SOMETIMES I wake up convinced that during the night I have been teleported to a TV news studio for the terminally bewildered somewhere on the planet Zog. That's the sort of thing that reading about do-it-yourself brain surgery does to me.

When it comes to news, I'm a traditionalist who prefers the stuff that illuminates our sad little lives, like presidents with zipper problems, how to marry a phony millionaire and frying grandmothers in the Texas hot-squat. Just call me a sentimental old softie.

Accepting, as I do, that human nature is a bit like a stick of licorice - ropy, rather twisted, quite sticky and prone to leaving a wretched taste in the mouth - these things I can comprehend. I'm not as comfortable with the idea that drilling holes in one's own skull can make you more alert and attentive.

Or, for that matter, that it is acceptable to dispatch a Welshman through the Gaelic Pearly Gates provided you do it with a crossbow on a Sunday, or that Goliath might have turned David into dog food if he had been wearing glasses, or that government secrets in Britain are being faxed to a baffled shopkeeper at a corner store in rural Cornwall.

Between the news columns about Dubyah versus Top Gun McCain, can Hillary speak enough Yankee to fool the spawn of Tammany Hall and whether potting an unarmed suspect with 41 bullets is a sufficient display of self-defense, there are tidbits of evidence that, given two less IQ points, a fair number of people on this planet would be trees.

Which brings us quite naturally to Heather Perry, a DIY devotee with a difference. This British lass was suffering from depression, but whereas most folk would have sought solace in the Prozac bottle, she reached for the drill and promptly went to work ventilating her own skull. To let out the demons, you see.

The result was a hole slightly less than an inch wide and a half-inch deep. And it's there to stay, a permanent release valve for the pressures she claims build up in her brain. (The ancient Egyptians did this sort of thing, and went on to build pyramids and the Sphinx, and nobody to this day knows quite why.)

"I know what I've done sounds totally horrific, and most people will think it is extremely dangerous," says Heather, in an understatement that ranks right up there with the time Ham, Shem and Japeth told Noah, "Hey, Dad, it's starting to drizzle outside."

Whatever, she still insists," I generally feel better, and there's definitely more mental clarity." Right. But I can't help but wonder what happens when she sticks her head under the hairdryer. Meanwhile, pass the Valium.

All the news that's fit or otherwise to print also advises me that any male with Welsh blood in him would best steer clear of Hereford, England. It seems there's been a law on the books for 1,000 years that gives the English the perfect right to slaughter any Welshman (women apparently being exempt, in an early form of sex discrimination) who sets foot in the town.

This ancient by-law does have a few provisos. Terminating Welshmen with extreme prejudice is legal only if you do it in Hereford's Cathedral Close, on a Sunday, using a longbow and shooting from a distance of exactly 12 yards. Otherwise you risk being hanged, drawn and quartered, and believe me, you really don't want to know about that.

"The law does exist," insists Sue Embery, of the Hereford Cathedral Trust. "It is actually part of the original documents which are held in the town hall."

That's as may be, but you've got to wonder what event, or rush of blood to the brain, prompted such bizarre laws in the first place. Maybe the town's politicos had been drilling holes in each other's skulls as a pastime.

Law books around the world are full of this sort of thing. Some are easily explained, such as the law that one member of the legislature in a Midwest state managed to get passed in the late 19th century, officially rounding off the value of pi - 3.1415... ad infinitum - to an even 3. Seems his daughter was failing high school geometry.

Others are less so, such as the law that still hangs around in the statutes of the state of Alabama, making it punishable by death to sprinkle salt on railway tracks. Now I wonder what brought THAT on...?

But I digress. The theme was weird news, among which was the item purporting to explain the biggest upset of all time: David 1 Goliath 0. Professor Vladimir Berginer, of Israel's Ben-Gurion University, reckons that the big fellow needed specs.

The good professor figures that at 9 foot 10 inches tall - New York Knicks material if ever there was - Goliath was probably suffering from acromegaly, a disease of the pituitary gland that can put pressure on the optic nerves and affect vision. In short, David probably blind-sided him with the slingshot, and Goliath never saw it coming.

The world seems to be getting wackier, and computers are no help. In Cornwall, down in the southwest corner of England, Ron Hooper owns and runs Ron's General Store. For some reason, the British government's computers have singled out this poor soul for special attention by faxing him reams of confidential immigration documents.

The faxes include 21-page forms containing addresses, marriage histories, employment prospects, credit card details and criminal records of scores of people trying to get into the country. Ron calls it "a pain in the backside." The Home Office says it, too, wonders what's going wrong, and Hooper's fax paper bill mounts.

And there's the airport X-ray machine that failed to detect the flock of chickens that a family of four had packed into their luggage as they set off on their vacation, and . . . well, you get the idea.

Tuning in the news these days evokes a sense of fascination not unlike that of watching a particularly gory traffic accident in the parking lot outside Fawlty Towers. It's all a bit much for my head. Pass me the Prozac, Heather, and the drill when you're finished.

Thought for the Week: Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.

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