RAMBO is back, at the ripe old age of 61. All right, he may have hobbled into action too late for this year's Oscars, but it's a good effort nonetheless.

And while Sylvester Stallone may have a face that looks as though it's spent too long too close to a two-bar fire, and a body resembling a sack stuffed with melons, he has proved that 61 is the new, well, 59 - and it's never too late to resurrect an old money-spinning franchise, er, movie classic.

No doubt some of the sharpest minds in showbiz are, at this very moment, working on similar projects.

How about Clive Dunn, a mere 88, returning as Lance-Corporal Jones in Grandad's Army?

It could be updated to see Walmington-on-Sea's finest taking on Al-Qaeda, with Brian Blessed, another golden oldie, as Osama bin-Laden, and audiences across the nation falling about as Jones wheezes: "They don't like it up 'em, you know."

Or The Man From Great UNCLE, with a still-sprightly Robert Vaughan as Napoleon Polo-Neck, taking on international terrorists from Smersh, by settling down with a nice cup of cocoa and listening in to their phone conversations from a call centre in Mumbai?

It may not make such riveting viewing as the smash hit '60s TV show, but it would be a mite more realistic.

Adam Adamant could come back as Adam Aminuteago, while The Avengers would return with Dame Diana Rigg in a twin-set and pearls topped off with a woolly blanket instead of that skin-tight black leather catsuit... shame, I know, but time waits for no woman.

It surely wouldn't require too much effort, meanwhile, for Clint Eastwood to dig out the poncho, 10-gallon hat, six-shooters and cheroot for one last stab at the avenging cowboy schtick.

He could call it For a Few Million Dollars More - or perhaps rope in Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas for a rehash of an old favourite called The Wig, The Dad and The Grumpy?

  • INSPIRED by Ernest Hemingway's short story, written to win a $10 bet - "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn" - an online literary magazine has invited readers to submit their own six-word memoirs.

The offer proved irresistible, and, to date, smithmag.net has received more than 11,000 responses.

A collection of the best - including micro-memoirs from well-known writers - will shortly be published in a book which may or may not include the following examples...

"Chainsmoking Scot, made living from death" - Andrew McKie, Daily Telegraph obituaries editor.

Five novels; two kids; insufficient sex" - Louise Doughty, novelist.

"I am trying, in every regard" - Lionel Shriver, novelist.

"Foetus, son, brother, husband, father, vegetable"- Dick Hadfield.

Now, I can sometimes see elements of my own life in the contributions by both Doughty and Hadfield, although I'd prefer not to be remembered as a sex-starved vegetable.

And while I'd like to take credit for classics such as "Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder", I can't.

So, in tribute to my wonderful and thankfully very strong-willed children, my six-word story would probably read: "Father of three, master of none."

  • TALKING of short (very short) stories, there's some debate over the briefest verse of all time.

"Adam/Had 'em", often described as the shortest poem in the English language, is generally attributed to the late American humourist Ogden Nash (no relation, as far as I know) - although The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations ascribes it to "Anon", and the title, it seems, is either "Fleas", or the much-wordier "On the Antiquity of Microbes."

Muhammad Ali (pictured), apparently, upon being invited to better the brevity of this tiny ode, responded: "Me? Wheee!"

I so hope that's true.