WHAT a treat this festive season is for all those who longed for a Christmas in the old-fashioned style. All those images of a Dickensian Christmas are back with us and back for real.

The Prince of Wales's paramour rides to hounds while the common people hunt for a beef bone. And, just as in the days when Tiny Tim brandished his crutch in feeble glee, today's Tiny Tims face the prospect of scratching for money for their walking aid as the new Scrooges of Labour-lost consider cutting disability allowances.

Chestnuts roast on the open fire in the squats, and street vendors ply their wares - crack, amphetamines, E.

The festive warming we feel is global warming, but were there snow we could still turn out our unmarried mothers into it: "Get ye from the door, ye whore, and find a job. Put ye the bairn in the hands of incompetents while ye labour."

Ah, yes. This is the good old-fashioned Christmas we have all been hankering after, isn't it?

YOUNG Bolton businesswoman Sital Raja has finally won the strange battle with motor and aeroplane giant Saab to sell her pickles under her own brand name.

The huge Swedish engineering company pitted its considerable weight against Sital, of the Fletcher Street House of Raja emporium, when she manufactured and sold pickles under the trade name Memsaab and a three-year legal battle lost Sital £12,000 in legal bills.

Saab has now withdrawn the objection and the lass has been awarded the Trade Mark.

The trouble arose because Memsaab (presumably, a version of "Mem-sahib", meaning a married European woman in India) was deemed by the engineering giant to "exploit its corporate identity".

Of course Saab must jealously protect the name which has gained such standing in the industry of road and air transport, but unless Sital is selling her jars of pickles with airbags as standard, it is hard to take the original complaint seriously.

Anyone who could confuse an aircraft and motor manufacturer with a jar of spiced onions shouldn't be taken seriously - and certainly shouldn't be driving.

WHAT on earth is the story behind the alleged "vendetta" against a Bolton pub landlady?

Barbara Fielding, at the City Hotel on Eskrick Street, says she is the victim of a deliberate campaign to get her out of the hotel which she was invited by owners Greenalls to run.

In the six months since Barbara returned, she reckons her life has been made miserable by abusive phone calls late at night; an objection was made to the Licensing Committee; there were allegations of drug problems when she had previously run the pub with her husband, and complaints made about strip shows.

Now then, anyone can object - and should object - to any drug problems they suspect. Strip shows are a matter for the individual. But threatening telephone calls are against the law; they denote a snidey, mean, cowardly attempt to intimidate but retain anonymity.

If anyone has something constructive to say, let them spit it out and put their name to it. Anonymous telephone calls are only made by people not worthy of a name.

PSYCHOLOGIST Dr Sandy Wolfson claims many people "feel trapped" into playing the midweek Lottery out of a "fear of regret" should their Saturday numbers come up in the Wednesday draw.

She revealed the results of her researches with colleague Dr Pam Briggs to the conference of the British Psychological Society.

Do we really need research to tell us that the chance of making fast money is an inducement to buy an extra set of Lottery tickets? For years psychologists - highly educated and not poorly paid in many cases - have been "revealing" facets of our behaviour which anyone with an ounce of nous could tell us.

Their revelations are about as relevant as those of Mystic Meg.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.