Have a heart for Muriel

Have a heart and please return the walking stick that you snatched from outside an Atherton pensioner's house.

Mrs Muriel Hatcher, 75, was picking flowers at her Gloucester Street home on Thursday teatime when she stumbled and fell sideways.

As she did so her stick, which had belonged to a relative's mother, flew over the wall.

Mrs Hatcher was helped into the house by a neighbour, who tended cuts to her face, then went outside to retrieve the lightweight stick. It was gone.

The theft took place in a matter of minutes and no-one was spotted in the area.

Whoever picked it up probably decided the old adage finder's keepers would be fitting. It isn't.

I hope they will now have second thoughts and return the stick to the house where they found it. Boys behaving badly A READER returning from the library along Twist Lane was disgusted by the conduct of a gang of lads who were accompanied by just one girl.

She tells me the badly behaved group was making its way towards the town centre, but two stayed behind and one urinated over the front gate of a house near the Red Brick pub.

Then the dirty beasts had the cheek to shout at passers-by for staring at them.

They've got a nerve at any time, but in broad daylight this behaviour is downright scandalous.

Pity the police weren't about to catch them.

On "City Central" on Saturday a cop cuffed a lad round the earhole - an action not unheard of two decades ago.

Of course instead of giving him another belt his dad complained to higher office.

The police chief told the protesting cop it would soon be illegal for his dad to touch him, never mind a policeman.

How true - and how silly. Pregnant and don't we know it IT'S becoming the done thing for trendy young mums-to-be to display their swelling tums, making it blatantly clear to one and all that they're pregnant.

I can't blame them for not covering their bumps in the mumsy, flowing smocks of previous generations, but I do wish they wouldn't expose themselves to all and sundry.

The stars of stage and screen don't look too bad on the pages of newspapers - and in the sunshine it's not too bad.

But I saw a young lass on the market this week in hipsters and crop top and she didn't look the least bit glam. In fact she looked awful.

I hope it's a craze that doesn't catch on locally. STICK TO IT GEORGIE FALLEN footy star George Best is hitting the bottle again .. .but this time it's "The White Stuff ".

He is one of four sports stars taking part in the National Dairy Council's first ever animated TV advertising campaign, featuring Simpson's style cartoons, which starts next week.

From the picture submitted to publicise the long milk campaign Besty doesn't exactly look a good advert for it. Yet he is a good ad for sticking to it.

He has obviously paid the penalty for his life of overindulgence in the other type of bottle, but the animation reminds us of his more fat-faced indulgent days.

It's so sad that such a handsome bloke in his playing days has ended up looking so thin and ravaged.

Let's hope he is a good ambassador for the product and that he is made of the right stuff to stick to it. Dopey - but I could eat him I'M a big fan of Channel 4's Countdown, but is it me, or is Richard Whitely a bit lacking in the brain department?

As host of a word and numbers show he seems to find difficulty with spelling and counting the number of letters in words.

When it comes to numeracy he's a dead loss.

I can't believe a Cambridge grad could be so dopey, but I love him all the same.

He would be on my dinner party list if I had the chance to entertain stars, along with Clive James, Jonathan Woss and the late Les Dawson.

De de de de-de-de-de bong!

Who would be on your dinner party list? Let me know. HEALTH DISASTER I want to see my GP the day I'm ill THE people's consultation on creating an NHS for the 21st century was a bit of a disaster.

Thousands of leaflets with tear off reply slips were sent out far too late to be returned by the deadline date.

However, taking the pulse of public opinion would have been a brilliant idea if enough of us had seen them and had time to respond.

Top priorities for improvement gleaned so far include, obviously, shorter waiting lists, more hospital beds, more staff and better pay.

Personally I'd like to be able to see my GP on the day I am sick - not a week later when I feel better.

And I'd like to see an end to all mixed wards.

There's no way I'd want to be sandwiched between two strange, snoring fellas while being subjected to medical indignities like enemas while feeling at my most vulnerable.

That for me is just not on.

Fortunately in Leigh and Wigan the situation does not now exist except in extensive care - and if you're unfortunate enough to be in there you won't be bothered anyway. AUNTIE'S SUPER SIX THE BBC is getting worse than ITV for ads, especially when it comes to promoting its own programmes.

What is all that twaddle publicising the only six sporting events Auntie has got left?

The major sports stars are all involved. They tell us that the events will make us shout, scream, tremble, laugh, jump up and down, scream blue murder, henceforth, forthwith, from this day forward.

What does it mean?

Euro 2000 over the next two weeks certainly won't do anything for me, but I hope Wimbledon and the Olympics will.

I find the Beeb's coverage far superior to the other manic channels, and I hope it stays that way for a long time to come.