AS someone once badly bitten by a dog, I sympathise with the innocent passer-by allegedly attacked by Princess Anne's bull terrier in a park.

There are too many thoughtless dog owners who think no one minds their pets leaping and slobbering all over them because they assume everyone else finds them just as adorable as they do.

"Don't worry, he's a real softie," I have been told countless times as I have recoiled from an ugly, salivating hairy mutt bounding towards me.

This is not the first time one of Princess Anne's dogs has bitten another animal or person. Dogs may be loving and affectionate towards their owners, but they can also behave unpredictably, particularly with strangers. The horrific pictures of badly scarred two-year-old Jade Wardle which appeared in The Northern Echo this week will hopefully have made some of those more selfish dog owners stop and think.

The Labrador-cross that savaged Jade at her home in County Durham, was advertised as good with children and free to a good home when Jade's family took her in just three days before the attack. Its previous owners couldn't believe the dog was capable of doing such a thing. And why doesn't that surprise me? Former Labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley is just one of those devoted dog lovers who has leapt to the Princess's defence this week, calling the dangerous dogs legislation "silly" and urging the person who was bitten to drop the charges.

Surely it's not too much to ask that dog owners keep their animals under control in public. Of course, many dogs won't bite, but how are we to know? And anyway, even if they were toothless and incapable, why should we have to put up with them barking, slavering and jumping all over us? If only someone like Princess Anne could take the lead.

LIKE millions of others, we woke up to the radio news with a start on Saturday morning and wondered if we'd heard correctly. John Major and Edwina Currie? We sat in stunned disbelief, so many illusions shattered. It brought me right back to 1999, when the quirky TV poet Pam Ayres was exposed as the unlikeliest spy in history, having worked undercover for the RAF in the Far East. Then, as now, the world was suddenly no longer as it seemed. It makes you think that anything is possible. Who next? Nothing could shock us now.

AFTER much research, two national surveys have concluded that having a baby is painful and housework makes you depressed. I expect scientists from the department of stating the obvious will be telling us that the sun rises in the east next.

LIZ Hurley has extolled the virtues of single motherhood from the moment she fell pregnant. She always looks stunning and glamorous, tells us baby Damien is the best thing that happened to her and has even cooed over the joys of doing his laundry. But now, five months on, some of the novelty appears to be wearing off. She is complaining to friends that having a baby gets in the way of finding a new boyfriend and she doesn't get out as much as she'd like. "I didn't think my life would turn out like this," she moans. Teenage girls, take note.