ON his Century FM radio show on Monday morning, Paul "Goffy" Gough likened Ulrika Jonsson to a by-product of the steel-making process.

I got the impression that Goffy was a little embarrassed that the four-letter word slipped out, so I won't dwell on it. But, following her appearance on the previous night's Frank Skinner Show on ITV, Goffy was in tune with what most people were thinking.

On the show, Ulrika had been unnecessarily crude about a supposed relationship with Prince Edward and particularly cruel towards Hunter, who was a Gladiator and her boyfriend. She exposed Hunter to ridicule which was pretty rich given that, as Goffy said, she had for a while hitched her career to his.

However, before Ulrika is condemned too much, we should take a look at her history. She really hit the big time, in terms of news coverage, in 1998 when she was publicly beaten up in Paris by her then boyfriend, footballer Stan Collymore. Nothing excuses violence towards a woman, and Collymore was rightly pilloried.

In fact, it marked the beginning of the end for Collymore. A few months later, he was in a clinic suffering from depression. He quickly ran through a string of second-rate football clubs and now, aged 30, is not playing at all - one of the greatest wasted talents of his generation.

Ulrika has since run through a string of boyfriends and husbands, and now has two children, the youngest of which was born with a serious heart condition.

Just as it is possible to see deep unhappiness as the root cause of Collymore's unforgiveable aggression, so it is possible to see deep frustration as the root cause of Ulrika's unpardonable silliness. Yet the most repulsive aspect of all this is the role of Frank Skinner. Skinner is certainly not in the chatshow league of Parkinson or Aspel.

He clearly had no respect for Ulrika. If he had, he wouldn't have cajoled her into answering childish questions about Prince Edward. But, worst of all, Skinner exploited her. He knew she was at a low ebb, and took advantage of her so that his own show grabbed a few cheap headlines.

In complete contrast, Nicole Kidman was on Parkinson a few weeks ago. Like Ulrika, she has had a torrid time. Her divorce from Tom Cruise has been the most public break-up since Charles and Diana, and even before there were all the innuendoes about whether it was a real marriage.

But, in the last year, she has made two very good films, Moulin Rouge and The Others, and her duet with Robbie Williams, Somethin' Stupid, is a hot tip for the Christmas No 1.

She answered Parkinson's questions with real dignity. Should Ulrika ever recover, both mentally and professionally, she should take some lessons from Nicole.

TALKING of the aberrations of female showbiz stars, what about Cilla Black in her suspenders and light-up crotch on the Royal Variety Show? Terrible. Disgusting. Disgraceful.

Cilla's a national institution, but this was a moment of madness. I always say that we become wiser as we grow older, but I'll have to revise that so it takes into account the occasional brainstorm.