PAULA Yates will be remembered for being blonde, fluffy and vacuous. She was a consummate attention-seeker and outrageous flirt, renowned for her witty one-liners and show-off style. She liked to be photographed with a rock star on her arm and a baby on her hip. The emotionally-deprived child inside her seemed to be constantly screaming: "Look at me, look at me, love me, love me."

In return, much of the public and the tabloid press loved to hate her. What they hated was the superficial, frivolous blonde image. But, of course, there was much more to Paula Yates than that. I remember her then husband Bob Geldof mentioning in passing, during the course of a lengthy interview, what it was that had inspired him to start off the Live Aid campaign which, apart from saving many thousands of lives in Ethiopia, resulted in him receiving worldwide adulation and an eventual knighthood.

He had come home late from the pub and there was a video on the kitchen table with a note attached which said: "Watch this NOW. We have got to do something about it." Paula was so moved by the news reports from Ethiopia, she taped them and was now urging Bob and his wealthy friends in the music business to raise money.

While Bob was deified, Paula was never given any credit. Not that she looked for it. She was always happy simply to be the blonde on his arm: "He's mine, all mine,"' she said proudly when he was interviewed backstage after the Live Aid concert. All she ever wanted, she claimed, was to be a devoted wife and, most of all, a good mother. Tragically, in the end, she wasn't even that. Few will remember her as the woman who inspired Live Aid. I am sure it hardly even occurred to her. It didn't matter. For as she herself said, her greatest achievement in life was her four beautiful daughters. She clearly wasn't half as empty-headed as she liked to make out.

ORGANISERS of the huge sex exhibition which flopped at Newcastle's Telewest Arena are blaming protestors. Only 3,500 people, instead of the 20,000 expected, turned up to see topless shows, lap dancing and displays of sex toys. Bosses of Xsensual 2000 are now threatening legal action against the Christian Institute in Newcastle to recover their losses. But has it not occurred to them that, without the publicity generated by the Christian Institute protests, only 35 people would have turned up, including their own staff?

TV presenter Lorraine Kelly is said to have become a gay icon after posing for the cover of Boyz magazine. "I can't imagine why men find me so sexy," she says. Since most gay icons are women of a certain age who wear too much make-up, big hair and look like men in drag, I don't think she should take it as a compliment.

MANY people are outraged by the "compensation culture" that has seen the policewoman used in the "honeytrap" plot against Colin Stagg, who was cleared of murdering Rachel Nickell, awarded £100,000 for stress and trauma. After all, wasn't it her job to help solve major crimes, and wasn't she being paid for it?

But there could be worse to come. I caught my boys examining their cuts and bruises yesterday. "Will this make a permanent scar, Mum?", asked the eight-year-old, showing me where he had cut his back after falling out of a tree. "It might do," I replied. "Yesssssss. I can get up to £6,000 if the accident occurred in the last three years," he beamed. "All we have to do is ring Claims Direct," said the seven-year-old, who recently had to have his tongue stitched after splitting it in a fall on the edge of a swimming pool. "And if they're not successful, you don't have to pay them a penny," added the four-year-old, pointing to a graze on his knee. They even knew the telephone number from the advert, played during children's TV, off-by-heart. Selling compensation to a new generation