DO you believe in the Job Fairy? A lot of very intelligent people do. They're the ones with university degrees and a lot of time on their hands, much of it spent sprawling on their parents' sofas gaining an intimate knowledge of daytime TV because they can't find a job to suit their talents and won't sully their hands on anything else.

Just because they have degrees in business or media studies, they feel they should be running Unilever or editing The Times. Or, at the very least, starting somewhere near the top of the ladder. And they're waiting for someone else to wave the magic wand and make it happen.

Which just proves that they might be very clever but they're not actually very bright.

According to the latest statistics, nearly 40 per cent of graduates are finding it difficult to get graduate level work. Instead, they are having to do much more basic work at much more basic pay. Well tough.

Even worse, many of them are not working at all, preferring to wait for the mythical perfect job rather than get their hands dirty doing something beneath their so called dignity. Pathetic.

True, they might end up working in bars, or as hospital porters or in call centres or as filing clerks. And why not? At least they're earning money, not running up any more debt and are learning a few things a mite more useful than the mid Germanic vowel shift or the development of Shakespeare's imagery - so very useful to me in my subsequent career.

No job is wasted. And nobody should be too proud - or have an inflated idea of their own worth - to accept what's going.

If nothing else, it gets you into the working habit and learning a few more skills - if only how to do the filing and make the tea or be nice to frightened old ladies. Then when you actually know how to do something, other than write essays, you can start looking for a "proper" job.

Graduates have had at least three years of education that has supposed, if nothing else, to have trained them how to think. In which case, they can take a humble job and use it as a starting point for greater glory.

And who knows, if they work very hard, then one day the Job Fairy might just get round to working her magic too.

A THIRTEEN-year-old girl was raped in Middlesbrough at the weekend.

She and her friend had been drinking all evening in town centre bars.

Next time your 13-year-old is out for the night, take the risk of being really fussy and boring, and check that she really is spending the night at a friend's. You might be glad you did. And so, deep down, might she.

WHY is that when we hear about Sven Goran Eriksson's various affairs they all sound pathetic and ridiculous. Yet, the news that David Blunkett has apparently been having an affair for the last two years makes him seem interesting and rather sad?