"THE dignity of man is everywhere tissue-thin", said Dick Francis. And it would appear where politics is concerned at the moment, that dignity has been used, thrown down the toilet and flushed away.

Merseyside ex-pat Nadine Dorries MP has this week reminded us all of how far some politicians can go in their obsession with celebrity. We've already had George Galloway on Big Brother, Anne Widdicome on Strictly Come Dancing and now, the member for Mid Bedfordshire has flown off to Australia to take part in I'm A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here. A move so ill-judged that she managed to get herself suspended from the Parliamentary Conservative Party for going AWOL while she was supposed to be representing her constituents.

She claims she wants to use the exposure before 16 million people to highlight some of her burning political issues, such as abortion, but as one Merseyside commentator put it to Mr Brocklebank on Twitter yesterday, what possible political points can she make with a mouthful of kangaroo testicles?

However, the question reminded Mr B of a conversation he had with a Liverpool councillor the other day which proved that you don't have to go on TV to endure eating some rather unedifying fare.

When Mr B himself was in China last year, he politely had to sample some of the local delicacies, including chicken feet and duck tongue, both of which were to say the least foul (or is that fowl, ed.?).

But the city politician's experience of Chinese cuisine on a trip to the Orient recently put Mr B's experience into perspective. She informed him that the soup served up in one restaurant included some sort of meat which she assumed was, at best, sheep brains. However, she was even less impressed to learn that the dish was in fact ... dog and donkey penis soup!

The 58th variety, indeed!

MR B reads with interest today's interview, in this esteemed organ, with Canadian academic Trevor Boddy on what Liverpool needs to do to grow over the next generation.

Following on from the council's recently published and catchily-titled Strategic Growth Framework document, the Vancouver scholar explained that the city's biggest asset was undoubtedly its sprawling waterfront, with all its potential for redevelopment.

He explained that the Chinese particularly can't get enough of waterfront living, and that if the “real estate” all along the northern docks of the city is properly developed, it'll be high times again for Liverpool.

However, while this will come as music to the ears of our city leaders, one comment he made couldn’t help but raise a smile with Mr B.

That being that it is incredibly important, when regenerating land like the waterfront, not to go with the first developer that comes along.

A shame he wasn’t around to give that advice to the council a couple of years ago.