In Julian's absence, this week's column is written by Stephen Lewis...

IT is not difficult to sympathise with farmer Roy Handley. In normal times, the sight of a piece of barbed wire or a padlocked gate blocking a public right of way is enough to make me see red.

But these are not normal times. Mr Handley, like so many of his fellow farmers up and down the land, must have been suffering agonies of worry as the weeks grind on and foot and mouth continues to ravage the land.

He says sheep and cows at his farm near Elvington, just outside York, graze on either side of a lane known locally as Gypsy Wood Lane.

After his requests to dog-walkers not to walk up the lane went unheeded the farmer, fearing for his livestock and his livelihood, blocked it with a seven-bar gate attached to fence posts with chains and padlocks.

It is quite understandable that he did so, even though Gypsy Wood Lane is a public highway. The desperation he and so many other farmers feel is obvious in his words to the City of York Council officials who came to remove the gate: "When 600 of my sheep get foot and mouth, I'll call you to come and watch them being killed."

From the bottom of my heart, I hope that day never arrives - and that Mr Handley never has to witness the slaughter of his livestock.

I would even go so far as to say I wish that walkers would voluntarily give Gypsy Wood Lane a wide birth.

But despite my sympathy, council officials were right to take the action they did in unblocking the lane.

Farmers taking the law into their own hands is not the answer to the dreadful blight of foot and mouth. That way lies only chaos.

It's up to the Government and MAFF - listening to what farmers have to say and working in co-operation with them - to bring this disease under control. Until then, farmers such as Mr Handley need to be reassured that if their livestock does have to be destroyed, they will be fully and quickly compensated - not just for the market value of their lost animals, but for the cost of building up replacement flocks.

AT last, a British export of whichto be proud. I don't know whether it's the gimlet eyes, the severe black suit, the glacial expression or the withering put-downs, but the Americans have taken our very own Anne Robinson to their hearts.

The Weakest Link soared straight to the top of the ratings in the USA when the first edition was aired on Tuesday night - beating even the rival British export Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

My sincere wish is that The Weakest Link will be such a success over there that Robinson will be tempted to leave these shores for good.

Her supercilious face has been annoying me for years, glimpsed in the instant before I could reach for the 'off' button whenever I stumbled across Watchdog by accident while idly channel hopping.

Watchdog is supposed to be the people's champion - and so it probably is. But there has been many a time when, faced by Robinson's patronising features staring at me from the small screen, my sympathies have lain firmly with the purveyor of dodgy merchandise or services she has been exposing for our benefit.

Robinson has the knack of making the viewer feel as though they are in receipt of charity - hers - and should be grateful for the fact she has deigned to help.

With the advent of The Weakest Link suddenly that steely gaze was skewering hapless contestants on prime time TV.

They are all consenting adults, so that is OK. But if the Americans are willing to pay Britain's rudest woman millions to go over there, I just wish they would do the job properly - and ask her to stay.