Why do Brits like bringing up the rear?

PSYCHIC Uri Geller's Millennium column in Friday's Evening Press fully lived up to its weird and wonderful billing. But here's a strange phenomenon that has not yet caught Mr Geller's glassy-eyed gaze. British bottoms are getting bigger. Yet our brains are getting smaller.

It is a frightening trend, and one that is set to rock medical science. Well, it has rocked one scientist at least, namely Professor Stephen Gray of Nottingham Trent University. As far as this column can ascertain, he is Britain's leading bottom boffin.

He set about surveying 8,000 women's rear ends, the sort of job that qualifies him for star billing on Channel 4's Eurotrash. His conclusion: the British female gluteus maximus is maximising.

"Today's bottoms are broader and saggier than they have ever been," says the straight-talking prof.

His fundamental findings emerged in the same week that the winners of Britain's Rear of the Year were announced. This must be our most bizarre national tradition.

Why have a prize for a particular part of the body? And why not the Lifetime Lobe award, or the Back of the Knee Baccalaureate?

The British desire to covet the best posteriors for posterity is ever so slightly disturbing.

What makes matters worse is the fact that the Rear of the Year judges have often flopped when naming the top of the bots. For example, previous women winners include Anita Dobson and Sue Pollard (aaarghh!).

Meanwhile, Brummie comic Frank Skinner took the men's title this year. How's that for a bum choice?

Perhaps these inexplicable judgements are a result of the other physical trait mentioned earlier: our incredible shrinking brains.

There is no medical evidence to prove that our minds are dwindling. But the circumstantial evidence is compelling.

Britons are becoming slower-witted and far easier to fool. Why else would the Evening Press be full of stories about the flourishing black market?

Ten days ago we reported how York trading standards officers had blown a bogus Britannia Bear business wide open. Last Friday bootleg clothes were seized by North Yorkshire officials. And the very next night, we revealed how phoney Teletubbies from Leeds were on sale in York.

In each case, the items were clearly fakes. And anyone buying cheap 'designer' gear from a twitchy bloke in a pub must be more easily duped than Forrest Gump - or quite aware that they're getting knock-off.

Either way, they're stupid. A cheap and nasty toy comes with only one guarantee: that its head will fall off revealing a razor-sharp spike after half an hour in a toddler's hands.

Let's pray that this is temporary insanity brought on by Christmas. If not, we could soon evolve into a race of pin-headed, large-buttocked Vanessa Feltzoids.

OF the names in the news in recent days, I award two a gold star, and dish out two detentions. The gold stars go to film star Kate Winslet and new husband, Ripon man Jim Threapleton.

Instead of jetting to a sun-soaked location for their honeymoon, they chose to holiday in the Yorkshire Dales and the Scottish Highlands. These are two of the most beautiful places on earth and, as the loving couple obviously realise, are far superior to some bland, baking beach.

It's just a pity that the locations offered no protection from the prying eyes of the tabloid photographer.

First detention goes to Blair, T. On his Irish trip he said the first pint he had ever drunk was Guinness. Very nice. But this is the man who would tell a Newcastle crowd his first tipple was a bottle of Broon, and insist that whisky was the drink to a bunch of Scots.

And a final brickbat to Victoria Adams for revealing that fianc David Beckham does all the chores. For goodness sake, woman, hire some help. That's how the service economy works.

30/11/98

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