“I don’t think its frivolous.”A survey by Strathclyde University earlier this year found that Christmas dinner was the only meal when most British children get an adequate intake of vegetables.The researchers found that many mothers had given up forcing the issue of vegetable consumption because they disliked the stress.At Gillespie Primary School, Year Four [eight- and nine-year-olds] named their least favourite vegetables as Brussels sprouts and peas, while their favourite, surprisingly, was broccoli.Presented with the wacky veg they were intrigued but not always won over. Liam, aged nine, who said he didn’t like any vegetables, managed a small mouthful before declaring them all “disgusting”.”I don’t like the peas They’re nasty They’re awful The sweetcorn is alright but I don’t like the rest. I hate all vegetables.” he said.Rosa, next to him, was equally sniffy: “The carrots are slimy and they taste of toffee not chocolate,” she said. “I don’t like squishy things.”But those who had only expressed a mild dislike of veg were won over: “They are nicer than usual,” said Shaahra. “They are sweeter.”Mohammed and Ben had polished off the cauliflower and peas and wanted second helpings: “I love cauliflower I reckon I eat vegetables once or twice a week at home.

For lunch I think I would have bread, crisps and chocolate,” said Mohammed. “It looks horrible but it tastes nice,” said Mandy, stirring the carrots in their brown sauce.”Yum, they’re nicer than normal carrots,” added George.For parents who balk at flavoured vegetables [be relieved: bubblegum broccoli was one of the ideas which was rejected] kid-friendly snack packs of mini-carrots, cherry tomatoes and individually wrapped apples and pears could be more appealing.The major problem was that few of the children could open the sturdy plastic covering.Those who liked vegetables preferred the raw carrots to the chocolate variety, crunching them with enthusiasm, but those who did not want to eat veg in the first place hated the raw ones: “Yuk, it’s horrible,” said George, nine, pulling an unholy grimace as he tasted a carrot. “Urgh, can I put it in the bin, miss?” said Liam after one taste of a cherry tomato.Leaving the classroom, the children were asked what kind of chocolate bars they liked.Twix, Galaxy, Mars, Lion bars – the names came rushing out. And what kind of fruit? Apples, oranges, grapes – then the names dried up. “I don’t like apples, I’d rather have sweets,” said Mehmet, summing up the views of many.. Sky Television seems to have finally asked the question that has vexed many people for a long time: why is Selina Scott paid so much?

The satellite television channel has confirmed it is pulling her late- night celebrity chat show, The Selina Scott Show, off air just six weeks after it launched.

The programme will be back on air in July with a new format and will be given an earlier start time in an effort to kick-start the show’s flagging ratings.
One tabloid newspaper reported that one of her shows, broadcast on 17 March, had an audience of just 6,000 viewers.Ms Scott was hired last November by the Rupert Murdoch-owned station amid fanfare and reports in the Murdoch-owned press that she was to be paid pounds 1m for the show.It was yet another in a long line of allegedly well-paid but low-profile television presenting jobs that Ms Scott has taken in a frenetic career.She became a national celebrity in 1981 when she was appointed a news reader on News at Ten, at a time when viewers were still more used to gravitas than glamour.Two years later, she moved to host the BBC’s Breakfast Time programme with Frank Bough and has continued ever since to move around for seemingly ever- increasing amounts of money, without anyone being able to say exactly why.In the mid-Eighties her pay took off when she moved to the United States to host an entertainment gossip show for CBS for a reported $1m (pounds 625,000) salary. Since then her every job change – from the Clothes Show on the BBC to increasingly obscure satellite channels – has been accompanied by reports that she was being paid salaries of pounds 100,000 or pounds 200,000.A talk-show on satellite station NBC Superchannel lasted just a year until 1996, then a meeting with Sam Chisholm, Sky’s hard-man chief executive, brought the latest chat show.For all the money she is reported to make, indeed perhaps because of it, Ms Scott has been dogged by suggestions that she is all looks and no substance. Her low-brow reputation was set in 1983 when live on television she famously asked Fay Weldon, the chair of the Booker Prize jury, if she had actually read all the books being judged. A moment the BBC cruelly included in its TV Hell programme in 1992.Her image was not helped by a fawning interview she conducted with the American property millionaire, Donald Trump, which prompted him later to write a letter describing her as “ingratiating” and “insecure”.