THE POLICE helicopter hovers overhead. Three Transit vans roar down the country lane, disgorging a riot gear-clad snatch squad.

Meanwhile an Armed Response Unit has plotted up in a nearby hedge, fingers hovering on the triggers.

And all because two girls have drawn a hopscotch grid in the road.

You think I'm joking, don't you?

Sadly not. In Halesowen, West Midlands, 14-year-olds Kayleigh Mangan and Georgina Smallwood were accosted by two community support officers and told to get a bucket of water and clean the chalk marks off the quiet street in which they live. Local kids had already been warned off "excessive" bike riding and told to stop playing ball games in the street.

A spokesweasel for West Midlands Police said officers had responded to a complaint about "numerous chalk markings on a large stretch of the pavement".

He added, probably in a nasal monotone: "There have been many reports of anti-social behaviour in the local area and we will deal robustly with this issue. By targeting what may seem relatively low-level crime, we aim to prevent it developing into more serious matters."

So there you have it. Playing hopscotch turns you into a drugs baron or axe murderer. And I can just picture a young Al Capone skipping across the cobbles of turn-of-the-century Chicago.

HEALTH AND Safety update: Fresh from their triumph of being handed the responsibility for prosecuting the Metropolitan Police for shooting a passing Brazilian, the Nanny State Nazis scored another victory last week when Margaret Beckett, our hapless caravan-dwelling Foreign Secretary, invoked their dark powers to have a pop at the Americans.

Put on the spot after planes carrying bunker-busting bombs to Israel were found to be refuelling at Prestwick Airport in Scotland, Mrs Beckett climbed down from her four-berth Bailey Pageant Champagne to tell Mr Bush that he had been very naughty - not for upsetting the soap-dodgers by landing his filthy weapons of war on British soil, but because failing to reveal the nature of the cargo had "health and safety implications".

Magic! Let's see how much protection a hard hat and a high-visibility jacket provides if that lot goes up.

COMPO CORNER: An American woman, "returning from war-torn Israel", tells The Sun how she was terrified when she looked out of her hotel bedroom window in Cardiff to see explosions and a tank battle going on in the street below.

"Troops with guns started shouting 'run for cover', "she says.

"I ran from the window and ducked on to the bed."

It turned out to be a film crew working on the Doctor Who Christmas special.

If I were the great man, I'd get back into that Tardis sharpish before the ambulance-chasing lawyers turn up.