THERE'S been a lot of outrage at the new Princess Diana Sindy-style doll and I'm not surprised because most of us girls know exactly what happens to Sindy or Barbie when she is taken out of the toy box.>

Midweek columnist Karen Hoy does a bit of Straight Talking

Why Diana doll is so distasteful

THERE'S been a lot of outrage at the new Princess Diana Sindy-style doll and I'm not surprised because most of us girls know exactly what happens to Sindy or Barbie when she is taken out of the toy box.

Poor old Sindy would be dragged out of my toybox, stripped and shoved into bed with my brother's anatomically incorrect Action Man. And I can tell manufacturers that's what most children get up to with their dolls.

They cut their hair and bury them in the garden and force them into all sorts of compromising situations.

One of my colleagues told me that only recently she discovered that her eight-year-old had bound Sindy's hands and feet and tied Sindy on her back, facing backwards on Sindy's toy horse, wearing a psychedelic swimsuit.

The poor old Diana doll will be forced into all sorts of children's games, and no doubt there will be some sick children re-creating the crash with the Diana Doll perched inside an Action Man tank or the Sindy sports car.

And no-doubt the Diana doll will be followed by a Dodi doll, or a James Hewitt doll and then there will be all sorts of unsavoury things going on in children's bedrooms.

I am sure the people behind this idea were never children, or average children anyway.

Marry in haste . . .

POOR old Norma Major. Not only did her husband's political career fall apart at the last election, but she now has the worry of her son deciding to get hitched to a 'bird' he only met 12 weeks ago.

I know what my mum would do if I turned up on her doorstep and said I was marrying someone I'd met only three months earlier. She would put me over her knee and knock some sense into me.

From television interviews James seems very immature, with bits of string around his neck like a teenage pop star, while Miss Noble seems like a woman who knows-what-she-wants and how to get it and exudes confidence and experience. James stands next to her like a lovestruck teenager who has just met his pin-up.

But I'm afraid the body language gives it all away, James seems to be hanging onto Miss Noble like a gerbil with its teeth sunk in while she seems much more aloof.

I don't think James will be hanging onto her for much longer, probably not even long enough to make it up the aisle.

Taxing question

I RECEIVED some sort of notice from the tax office last week to be told it had been sent from the Inland Revenue's Triad Centre.

I thought the Triads were Chinese gangs specialising in all sorts of crimes including taking cash from innocent people....perhaps the Inland Revenue has chosen the right name after all.

What a grey day

TAKING a walk through High Wycombe town centre on a sunny day is like someone suddenly switching a light on when you've been sleeping in a darkened room for hours.

Please can someone switch the sun off in the High Street or can the council paint the town red because, with all this grey matter appearing in the town centre, (the spheres and the stone used to pedestrianise the roads) it really is an eyesore.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.