But when it disappeared after only a few days, he began to wonder – had the dreaded PC gang been at work again and demanded its immediate removal on the spurious grounds it was causing offence?

Or had it simply been purchased by someone who, like him, lives in the real world and can remember times when children played with dolls like the one on display and its colour did not matter one iota.

Mr Pendle sincerely hopes it is the latter – to allow the "nothing better to do with their time" meddlers to interfere and make mischief in this way really would be too much.


MUCH is being made of the Phoenix space probe which landed on Mars the other week and gave us all the opportunity to again ask the age-old question – "Is there anybody out there?"

Yet the totally unremarkable pictures of the Red Planet's barren landscape sent back to Earth left Mr Pendle unimpressed.

What else did NASA scientists expect them to show?

And what if the probe detects signs of water once having been under the surface near the Martian North Pole? What then?

Will millions of dollars more be wasted on meaningless tests to see if some form of primitive life once existed there, the results of which will have no effect on people back here on Earth and will only serve to satisfy the curiosity of astronomers and NASA itself?

As Jeff Wayne said in his hit musical "The War of the Worlds", the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one.

And the chances of Phoenix or any future probe finding any life on the planet are probably something even more extreme – so why all the fuss?


THE domestic football season may well be over, but our television screens will still be filled with "the beautiful game" throughout this month.

For despite the fact no home countries have qualified for the European Championship finals, the competition will receive blanket coverage over the next three weeks with every match being shown live on BBC or ITV.

Why? Is anyone remotely interested in a competition involving 16 foreign countries?

Mr Pendle certainly isn't for one.

The thought of watching tomorrow's offerings (Switzerland versus the Czech Republic and Portugal versus Turkey) hardly has him tingling with anticipation – and, as the kick-off draws nearer, he has yet to come across anyone who is.