A SON OF THE SOIL I most certainly am not, but if it spares me the risk of instant death by electrocution, then I'll try almost anything. "Almost," because gardening may be an exception. That, it seems, may be a choice of being lynched by the neighbors or hauled away by the men in white with the butterfly nets.

Life, alas, is an everlasting ride on a yo-yo string between the Devil and the deep blue. Nothing is as it seems, not even raising a few carrots or busy lizzies or phlox (whatever that might be). Far from being a pastoral pastime, you apparently need a degree in musicology before you are qualified to drop the first seed into a pile of smelly dirt.

This whole quandary started with the first idiot robin's croak of spring, as it may well yet do if I get my hands on its scrawny throat. For this was the signal for my wife Elizabeth to eye my peaceful idleness as so much raw material to be converted into energy for "doing something useful."

Springtime, as far as I am concerned, is an occasion for plotting the trajectory of baseballs (America) or cricket balls (England), or watching from a warm bed thousands of Marathon fools outside splashing their way through 26 miles 385 yards of London rain, or debating the merits of Quantum Theory with my cat Currant Bun.

It definitely is not a time for, gah, "doing something useful." Certainly not in the twilight years of a life now happily devoted to writing news items about why smoking causes men's naughty bits to go soft, and why coyotes are not best pets for the ankle biters, and kitten heels (don't ask) - and columns about the pleasures of lazy springs.

Wives don't think in abstract terms like lazing about. They think in terms of numbers and letters - numbers like how many faucets are dripping rust stains down sinks and tubs and vacuum cleaners that no longer vac and enough grimy windowpanes to do justice to a medium-sized cathedral.

And letters like that most dreaded of all combinations, DIY.

If the Almighty had wanted me to get involved in do-it-yourself projects, he would have given me screwdrivers and socket wrenches for fingers, and pliers for thumbs and forefingers, and eyeballs calibrated in inches (or centimeters for those Frenchie weirdoes). The avoidance of DIY was what the Yellow Pages were invented for.

Anyway, as I've discovered to my undiluted delight, the whole business is fraught with danger, much of it of the lethal variety. And I have a British government official report to thank for this report on DIY results: "The bottom line is that 70 people are killed and a quarter of a million injured, and these figures are increasing year on year."

And that's just for a country that you can fit five times into the state of Texas with room to spare for a new theme park, a couple of dude ranches and a bed-and-breakfast extension to the Alamo.

Says Kim Howells, a politico bearing the title of Consumer Affairs Minister: "Most of the deaths are caused from falling off ladders, or through electrocution, when people do not use a circuit breaker while mowing the lawn or using a hand drill."

Circuit breaker?

I'm not about to get involved in any occupation, "doing something useful" or no, that makes taking out the trash at Chernobyl look downright benign by comparison. Elizabeth will just have to accept that is the way it's going to be - at least until I find out what are circuit breakers and the role they play in lifestyles of the 21st century.

Actually, I don't anticipate much opposition on this particular issue. I do occasionally remind her of the time a few years back, when she decided she wouldn't pay someone to redecorate the bathroom, figuring that with about 30 bucks' worth of wallpaper and a bucket of paste, she could do the job herself.

The job got done, all right - for something over $1,000. That included about $300 for medical treatment when she slipped and fell in the tub, $800 or so for the decorator to finish the job after stripping off the paper that she managed to get on the wall at about an 83-degree angle. And, of course, another 30-buck roll of wallpaper. And some more paste.

But Elizabeth subscribes to the theory that "idle hands are the Devil's tools," so to keep her at bay, I figured that a spot of gardening would do nicely. Particularly since we have a couple of small plots out front and back at our Northamptonshire cottage, and what could be simpler than popping in a few seeds or plants and devoting a few weeks or months to watching them grow?

Now, however, I'm told that to make my plants grow big and strong, I need to keep them entertained. According to botanists at the University of Sussex, I must feed the veggies and flowers a steady diet of rock music, preferably stuff with a heavy, rhythmic beat.

It seems that my wallflowers, busy lizzies, carrots and cress and any tobacco plants I might grow (unless the PC police catch me first) will respond best to Meatloaf - or actually an album, "Bat Out of Hell," by a rock musician of that name.

Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 gets a thumbs' down - or leaves' down, as the case may be. Just as well, because I loathe that particular bit of Rachie's repertoire, anyway. But the Sussex U. folks say that Prince Charles has the right idea. He talks to his sprouts.

Okay, so that's my choice. I can load up my leafy lovelies with "Bat Out of Hell," at top volume around the clock, and be prepared to watch the results as I swing by my neck from a nearby oak tree, courtesy of some mad-as-hell neighbors. Or I can whisper sweet nothings to them and get hauled away to the Northamptonshire Home for the Bewildered.

This is all my father's revenge from beyond the grave, for killing off his tomato plants 50 years ago with overdoses of Vigaro fertilizer so I didn't have to keep watering the bloody things.

Thought for the Week: Always borrow money from a pessimist. They don't expect it back.

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