I SEE one of our letter writers bemoaning the ugliness of many new farm buildings: "Among your readers is there one who would be interested in designing a modern up to date, conforming to Department of Agriculture specifications cow house, but which would also be aesthetically pleasing?"

It is a tall order of course, but a fair challenge too, and I hope some reader will take it up.

The real difficulty may lie in the "conforming to the Dept of Ag specifications", which must be met if grant aid is being sought (and when is it not?).

The trouble is that people interested in aesthetics are rarely confronted with issues of cow byre feed face length, ventilation ridge outlets, spine walls, transverse tanks, tubular gates, proprietary barriers, animal stocking density (never mind denier), slurry agitation and disposal.

I cannot for example imagine the late Sir Harold Acton devoting time to such matters. Most of his distinguished ilk hardly care that cow house cubicle divisions have to be of galvanised tubular steel not less than 43mm O.D. x 3.2mm, or that the adjustable head rail (strongly recommended) is mandatory for cantilever cubicles, and that the vertical bracing pieces in pen dividers must be secured between each pair of horizontals at 2m and staggered.

But aesthetics or no aesthetics, all has to be in order. Department of Ag officials will not entertain incomplete applications, no, not even a cup of tea, or waste their time inspecting inadequately ventilated byres, nor should they.

All right. I see another correspondent concerned that 13th century remains of the Friary of the Holy Trinity in Temple Bar are "quietly being dismantled" to allow for a basement burger bar.

But look. The beef crisis will probably close down most of the burger bars in a short time, and surely then the preservation of a city centre basement burger joint, or Temple Bar Friery, will be all important. We have to look to the future, to our young people and what we will bequeath to them by way of national heritage.

By the way I see where the farmers have been warned that one of these days, they will cry "wolf" and nobody will believe them. The warning came after their anguished price collapse predictions failed to come true.

Recent history in fact suggests that when farmers cry "wolf", far too much attention is paid.

You will remember the tale of the Arctic wolf which escaped from its pen outside Lisnaskea last October. The papers were full of the story. We were regaled daily with all kinds of lurid warnings by farmers, told of marksmen joining the search, of spotter planes, dog handlers, Northern Ireland's Department of the Environment (wildlife service) and the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

We were fed background material on wolves, their breeding, their sale. Then a "save Chatto" campaign was launched with great publicity. Finally the unfortunate creature was shot dead by a farmer who claimed it had killed nine sheep, and the wolf's dead body was pictured in most papers.

What am I "getting at"? Why, simply that when a farmer cries "wolf", the media spring to attention and can be relied on to provide comprehensive coverage.

There is absolutely no likelihood within the near or even remote future that when a farmer cries "wolf" he will not be believed, and the story followed up for days. Farmers need have no worries whatsoever on this score.

On the other hand, the cry of "lost tourist" may soon induce little more than a shrug (of the shoulders: just try shrugging any other part of your body). I refer to the German family recently missing presumed lost on the Kerry mountains.

After a search involving the guards, the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team, a Sikorsky helicopter and the Dingle Cliff Coast and Rescue Team, the family was found alive (and well) in a Dingle guest house.

Worries arose because they went up Mount Brandon but instead of coming back, went down the other side.

Apparently this is a strange thing to do in Kerry, at least from the viewpoint of Kerry people, who more than any of us are in touch with the unusual, the eccentric, the paranormal, the quaint, grotesque, teratoid, rum, singular, supranatural, fantastic, pretersensual, aberrant, heteroclite, anomalous, occult, transcendental, cabalistic, acroamatic, sulphidic, adelomorphic and bizarre.