IT'S time to join the real world - even when we're on holiday. British diplomats have met officials on the Greek island of Rhodes to discuss the safety of British tourists after a series of rapes in decent weeks. Twenty nine British women were raped in Greece last year, eight in Turkey, seven in Cyprus, 19 in Spain.

Shocking, but not entirely unexpected.

Many of those rape victims could have been behaving sober and sensibly. Even if they weren't, of course all women should be safe wherever they are, whatever they're wearing, whatever they're doing. Just as your valuables should be safe, however little care you take of them.

But if someone left £1,000 in used fivers on the seat of an unlocked car, then you would think they were pretty stupid, wouldn't you? And some of the girls on foreign holidays are pretty stupid too.

We all know that the world isn't as it should be and so we should act accordingly.

Of course, girls don't go on holiday to wear sensible clothes, stay sober and not speak to any lads. But if you're dressed in your tiniest, tightest clothes, been drinking all day and on top of all that, carried away by the sheer novelty of being away from home, then it's easy to see how even the last remaining shreds of common sense are blown to the four winds, somewhere between the all-night club and the beach party.

In some of the holiday resorts the entire atmosphere seems permanently hysterical. Keeping a hold on reality is tricky, but it must be done. If everyone's hyped up, then girls have to take extra care, not less.

If you're drunk and half naked and barely able to stand, you are - in the immortal words of our mothers - asking for trouble. We thought our mothers were really boring when they said that. Now we realise they might have had a point.

If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't stay sober, stay together. At the very least, girls should stick together, look out for one another. Sorry, but a drunk girl on her own has "Rape me" written all over her.

The number of rapes might actually be underestimated because victims are sometimes too drunk to know what's happened to them. Not good news.

We cannot live our lives in constant fear of danger, scared to do anything because something might happen. But there's a middle line. It's called common sense. Even when seriously drunk there is still a tiny voice at the back of the brain saying "This is not a good idea." Listen to it.

The Foreign Office has been moved to tell young women alone in a foreign country not to accept lifts from strangers. Well, I'm sorry, but if the Foreign Office has to tell people the sort of information we should all have absorbed at out mother's knee, then there must be a great many very stupid girls out there.

A spokesman for Abta says that tourists don't want to be told how to behave, "They are adults and don't want to be nannied."

In that case, they can start taking some responsibility for their own actions, and not wandering alone and drunk in skimpy clothes in a foreign country seems a good place to start.

Enjoy your hols.

ANNA Kournikova has always been a favourite with the British - especially with the men.

Now she's had two disasters in two days. First she was pipped into second place in the list of sexiest tennis players, missing out to long-legged Daniela Hantuchova from Slovakia. Then she lost her match on the opening day.

So now she's a double loser - with our love for the underdog, we'll probably love her even more.

TALK about hypocrisy - mortgage lenders have asked for a rise in interest rates to prevent a potentially disastrous collapse of the housing market. We're now borrowing six billion pounds more than last year - a rise of 43 per cent.

And whose fault is that? Largely the mortgage lenders.

For years they limited themselves to loans of three times a joint salary. Now you can get four or five times. They're throwing money at you. So, of course, prices go up. If the mortgage lenders think there's a problem, they are in an ideal position to put it right.

OH dear. Walking through Middlesbrough last Friday morning after the England-Brazil match you could feel the disappointment and misery in the air.

Grown men in England shirts, trailed flags and their feet, and looked just like overgrown and sulking toddlers. Their world had clearly ended

In a bid to cheer them up, I thought, briefly, of saying "Cheer up. It's only a game!" But then I thought better of it.

CONGRATULATIONS to Pauline Hustwick of Scorton. A pensioner who last year had breast cancer, she has come through the gruelling treatment and is saying thank you in a very practical way.

Last month - in between a mound of baking for other charities - she and her daughters Elaine and Fiona did a sponsored walk in the grounds of Kiplin Hall. Altogether it raised £534.

Pauline has handed the money over to the Breast Care unit at the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton to enable them to provide aromatherapy for patients undergoing treatment there.

"You feel so low when you're going through it but the aromatherapy can really give you a boost and help you cope," says Pauline. "The people in the unit are brilliant, work so hard and are so kind that I just wanted to do what I can.

"It's thanks to them I'm here so it only seems right to do what I can."

PRINCE William is a good looking lad who amused himself in a break at a polo match by playing football using dustbins as goal posts. Onlookers were impressed by his skills. The photographs were brilliant, making him seem one of the lads and utterly glamorous and natural at the same time. Bet Tony Blair wishes he'd thought of it first.