With oil prices rising rapidly, could this spell the end of people's daily commuting hell?

MAYBE we should all live over the shop. The Queen does, the Prime Minister does. So do all farmers, most vicars, many small shopkeepers and those of us who work from home. My daily commute consists of picking my mug of coffee from the kitchen worktop and walking three yards to the computer. Sorry to sound smug, but it saves a fortune in petrol - and time.

Some of my neighbours meanwhile, start the day trekking off in all directions - up to Newcastle, down to Leeds, across to Teesside. One goes to London twice a week. One goes to Dubai, but not, to be fair, every day.

The idea of living near your work now sounds hopelessly old-fashioned. But not that long ago we all did it. Even coal barons built their mansions within sight of the tips and pitheads, and industrialists often lived in the same smog and smuts as their workers.

Now it's nothing to have a two-hour commute. Property supplements advertise York as easy commuting for London.

Is the world mad?

Yes, I know, there's the argument about two-career families, affordability, lifestyle, schools for the children, etc. But then it can't do much for family lifestyle to have one or both frazzled parents arriving home just in time for bed.

But if the price of petrol goes any higher, maybe more of us will have to re-think.

There must come a point when the price of transport, the hassle of commuting, the sheer bloody misery and expense of it, must outweigh everything else. And as diesel goes over £1.30 a litre, that might be sooner rather than later.

Either more of us could work from home - and many more could, if only for one or two days a week. Not, I grant you, an option for surgeons, sales assistants or teachers but still, quite a few people could. Or we could live nearer to our work. Even in the same town would be a start. It could mean a huge reduction in the traffic on our roads, a better chance of family life and revitalised communities, if people no longer left before dawn and returned after dark.

For most of their working lives, my parents walked to work. What's more, they walked home for lunch too - so even saved on expensive sandwiches or pub lunches. Bit tricky to do if you work in one place and live 50 or more miles away.

They even had plenty of time for golf on long summer evenings.

Living near your work saves time, money and an awful lot of stress. Though maybe, just at the moment, Gordon Brown doesn't see it quite like that.

A SEVEN year old girl starves to death.

Her five brothers and sisters were seriously neglected and never seen playing outside. Still think we don't need nosy neighbours?

CONGRATULATIONS to Joe and Ann Davison of West Rainton on their £60,000 bingo win. Even bigger congratulations on their decision to share with friends Nancy and Peter Stephenson - in honour of an agreement made 30 years ago.

When so many big wins have split families and ruined friendships as everyone tries to keep or grab as much as possible, it makes a very reassuring change to hear of such happy stories.

THE Government is considering plans to give each of us our own carbon allowance that we can use or buy or sell during our lifetime. An excellent idea in principle and absolutely hopeless in practice.

For as with all such complicated government schemes, we know it will cost a fortune, never work properly and produce far more hot air than it will ever save.

GOSH, how we laughed at Mary Whitehouse - whose story is told tonight in Filth on BBC2 - and her crusade against the rising tide of filth in television. Back in the 60s and 70s we thought she was the silliest, daftest little woman, totally lacking a sense of humour and out of touch with the modern world. She also seemed to lack a sense of proportion and was as liable to get as upset by the word "bum" as by a depiction of homosexual rape. And yet...

Even the most liberal and broad-minded of us must sometimes have just a little twinge... a small intake of breath... a "Can they really say/show that on television?"

and "Do I really want to see this?" moment.

When you see what television can come to once all the barriers are down, then - though I never thought I'd admit it - Mary Whitehouse might not have been right, but she might, just, have had a point.

Maybe we should have stopped laughing so loud and listened a little instead.