OF course we parents of school age children should be on our knees thanking the charismatic TV chef Jamie Oliver for his passionate crusade against the fatty, reconstituted gloop and stodge served up as dinner in many of our schools.

His TV programme has fired the nation's anger, encouraged us to demand change and is already making a difference. And he is right. But school meals are just part of the problem.

Oliver found that in one primary school, children didn't recognise common vegetables but knew all the fast food chain logos like Domino pizzas, McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Some of the children's favourite meals included Pot Noodle snacks.

None of this came from school. This is what their parents are giving them at home. I can't help being reminded of celebrity chef Raymond Blanc's impassioned outburst a few years ago when he said cooking should be an act of love but that what we serve our children in Britain is so often an act of hate.

We all buy and eat more convenience foods than our parents did. Just this week, a survey revealed one of the most popular items in our supermarket trolleys is processed chicken nuggets, one of the foods Oliver regards as particularly revolting. But it is easier to go into school canteens and find someone to blame for our children's poor diets than it is to rummage about in shopping baskets and fridges up and down the country and confront parents with what they are doing to their own children's health.

Jamie Oliver has highlighted one very important aspect of a national diet scandal. But school dinners are just the beginning. I am sure I am not the only parent who, having been inspired by Jamie over the past few weeks, has been cooking many more proper meals from scratch in my own kitchen. A good diet, like charity, has to begin at home.

LIKE most viewers of a certain age, I can't wait for the new Doctor Who, which returns to our TV screens on Saturday after a 16-year absence.

The writer, Russell T Davies, has a great track record, as does the actor Christopher Eccleston, who stars as the eponymous time lord. So I am sure that what I will see from my position behind the sofa will be sparkling.

But I can't help feeling a little guilty. Our generation is constantly serving up regurgitated slices of our own childhood to the next generation. Everything, from films of Thunderbirds and The Magic Roundabout to remakes of old children's classics like Bill and Ben and a host of TV pundit programmes about how we all love everything about the Seventies and Eighties, must leave today's youngsters wondering if they'll ever have a popular culture they can call their own. Are we so self-centred we expect them to relive our childhoods all over again? Perhaps we should find something better to do. Grow up, perhaps.

DECLAN Donnelly, the co-star of Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, says he loves going out in the North-East because everything is so much more relaxed and laid back than in London. But if he really likes the quiet life, it probably wasn't wise to add that, since splitting from his long-term girlfriend, he would love to meet a Newcastle girl and settle down again. Can't you just picture the Benny Hill-style chase, with Dec pursued by a long line of Geordie lasses, next time he visits the Bigg Market?