Well, aren't we lucky not to have servants? Yes, I know it's a struggle having to run our own baths, open our own doors, make our own tea and - gosh - expecting our teenage sons to buy their own porn mags, but sometimes it might just be worth the effort.

Butlers, it seems are a bit of a mixed blessing.

And not just butlers.

When you have staff, you are immediately making yourself vulnerable. Especially live-in staff. The more staff you have, the more vulnerable you become. Tricky if you're a royal with all those palaces to dust and all those unwanted gifts to be sold off.

Tricky business sharing your home with other people, especially when you're paying them to be there. However friendly and easy going you might seem to be, they always have the upper hand. You might be able to sack them. But they can go to the Press.

And many more are. Or to industrial tribunals. They seem to have replaced divorce courts as a wonderful breeding ground of people's pettiness with each other. Staff and employers seem to live in suffocating closeness. The sort of closeness that most of us would find hard to bear unless it's our very closest immediate family - not a total stranger you pay to be there.

And, inevitably, familiarity too often breeds contempt.

So from Lady Archer's secretary we hear scornfully about the birthday treat of a half glass of flat champagne. From a former housekeeper with the Westminsters we hear how the Duchess would be furious if there was a tiny crease in her monogrammed pillow cases.

The Blairs' former nanny was gagged before she had a chance to tell us anything interesting. Hollywood stars tie their staff up into dreadfully complicated contracts. And rich New York quaked when two women published The Nanny Diaries last year - the real inside story of how top people treat their children, and their staff.

I bet even the perfect Jeeves sometimes shimmered down to his butlers' club and had a few disparaging words to say about Bertie Wooster.

So, it must be nice to have someone always at hand to do your bidding, run errands, look after the children. But as you cook your own supper, shout at your children, row with your husband, be grateful.

At least you're doing it in private. And for many of the rich and famous, that's a luxury they can no longer buy.

I'LL say one thing for Paul Burrell - at least he's pushed Ulrika off the front pages.

SO there might be tax breaks for people who employ nannies to look after their children. Fair enough. But what about at the other end of the scale?

There are many middle-aged people, working full-time, coping with teenagers and at the same time looking after elderly relatives.

They can be as demanding and time-consuming as children and often, sadly, without the charm or the thought that the burden will get easier.

The population is ageing. More of us will have to care for elderly parents - or be cared for ourselves.

Let's get those tax breaks sorted while we've still got all our marbles.

MIDDLESBROUGH travel firm Siesta Travel Europe is threatening to ban unreasonable and unfair holidaymakers who are determined not to enjoy themselves.

Quite right. Because haven't we all met them?

They're the ones who find something to moan about before they've even got as far as the check in desk. And once they hit their resort, they really get into gear. The sun is too hot/not hot enough/ The resorts is too quiet/noisy./ The hotel too big/too small. And every item of food is poked suspiciously while they whine on in that awful depressing tone.

Travellers like that are so busy finding fault that they never have time to enjoy the good things and carry their own little cloud of nit-picking misery around with them.

They need to be reminded of the nursery rhyme "Come with a good will or don't come at all." - not with Siesta Travel, anyway. Or any holiday I'm on.

The classic was a woman in the airport lounge in Dublin who looked exactly like Les Dawson, sitting, grimfaced with a mouth like a steel trap, clutching her handbag in front of her.

"Have you had enjoyed your stay in Ireland?" asked one of the staff .

"No," snapped the steel trap.

"Oh I'm sorry about that. So what was the matter?"

"It was very Irish."

And even the Irish had no answer to that one.

Conkers, I am glad to say, are still being collected. Shirley Brown of Darlington has a conker tree near her house. "Heaven for grandsons visiting over half term, who collected buckets full. They took the prize specimens home with them and have left the rest in our garage - where they replaced the bucketful they collected last year."

Somewhere, I still have a shrivelled conker collected in Italy over 30 years ago. And J. Pearson of Shildon has seen plenty of children collecting them - and also still has some has some gathered many years ago.

Mrs G Hutchinson of Darlington goes one better. She has a miniature chestnut tree, grown from one of her children's conkers. "It's now about four foot high, too big for the pot. We can't plant it in our small garden, But what do we do with it?" she asks. "Can we just go and plant a chestnut tree in open country?"

I don't know. Can she?