THE real interest of the Ryder Cup is not the skill of the men and their balls but the appearance of their wives.

An analysis of the line-ups of the golf wives yesterday suggested that 12 out of the 13 US wives are blonde (92 per cent), and nine out of 13 European wives are blonde (69 per cent).

This is quite staggering, as only nine per cent of all people are genuine blonde.

So our exclusive analysis went further still, and a panel of the North-East's finest gossips decided how many of these blondes were real. After much bitching, they concluded there was only one genuine blonde in Europe - Marie Fasth, a Swede - and there was just one real blonde in America - Elin Nordegren, Tiger Woods' girlfriend who is also a Swede. This would match the fact that 70 per cent of all haircolourings sold are varieties of blonde .

By strange coincidence, the wives' parades came on the day that the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that natural blondes will be extinct by 2202.

To be born blonde, both sides of a child's grandparents have to carry the blonde gene. As the mousey gene is becoming more and more prevalent, true blonde grandparents are becoming less and less common.

The last blonde will live in Finland, apparently, where there is the world's highest concentration of blondes.

WHO blames bottle blondes for the death of natural blondes. Bottlers are so dazzlingly blonde that stupid men fall for them. This means natural blondes are overlooked and left on the shelf where their genes wither away.

The same research also tells us that men find blondes "gentle and calm with a less threatening aura".

Golfers and gentlemen may prefer blondes, but genetics does not.

ONE of the most intriguing aspects of last weekend's countryside march was the venom and bile aimed at Tony Blair. Mr Blair, for all his faults, is actually a very charming fellow but there were 400,000 people spitting that he was worse than Hitler.

To a point, though, they were right. Hitler was a great animal lover: at the front during the First World War, he kept a small dog called Fuchsl he trained to walk up and down ladders. Fuchsl was stolen in 1917.

When his mistress Geli Raubal shot herself in 1931, Hitler became a vegetarian. So strict was he that he fed his German shepherd dogs a meat-free diet.

Although, after coming to power in 1933 he did turn his attention to other unpleasant matters, he did ban hunting with dogs. The law was put together by Hermann Goering who had a sign in his office saying: "He who tortures animals wounds the feelings of the German people."

Goering, himself a keen huntsman, did allow licensed hunting to remain, as it does today in Germany. To get a licence, you must attend 100 hours of lectures and pass a three-hour exam.

Hitler's love of animals only went so far, though. His favourite Alsatian was called Blondi, a gift from Martin Bormann. In the last days of the war, Hitler, his mistress Eva Braun and Blondi were holed up in the Berlin bunker. Hitler was contemplating suicide, and to see if his cyanide capsules were effective, he tested them on Blondi.

They worked.