IT seems that a rather silly woman from London has been causing uproar in Bradford by describing the city as 'vile and nasty'.

Bradford's Lord Mayor Councillor Tony Miller has stepped in by offering a personal invitation to Daily Mail columnist Lynda Lee-Potter to take a tour with him of the city's treasures. That should take about five minutes.

Having worked in the centre of Bradford I completely concur with Miss Lee-Potter's comments, despite the proliferation of hollow public relations campaigns designed to enhance the image of the city, most people avoid it like the plague. I used to while away quiet Sunday morning shifts rat-spotting in the square in front of City Hall from my office window on Sunbridge Road.

Television show presenter Chris Tarrant caused a similar uproar when he claimed that the winner of his 'How Greedy Can You Get' programme could buy Bradford for one million pounds. Generally, Bradford is depressing and I only ever go there because of the Dillons and Waterstones bookshops.

There are a few areas of the city which can compare to the best in Britain but there are also areas which remind visitors of the Third World. The heart of the Victorian city was ripped out in the 1950s and 1960s, by planners with the same arrogant 'I'm right, you're wrong' attitude as they have today.

Some bright spark also decided that the M606 - the only motorway in Britain that ends in a brick wall - could be built on the outskirts of Bradford, thus ruining the environs of the city and causing thousands of traffic jams.

Because Miss Lee-Potter lives in London and shares the same blinkered and prejudiced attitude as the editorial policy as her hopeless paper, it does not mean that her observations about Bradford are not true.

Saltaire is a marvellous place to visit, but it is the product of the vision and dynamism of one man rather than the collective lunacy emanating from thousands of council committees.

Little Germany is also interesting from an architectural point of view. It is also very clean because no-one ever goes there.

Does anyone remember the 'Bradford's Bouncing Back' publicity campaign? As usual, it consisted of nothing more than a pile of public relations hot air without the slightest basis in concrete reality.

As a result Bradford didn't bounce back, it continued on its inexorable downward spiral into a complete dump.

Further evidence has emerged to reinforce my earlier convictions that this country has now been taken over by vast armies of bossy, tax-payer funded, officials who want to regulate every aspect of our lives.

I heard on the radio last week that Health Department officials were advising people not to try for a millennium baby at the weekend. They explained that there would not be enough midwives and medical staff to cope with the expected explosion of births on January 1, 2000.

I really can't believe it. Not content with telling us what to eat, how much we can smoke or drink, and whether we can sit on the couch instead of jogging around foolishly, they are now telling us when we can have sex. I hope everyone who wanted to try for a baby last weekend did so, just to confound Tony Blair's paper pushing, useless self-serving bunch of state funded busybodies.

And just in case it didn't work why not try for a baby again this weekend? I'm sure the thought of all those heartless bureaucrats wringing their hands in despair will work wonders for your libido.

I would like to offer a little piece of advice for those readers who want to avoid stress. It doesn't involve any of the pseudo-Eastern mystic mumbo-jumbo that seems to be fashionable among the middle classes nowadays.

Nothing in life is as stressful as the excruciating ten-day period between receiving the latest edition of the CD or book club magazine and the deadline for sending the slip back stating 'NO' you don't want the Editor's Choice this month.

Those clever people who run book and CD clubs know full well you will forget to send the envelope back, thus ensuring a CD or book you don't want will arrive on the doorstep in the next week or so. Obviously, no-one can be bothered to re-pack the unwanted item and take it back to the Post Office, spending a fortune on postage to return it, one just sends off a cheque to buy it which is much simpler.

By these methods book and CD club owners make a fortune while our homes gradually fill up with books no-one has ever read and CDs no-one will ever listen to.

After suffering for years under the oppressive yoke of the Editor's Choice of the month I have resolved never to join a book club again. I will never again suffer the stress of discovering the forgotten book club envelope, hiding at the bottom of my briefcase, exactly nine-and-a-half days after receiving it.

l The views in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of the newspaper.

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