IT was fitting that the art critic and professional southern snob Brian Sewell was taken on a tour of Tyneside by Chris Donald, the creator of Viz comic, this week.

Because the haughty, plummy-voiced Sewell, who claims the Millennium Bridge is "like an old-fashioned egg-slicer" and the Angel of the North a "badly engineered totem" is like a brilliant Viz creation come to life.

Snooty Sewell - He's So Uncooool would make a hilarious strip cartoon. And it wouldn't even take much imagination. Po-faced Sewell thinks culture is wasted on people in the North, in fact on everyone outside London.

And all his recent pronouncements, from his arrival at Newcastle Station: "It's very Eastern European. Sort of the outskirts of Zagreb," to his disdainful description of the city itself: "pretty hideous" are perfectly in character.

In his strip cartoon, he could travel all over the country, giving his unique opinions on everything from Stonehenge: "a ghastly pile of common rubble, totally inconvenient for London" to Canterbury Cathedral: "a vulgar iced meringue, and not even close to one of the capital's main underground stations".

No one should make the mistake of taking him seriously. Sewell loves being at the centre of controversy and by coming up to face the people of the North-East, after all he's said, he has proved he has a sense of fun, not to mention nerve.

He's wasted as an art critic on a serious broadsheet newspaper. Come on Viz, give him a job.

ONE of Britain's biggest pub chains is considering banning customers who swear. JD Wetherspoon, which has 20 pubs in the North-East, has already introduced a partial smoking ban. The company says all-day opening has led to groups of people getting drunk and behaving rowdily. And does that really surprise them? The company says it doesn't want to offend families with young children. Has it considered banning them? Otherwise, I fear, the next step for Wetherspoon will be to ban alcohol altogether and be done with it.

HUNDREDS of birdwatchers nearly missed a rare species of bird in Britain this week because it was first spotted by a woman and her report was ignored by the male chauvinists of the twitching world. When a man confirmed the sighting several hours later, thousands of enthusiasts flocked to the reserve. But I have seen this process work in reverse. Much of what the one man - a house-husband - who sits on our local playgroup committee says is ignored, only for his ideas to be repeated by others later on. This sort of selective deafness applies to both sexes.

AS the mother of two boys who play cricket regularly, I can't help wondering who ever decreed the national cricket strip, in our rain-sodden country, should comprise of whites, including long, white trousers guaranteed to end up covered in mud and grass stains - not anyone who ever had to wash the things, that's for sure.

WHITBY'S beauty queen contest faces the axe because, after years of dwindling entries, no competitors have come forward. But Regatta organisers shouldn't worry. Whitby should be proud of all its young girls, who clearly have much better things to do.