wanted something more. And something different.

Sadly, it seems all they had to do was set off on a shopping trip to buy exactly what they fancied to add to their collection. They have complained about the lengthy, prohibitive procedures involved in the adoption process in this country. And here they do have a point. But the ease and speed with which they appeared to be able casually to select the items they desired to suit their needs from the Internet, hand over the cash and travel to America to pick up their "goods", is horrifying.

For the goods in question, six-month-old girls, Kimberley and Belinda, may as well have been a set of CDs or books, or even a pair of pink snakeskin boots, for all the consideration that was given to what was best for them. They must have suffered huge emotional turmoil on being taken away from the second set of parents they had bonded with in their short lives and taken on a fraught journey to Britain. And now they are under the media spotlight, at the centre of a shameful haggle over their future.

If only they could speak and tell us exactly what they so desperately need, we all know it would not be this.

ALLY McBeal actress Calista Flockhart is the latest big American star to adopt a baby. After being rushed to hospital suffering from exhaustion and dehydration recently, she was feeling lonely and unloved and needed cheering up, poor dear. So why couldn't she just go on a spending spree, stuff her face with chocolate or get a kitten? And if she can't even look after herself, despite the millions at her disposal, what makes her think she can look after a baby?

I CAN'T get too worked up over Sunderland stallholder Steven Thoburn's costly campaign to be allowed to sell his bananas by the pound. Probably, because he is already allowed to sell bananas by the pound - as long as he puts the metric weight alongside it. As the mother of three young children who only deal with metric measurements in school and don't know what a pound weight is, this makes sense to me. If the courts can't persuade Mr Thoburn to change his mind, his younger customers soon will.

CRICKETING legend Ian Botham is in big trouble again. But at least, having read his ex-lover's tawdry account of their affair, which she sold, along with pictures, to a downmarket tabloid for a large sum, he must realise he has done at least one thing right - in refusing to leave his wife, he stuck with the right woman. Now all he can do is pray she sticks with him.

LEVI Strauss doesn't want supermarkets to sell us their jeans cheaply because it claims check-out staff cannot give customers the best advice. But does Levi really think we want to pay £20 more just to have a highly trained sales assistant hovering around asking if everything is all right? Most of us would rather save the money and chuck the jeans in the trolley alongside the baked beans.

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