IT is, I suppose, a logical development from Page 3. It was, perhaps, inevitable in this age of dumbing-down. It seems almost natural when the line between news and entertainment is more blurred than it has ever been.

IT is, I suppose, a logical development from Page 3.

It was, perhaps, inevitable in this age of dumbing-down. It seems almost natural when the line between news and entertainment is more blurred than it has ever been.

A new satellite channel is to bring us newsreaders who strip as they reveal the day's events.

Thank goodness this trend didn't catch on in the days of Reggie Bosanquet and Robert Dougall.

Mind you, I don't imagine there will be many middle-aged men getting their kit off on Get Lucky TV's Naked News, do you?

One of the show-and-tell show's “reporters” is a nubile 27-year-old called Lily Kwan.

She describes her odd job as 'an empowering position' for women. Which in my opinion shows how much grasp she has on reality.

Naked News, a Canadian production, bills itself as “The program with nothing to hide” - but will it really provide warts-and-all coverage?

Will it, for example, report on another Canadian discovery?

Will Miss Kwan tell of the startling research at Hamilton University, where psychologists have proved what men have known and women suspected (or traded on) ever since the Trojan war. Show a man a pretty woman and his capacity for rational thought is impaired.

I hope the educational value to the students of carrying out this research was greater than the value of their findings. If not, it was surely time and money wasted. Although I suppose it might have been fun.

You could try a similar experiment yourselves when Naked News launches on Monday night. Sit your bloke in front of the screen, let him watch the whole programme, then quiz him to find out how much he has really learned about the day's events.

TONY Dinning might be just what Ipswich Town need to fill their midfield gap. I don't know - I've never seen the fellow play, though I know a Stockport fan who thought highly of him when he was there.

It's a sign of how football's times are changing, though, when the Wigan manager can loan a player out, then say: "Tony wants first-team football and has more chance of that at Ipswich than here."

In other words, Paul Jewell reckons he has a stronger squad than Ipswich.

Yup, that's the Wigan who were playing non-league football when Town won the FA Cup. The same Wigan who were in Division Four when Bobby Robson's Blues won the UEFA Cup. The same Wigan, indeed, who were still two divisions below Ipswich as recently as 2002.

How are the mighty fallen. Still, it could be worse. One of the four teams who finished above Town in the Premiership in 2001 was Leeds. And look at the state they're in now.

NEWS that a serial rapist serving a life sentence had won £7million on the Lottery was startling.

But it wasn't half as shocking as the home secretary's reaction.

David Blunkett admitted a convict had as much right to play and win the Lottery as anyone else. But he was also in a hurry to promise he wouldn't let it happen again.

Did Mr Blunkett give a damn about prisoners' Lottery rights last week?

Of course he didn't. It hadn't been in the tabloids then.