JUST how low downfallen celebrities will stoop to in order to earn a crust was demonstrated long ago by Burnley showman Luke Gannon when he had the defrocked dirty old Rector of Stiffkey, in Norfolk, whose murky mission had been unholy communion with prostitutes in London, fasting in a barrel on Blackpool's promenade for the amusement of the gawping public in the 1930s.

Now, for the delight of the prurient of the present generation, TV programme-makers have come up with Posh Nosh, starring ex-MP Neil Hamilton, who was brought down by allegations of sleaze, and his so-called wife-from-hell Christine.

Both of them, of course, are also currently appearing in a libel action against Harrod's boss Mohamed Al Fayed over claims that the ousted MP took bribes in return for asking parliamentary questions.

The pilot for this TV programme, we are told, features the pair - he in a striped blazer, polka-dot bow tie and straw boater - descending on the council bungalow of an 11-strong family of benefit claimants in order to educate them in haute cuisine and fine wines.

Side-orders on this menu include the wife of the unemployed husband going on about her "boob job" and their 18-year-old daughter, another beneficiary of plastic surgery, showing the visitors topless photographs of herself.

How darned desperate can you get - when you are reduced to acting the goat in such dire drivel as this?

It may be a long way from free dinners at the Ritz in Paris, but it is also a million miles away from self-respect.

Have they no shame?

Or is it, as the sleaze allegations had it, that they never had anyway?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.