There are justified complaints that Bradford isn't entirely pedestrianfriendly as a shopping centre. It's hilly. Godwin Street, busy and sometimes hard to cross, cuts off the top of the town and Sunwin House from the rest.

And if you arrive by bus or train you have to risk your life when leaving the Interchange, crossing the busy vehicle entrance and exit to the car park. It's amazing that someone isn't knocked down there every week.

But apart from those minor problems, walking around central Bradford is a doddle compared to, say, walking around the Junction 27 Retail Park at Birstall (the one that has IKEA, the Showcase cinema and all the rest).

The whole place is designed to attract motorists and, if they want to visit several stores, to keep them on the move between one car park and another.

Walking between them is far from easy.

We were there last week, looking for a piece of furniture. IKEA was the first port of call, so that was where we left the car. When we couldn't find what we wanted, we headed off in search of other furniture stores and soon found ourselves walking anxiously up carpark slip roads or standing at kerbsides waiting for a gap in the near-relentless stream of traffic so we could dash across, and then having to pick our way across a car park to the entrance of the next store.

The situation is a little better at the Forster Square Retail Park in Bradford, though only if you want to promenade along the parade of shops, passing under the tunnel between the two.

But if you try making your way from the second part of the retail park (the one that has Next and Argos) to Tesco or one of the other stores in that area, you find yourself having to dash across the end of Valley Road while traffic sweeps in and out from every direction.

You need to be quick-witted and nimble or you're in trouble.

If the aim is to discourage people from using their cars unnecessarily, to cut congestion on the roads and the pollution of the atmosphere that's causing global warming, there need to be better arrangements than these. At present the message going out loud and clear from these retail centres is: "Motorists welcome - Pedestrians shop here at their own risk."

It's not good enough. People who don't own cars or choose not to use them all the time need to be encouraged, surely. The people responsible for granting planning permission for shopping zones which aren't undercover centres like White Rose or Meadowhall need to acknowledge this and refuse to accept plans which are so blatantly stacked against those who shop on foot.

Let's hope that Bradford's planners take this message on board when agreeing the details of the new Broadway development which, hopefully, will eventually arise from the rubble currently occupying a large part of the city centre.

Too many ads

Channel 4 must be making a mint out of the ever-growing advertising slots in some of its more popular programmes. Nothing wrong with that, of course. It's what commercial television is all about. But this particular channel does seem to be exceeding the 12-minutes of adverts in an hour that current regulations apparently say is the maximum.

For example, two advert breaks in one episode of The Games last week were timed at five and five-and-a-half minutes respectively. And there are normally four breaks in an hour.

There are ways of fighting back, of course. The best is to record programmes on video or DVD and fast-forward through the commercial breaks.Alternatively, switch off the sound when the ads come on and read the T&A until the break's over.

A national treasure

And now, a visit to Astounding Facts Corner.

Did you know that Rolf Harris was 76 last Thursday? It doesn't seem all that long since he was a young Australian new to the British scene and imploring someone to tie his kangaroo down, sport.

And now he's a national treasure, portrait painter to the Queen and with fans across at least three generations. Just goes to show what skill with a didgeridoo can do. Happy birthday Rolf!

The law's an ass

When I sound off on the subject of law and order (as I've been known to do from time to time) and the difference between murder and manslaughter it's from an entirely personal, layman's point of view. So it's nice to get a legal insider's point of view.

Here's what Horsforth solicitor John Wilson has to say in response to an item in this column some weeks ago about people who attack other people and the sort of charges they might find themselves facing if caught.

"The thing is, if you wallop someone and they die, that's murder (or manslaughter but let's ignore that for the moment). But if you wallop them and they survive that's not murder, although it may well be grievous bodily harm for example, which carries a less heavy sentence. What bothers me is: why should it make any difference at all? If you are the sort of person who goes round walloping people you deserve to be in the nick. Whether or not your victim has survived seems to me to be entirely beside the point. We do not want wallopers walking free. After all, your next victim might not be so lucky.

"Imagine one person wallops another in a completely uncharacteristic and fleeting moment of loss of self control, and the victim dies.

Another person is a real nasty piece of work who wallops to kill, but by a miracle his victim survives. I reckon the latter is a more dangerous character than the first, but he gets convicted of a lesser offence.

"This is the sort of thing that makes my job so interesting. . ."