WE don't know her name. The only picture we've seen is an X-ray of her skull, showing where a bullet shot at point blank range shattered on impact and allowed her to live.

She is the un-named friend of 16-year-old Mary-Ann Leneghan, whose killers were this week convicted for murder. Last year the two girls were abducted, raped, stabbed, tortured by six men. The older girl saw Mary Ann die after being stabbed 40 times. The bullet to the brain was meant to kill her.

But, amazingly, she lived and staggered for help. And even as doctors were treating her gunshot wounds, she was able to give police vital evidence which led to the killers' conviction.

Both girls, said the judge, had their problems. "They were not the sort to be tucked up at home by ten o'clock at night."

But the survivor, still only 19, refused the police offer to sit behind screens in court. Instead, she stood up, faced her attackers and, despite the great emotion involved, gave clear, concise evidence that decided their fate.

Her life before the attack was troubled. Those of us who live safe and ordered lives probably haven't a clue. The ordeal she has been through could have destroyed most of us.

By showing such strength and such courage, this anonymous girl has shown that she has got what it takes to survive. After what she's been through the least we can do is wish her luck for the future.

SO no longer will we be sitting in our slippers at the dining room table, sipping cheap fizzy wine and eating chocolate biscuits.

Instead, we'll be grabbing our surfboards and watching flat panel TV while drinking proper champagne. Sounds good to me.

The change is in the items chosen for the government's "shopping basket" - a selection of food, goods and services chosen to reflect our national buying habits.

Can't say I'll mourn the plunging popularity of the baseball cap, muesli, the garden strimmer or even the small brown sliced loaf - harmless, I would have thought - which have been dropped off the list.

But I'm worried about those chocolate biscuits. Are we really eating fewer of them?

Ah... the survey must have caught us just after Christmas - the week we were all on a diet.

NOW obese children are to be offered stomach stapling on the NHS. I am waiting for a reaction from the NSPCC or Childline, because if that's not cruelty to children, then what is?

And after the stomach stapling, no doubt the children will be able to return to their couch, their computer games and the junk food that got them in that state.

There is no quick-fix answer. Before we can deal with obesity, we have to look at the root causes, which probably means getting junk food out of schools and more sports lessons in.

And if there's any stapling to be done, maybe it should be on the brains of the parents who let their children get so fat in the first place.

Published: ??/??/2004