BONKERS BARKING CRACKERS; Blundering TV bosses mastermind a mutiny.

With the mass exodus from the BBC, this seems the perfect time for the Boris and Doris Karloff double act from hell - Ann Widdecombe and Michael Howard - to seek employment with the corporation.

After all, when the gruesome twosome were in charge of our prisons, inmates escaped on a daily basis - so who better to preside over the constantly dwindling numbers within the BBC?

Not to mention that their current public slimewrestling contest is perfect low-budget TV entertainment.

In fact, the BBC and Her Majesty's Prisons have an awful lot in common. Both institutions are run by governors, the food is disgusting, homosexuality is rife, everyone inside is obsessed with time, and they both pay pocket money instead of proper wages

As for the inmates (broken men and women who are stripped of all dignity the moment they enter), they spend their lives behind (or in front of) bars and, although they swear that they'll never go back once they leave, they almost always do.

And, of course, most BBC programmes are profoundly criminal, and most BBC employees went stir-crazy years ago.

If you don't believe the entire corporation is stir-crazy, then consider this week's news. The BBC has just spent pounds 1.7 million redesigning its three-letter logo and, loonier still, it has scrapped Mastermind.

One of TV's all-time greats, with a simple but world-beating format, this 25-year-old quiz was still holding its audiences spellbound.

Yet Magnus Magnusson and his famous black chair have been dumped to make way for imbecilic game shows presented by the likes of Gaby Roslin (remember, to qualify as a game show host nowadays, you must be able to shine a torch in through one ear and have the beam emerge undimmed out of the other).

No wonder the BBC's corporate ship is sinking, when the captain is ordering half the crew to jump overboard, and the other half to bail water into the boat.

Anyway, I've never trusted the BBC since the day I realised why the date at the end of its programmes is always written in Roman numerals.

It is so we won't realise that we're actually watching very old repeats.

Throwing up a vintage tip for Webber

There's still time to get to Sotheby's to see the massive wine cellar belonging to Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber, before next week's auction turns him into a massive wine seller.

Even though he's been snubbed yet again by the Proms, there's no doubt that he's Britain's greatest-ever composer (after all, second-raters like Vaughan Williams and Delius were never good enough to become Lords); but I'm not so sure if he's versed in the finer points of etiquette, so here's an essential tip for him.

If you're at a dinner party and you feel the urge to vomit, always make sure that the white wine comes up with the fish.

IF YOU'VE ever read this column and thought "surely this can't be his real job", then you're right. It isn't. I can now reveal that, by day, I'm a stunt criminal, though not many people realise that such a profession even exists.

You see, whenever a dangerous defendant is due for trial and the police don't want to let him out of his cell, they call for me. So, next time you see someone on the evening news with a blanket over his head, stepping out of a security van in handcuffs and being led past a jeering crowd, that'll be me.

After all, TV news must have its pictures and, unlike most criminals, I'm in Equity.

Swing low, sweet apricot

Thanks to Kaye Brister, from Leighton Buzzard, Beds, who's sent me her Betterware catalogue and asks if I've ever seen a fruit hammock before.

As you can see, it's a metal frame covered with netting, costs a ridiculous amount of money, and claims to be the great leap forward for the fruit bowl. Actually, Kaye, I have seen fruits in hammocks before, in San Francisco (although over there the fruits all had peaked caps and moustaches).

This week, I spotted something that took the enamel off my teeth - the PlusTron toothbrush. Apart from wondering why they're called toothbrushes instead of teethbrushes (for years I took them literally, and did one tooth at a time), I was alarmed to learn how this one proposes to clean your molars.

"It's been scientifically developed to help win the war against plaque and tartar" (yes, you remember, that war) and does this "by changing the polarity of your teeth from negative to positive." In other words, it electrocutes your toothypegs.

I'm a bit too long in the tooth to buy one, but maybe you're interested. Bats are supplied but of course, if you want to buy one, you're unlikely to need them, because you're probably bats already.

I

to

seals

Stuck in a traffic jam this week, I found myself looking at the cars around me and wondering: Is there anything sadder than motorists who buy their sense of humour from a joke shop in the high street?

A Seymour Bunz or an "Overtakers Today - Undertaker's Tomorrow" sticker on a rear window is the motoring equivalent of a leper's bell, warning us to avoid the driver at all cost.

As for "funny" numberplates, Jimmy Tarbuck's COM 1C and Paul Daniels' MAG 1C are, frankly, TRAG 1C (and simply indicate that the motorist has no sense of humour and a lot of money).

And lest you think I'm secretly jealous, let me tell you that there's only one personalised number plate I've ever wanted to own, and that's A1 EGO.

Or, of course, I could change my name by deed poll to Mr KUG 10E. Not very dressy but at least it would be honest.

But I have one pet hate - worse even than these - and that's those people who fix stickers reading "I My Dog" to the rear windows of their cars, in a pathetic bid for public approval.

There are only three suitable responses the rest of us can make to such insufferable tweeness - "I My Cat", "I Like To Seals" and "I Don't Give A Damn What You ".

There - at least you can't say I haven't laid my cards on the table.