BEING brainy is all very well and good, but if you haven't got the right trainers, you've had it. Academically-gifted children, like their plump, spotty and speccy brethren, are easy targets for bullies. Anything that makes you stand out from the crowd at school - unless it is beauty or a pair of golden boots on the footie field - puts you directly in the line of fire.

And it doesn't end when the exams are over. Education Secretary Estelle Morris was quite right when she told the pupils on the Government's "gifted and talented" programme at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in London that denigrating academic achievement was a "British disease".

We can't help ourselves: we just love a good sneer. David Beckham can curve a ball into the back of the net from a seemingly impossible position (like in the changing room with his hands tied behind his back and a paper bag on his head) and we lift the roof with our cheers. But a scientist discovers the secret of the human genome and we yawn, sneer unappreciatively, then stifle a childish giggle as we ridicule his cardigan and half-mast trousers.

Why are we so embarrassed by academic achievement? And why are so many of our kids afraid to shine in class for fear of having their lights punched out in the playground later?

Well, the answer is simple. We Brits are a pretty shallow bunch. We like our heroes to be shiny young things with perfect teeth, cool clothes and an army of equally glossy celebrity chums. And, while I'm sure there are academics out there with their finger on the fashion pulse, most have their minds on higher things.

In an ideal world it wouldn't matter that they don't have haircuts that cost the best part of £100 (per hair) and that they are more likely to be called a duffer than to wear the Duffer label. But this is the real world; a world ruled by celebrity, not intellect.

Unfortunately no one is likely to find a cure for this British disease any time soon, and even if they did the rest of us would be too busy marvelling at Kylie's bottom to notice, so maybe academics could learn to make life a little easier for themselves.

Maybe they could be taught how to dress (no turn-ups, no cheesecloth and no cardigans), to dance (squirming about like you have a lab rat in your undies just won't cut it), to chat (EastEnders, good; Einstein's theory of relativity, bad) and to keep their hair under some semblance of control (is there some scientific reason why brainy people tend to have mad hair?).

Then perhaps at some point in the future, when the rest of us have evolved enough to catch up, we will realise that academic achievement deserves cheers, not sneers.

In the meantime, however, let's try to support our swots a bit more. Let's give them at least some of the credit and admiration they deserve.

But let's also give them a decent haircut and a pair of designer trainers, because being brainy is good but being Beckham with brains is better.

Just imagine if that fine specimen of British manhood had two brain cells to rub together. Forget the World Cup, we would be talking world domination.

Hey, no one ever said this column was going to be deep and meaningful you know.

- WHO wants to be an academic? I do.

They might not know their Duffer from their DKNY, but they know a sweet deal when they see one. Believe it or not, the Economic and Social Research Council is paying academics at the universities of Warwick and Keele to watch Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.

They are getting paid money - 65,000 genuine smackeroonies to be exact - to watch telly. Now why can't I get a job like that?

The ITV show is apparently a treasure trove of useful data on how people of different ages, genders and nationalities react to risk.

At the end of the two-year study into how people gamble with large amounts of money (like £65,000 perhaps?), the results will be used to aid government policy-makers in formulating health, social and crime prevention strategies.

Or maybe they will just be put in an envelope and slotted under a wonky table leg in the cabinet office.

At least that way they would be doing something useful.

Updated: 10:35 Tuesday, May 21, 2002