BritBrit's Britney Spears Website (News & Information for Wednesday September 11th 2002)

SHE is not only Top of the Pops, but almost certainly top of the class when it comes to selling records, starting fashion trends and setting adolescent boys’ hearts racing.

She is used to being named as a contender in "best pop singer" and "best-dressed teenager" categories but, like the rest of us, Britney Spears would be stunned to discover that her name featured alongside musical heavyweights Pavarotti and Nigel Kennedy in a list compiled by youngsters who were asked to name classical performers.

Although Bach and Mozart did strike a note of recognition with a few of those surveyed, two-thirds failed to come up with the name of any classical composer at all, which is almost as dismaying as the fact that classy, but hardly classical, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson were mentioned as famous classical composers.

The survey, published this week in Classic FM magazine to mark the launch of its Instruments for Schools campaign, also revealed that, while 79 per cent could identify a trumpet, only a third of the six to 14-year-olds questioned recognised a cello, all of which has left lovers of classical music aghast .

Although disappointing, these results are not really surprising in today’s celebrity-obsessed culture, where Boyzone are better known than Bach, and Beckhams’ second is more fascinating than Beethoven’s third.

Sir John Gielgud and Dame Maggie Smith would probably register zero recognition with most of our kids, but they could tell you in a flash the eye colour, star sign and probably favourite fish of all the Slater family in EastEnders .

Ask children to name a famous actress and the list would doubtless include La Liz. Not the Academy Award-winner Miss Taylor, but the expensively tailored and headline-grabbing Ms Hurley, whose talent for filling out dresses has guaranteed her fame and fortune despite an as yet unspectacular acting career.

Although 40 per cent of the 611 children questioned play an instrument, acclaimed cellist Julian Lloyd Webber has called for far more musical education to be brought into our schools .

He believes that "the media, and television in particular, has a duty to bring the exciting things that are happening in classical music to young people, instead of constantly force-feeding them pop".

There is, however, only so much that schools and indeed the media can do. It is time, perhaps, for us as parents to face the music . We should be inviting our children to listen not just to Steps, Samantha Mumba and the Sugababes, but to try to introduce them to all kinds of music.

We need to encourage them to take up an instrument, rather than just a hairbrush if they want to emulate their musical heroes.

We need to get them to change their tune - even if that does mean having to invest in ear plugs, bribe the neighbours or leave the country while they practise the violin, the recorder, or the bagpipes.

We can relax now, girls, the heat is off

FROM South Queensferry to Straiton, the sounds of September will be echoing around our suburbs this weekend. After one of the wettest summers on record, we will start to undertake the end-of-season rituals which spell a sad goodbye to summer.

Thousands of hardly-paddled-in plastic pools will be deflated and shoved into the back of sheds, squashed under tennis racquets and baseball bats. The clatter of barbecue sets being dismantled and patio chairs being stashed under blankets of tarpaulin will sound the signal that autumn is well and truly on its way. But it’s not all bad news.

We ladies can at least take solace in the knowledge that the garden furniture may now be under cover, but so too are our spare tyres and wobbly bits.

That instrument of torture known as the home waxing kit can be binned and, if and when we do sit outside and start to shiver, we can put on a big cosy fleece without being accused by that hardy perennial, the Scottish male, of being a complete and utter softie.

Got plenty of dough?

ON the supermarket shelves, sandwiched between truffles and tarte tartine, comes the latest French fancy on the food front.

The Poilane sourdough loaf has been identified as the true gourmet’s must-have gastronomic delight, and is now on sale in the UK at a gaulling £10 per loaf.

Those wishing to make a chic, if not cheap, style statement at upper-crust dinner parties are presenting the hostess with the bread in lieu of traditional gifts.

Sounds like a half-baked idea to me.