THERE was only one positive point about the violent and tragic events in Genoa last weekend, said our lunch guest on Sunday. It kept Jeffrey Archer off the front page of his morning paper.

As I'd started last Friday's daily paper at page 8 to avoid the whole Archer farrago, I had to agree.

Fortunately, few demos are on the Genoa scale and many of the majority don't even merit a paragraph on an inside page, no doubt on the "no wrecks and nobody drownded" principle which led Albert Ramsbottom to find the seaside so boring that he went to find a lion to tease.

One small, obviously too-quiet, demonstration spotted by a friend visiting London didn't warrant a mention, as far as I could see, and it's just as well.

It was an appeal for all women to go on strike for a day next spring in support of wages for housework.

If you're getting ready to drop your duster, raise your coffee mug and drink to the cause, hang on a tick. Thinking things through has fallen out of fashion everywhere from national government to parish councils, but here's a case where it's vital.

We've all had our teeth set on their most painful edge by the question: "Do you work or are you just a housewife?" implying that, even if we are managing director, financial executive, chef, nanny and general dogsbody all rolled into one, only paid work really counts. "Wages for housework" is a good rallying call.

What is really meant is making it financially possible for mothers who wish to do so to stay at home with their children. I'm all for that. Writing out a shopping list, estimating the cost and crossing out something non-vital was no fun at all.

Unfortunately, I think the wages of housework is chaos.

The framework for such a system would look like a Heath Robinson construction, except that his designs did actually work and this would collapse under the weight of its own bureaucracy.

Rules, eligibility, claim forms, appeals, investigations - and the EC would want to shove its oar in - a whole new colony of civil servants would be established at enormous expense to push paper and tangle red tape.

Who would get the wages? Full-time housewives only? The same housework is done by women working part-time around children and elderly parents, and by single mums in full-time paid work. What about househusbands and single dads? What about the full-time housewife with commission from running a mail-order catalogue or selling make-up to her friends? Will that be deducted from her wages, if she's honest enough to declare it?

Then there's health and safety. If the home is the site of paid work, checks could be brought in for, say, electrical safety or storage of "substances hazardous to health" (like bleach).

Wages imply a regular amount and standard of work. Heaven help a good many of us if we had to account for 37 hours' housework a week and have our dust level assessed.

There must be a better way. I'd raise child benefit and relate it to household income - but I haven't thought that through yet