I DON'T know about you, but I'm completely brassed off with our TV weather forecasters.

Why? Because despite having some of the world's most advanced tracking systems, they still keep on getting it wrong!

I've had my raincoat on the occasional days the sun has been cracking the flagstones.

And, more often than not, I have been soaked and freezing in a short-sleeved shirt when they have said it's going to be a nice day.

I'm absolutely fed up with the forecasters sickly half-grins.

So, in the firm belief they'll never get it right this summer, I am switching off my TV everytime they appear!

Instead, I have gone back to the good, old fashioned pine cones...

I WAS delighted to hear that a move to ban the elegant horse-driven Landaus from Blackpool's Promenade on Friday's during the Illuminations has been overturned.

They add a really charming, old-fashioned touch to Britain's number one resort and their owners rightly claimed if they were prevented from plying their trade, it could have put them out of business.

Could I suggest that the Council take another look at the situation and ban all motorised traffic from the prom instead and insist that folk actually use the Landaus as their only means of transport?

That way, thousands of sightseers wouldn't be choked to death by engine fumes...

JANE Couch, a boxer, has won a sex discrimination claim to allow a proper licensing system for women stepping into the ring. Her lawyers believe she has now paved the way for other sports women in Britain.

But not in my eyes. The fact the Ms Couch - known as the Fleetwood Assassin - can now get paid for battering someone of the fairer sex to canvas is, to my mind, pretty appalling.

THERE are some really mixed views about the contents of the New Oxford Dictionary of English.

But surely, if children are actually encouraged to use it to help extend their vocabulary - that's half the battle?

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.