TALK about mental! Here we have our elected representatives ensconced with a head shrink and being asked about what stuff they associate with Lancashire - hotpot, says one - as County Hall chiefs strive for an emblem that clicks with folk.

Yet out in the real world hundreds of elderly folk are in dread of being chucked out of dozens of care homes by this lot!

Meantime, another dollop of reality - the sort of stuff ordinary people are concerned about - is delivered by Burnley's new mayor. The state of Manchester Road, one of the town's main arteries, is worse than ones he came across in Mombasa in third world Africa, he says. But Lancashire County Council won't mend it.

But what it will attend to after spending £6,000 of council officers' time and £1,000 on hiring consultants, including a psychiatrist, is changing the county council's traditional Tudor red rose emblem for a wilting one that looks like a primary school kid's potato print.

Just what sort of priorities do these geezers have? The roads are falling apart and elderly folk are being kept in prolonged suspense over whether the place where they live will be shut down and they are asking the council's 35,000 staff to draw a new insignia and having a shrink probe what Lancashire brings to people's minds!

Just what is the reason for this ludicrous exercise? Well, they say, many people don't associate the services they receive from Lancashire with the county council.

Stuff the heritage that said the Tudor rose was good enough for Lancashire for eight centuries -- these county councillors know what's best for us.

This is just change for change's sake. After all, who gives a monkey's whether or not we know where our council services come from? All that matters is how good they are.