THE new £8.3m Government leaflet being sent to all households telling us what to do in the event of a terrorist attack is reminiscent of the one we all got in the early 1980s when the threat was nuclear.

Then we were told to make a shelter using a table and two doors and put bits of carpet over the windows, none of which would have made a blind bit of difference in the event of a nuclear holocaust. But perhaps it helped a few people sleep better.

This time round the advice - keeping non-perishable food, emergency phone numbers and a torch close to hand - is just as pointless. Terrorists can strike in so many ways, there is no single method of dealing with an attack.

Having hundreds of tins of baked beans, bottles of water and a battery-powered radio safely stashed in the cellar at home would have made no difference to the victims of the Twin Towers or the Tokyo metro attacks.

Most of the Government's advice is commonsense and obvious. But it is what the leaflet doesn't touch upon that is most worrying. Because it raises the spectre of all the things that could possibly go wrong. What do we do if the phone lines are down or the emergency services aren't available, apart from shutting our eyes and hope for the best?

Above all, the Government advises us to "stay calm". It may as well have sent a few Corporal Jones characters running through the streets shouting "Don't panic! Don't panic!" Because if we weren't worried about it before, we are now.

Still, one thing is reassuring. The catchphrase of the campaign is: "Go home, stay in, tune in". Given that we are constantly berated for being a nation of couch potatoes who sit in front of the telly most nights anyway, we could be better prepared for attack than we think.

PERHAPS the Government could produce a useful leaflet on a much more pressing issue - what to wear at the posh open-air picnic concert events in our sorry climate. At Fountains Abbey recently I spent the evening all dressed up under two tartan blankets and a pair of wellies, clutching, not Champagne, but a mug of hot tea. Can't someone design suitable evening wear - glamorous thermal lined outfits with hidden hot water bottles, complete with matching gumboots and sou'westers?

IF Peter Mandelson's £145,000-a-year job as European Commissioner doesn't come off, I'm sure he could get well-paid work as a catalogue model. That's exactly what he looked like, photographed in "yoga" trousers and perfectly ironed T-shirt, as he took his dog Jack for a walk this week. But slightly more worrying was what he said the next day. "Jack is recovering from being photographed so much. He was so upset he didn't do his normal wee-wee." This is the sort of potty talk we normally use for babies. Mr Mandleson is clearly extremely fond of Jack but, when he goes to Brussels, he should avoid talking about his wee-wees and poo-poos with his sophisticated European counterparts.

I CAN'T see the annual wife carrying race planned for Sedgefield Racecourse in August being a big success. The winner receives his wife's weight in beer. But where are they going to find enough women willing to be weighed in public?