An ego writ large? Two of them? And Egypt: perhaps it’s best not to hold one’s breath

Rather a silly situation at work today, with which you might well be familiar even if you don’t work for a newspaper. The situation on the travel desk ever since the then travel editor was promoted to a commissioning editor (but has now left to become deputy editor of a very well-known magazine for genteel women and those who regard themselves as genteel women) is that a freelance journalist is employed as a part-time travel editor, and when he is not there at the beginning of the week, the role is taken up by a woman who was one the travel desk assistant. Before coming to the Mail, she had never worked as a hack and had no journalistic experience. In fact, I don’t know what she did. That she is not pug ugly (though I don’t fancy her – she is one of those tall, willowy types who don’t float my boat and never have done), is impeccably middle-class and graduated in fashion design will not have hindered her first being taken on as the travel desk assistant. She might well have remained in the position for some time to come had management decided not to appoint another full-time travel editor and would have carried on doing what the assistant always did, hunting down pictures, liaising with travel companies and generally – metaphorically – keeping the travel desk tidy. But these days, on Mondays and Tuesdays, she is acting travel editor which means she oversees the paper’s midweek travel feature. That she started in a relatively lowly position doesn’t, of course, mean that she must therefore be incapable. But the converse is also true: that she fulfils the role of travel editor for two days a week doesn’t necessarily mean she is any good. And I’m afraid her lack of previous experience does show time and again. That is not necessarily a bad thing in that the page is read and seen by many people, especially the deputy editor of the day, and they often make changes. But it would help if she didn’t think she could write well and it would help if she could write a headline, which she can’t. I used to get on with her OK, but when she was bumped up a notch to the role she now fulfils after the full-time travel editor left, she developed a bad habit of taking long lunch breaks, often ‘at a meeting’, delivering her ‘marks’ to us late, and then urging me to hurry up because she wanted to go home. I suppose it was that which first got up my nose. I also get rather fed up with women who reckon try to get their way around men with a false smile and by laying on the femininity. I prefer to work with women who are good at their job. Today she read through the page, made her changes and then I read through it, and it was pretty bloody awful. The secret to any feature is to make it interesting, and what she had sent through read like a bus timetable and was even less interesting. There was little I could do about it, but start from scratch, which I did. And this rather got to her. So she decided she ‘wanted the picture to be bigger’, which entailed a cut in the copy, and she set about rewriting again, reducing the piece once more to its previous yawn-inducing state. The whole episode was bullshit from start to finish, because had she ‘wanted the picture bigger’, she could have made it bigger before I set to work and I would simply have had less space. The Mail being the Mail – actually, the Mail being a newspaper, but the Mail has its particular quirks – there’s this idea that the Wednesday travel feature is ‘her page’ and that we subs should bow to her decisions. That would be all fine and dandy, and I would have no problem with it at all if she was any good at what she does, but she isn’t. But I suspect she rather thinks she is. Oh well

. . . .

On a lighter note, the ‘British travel industry’ (or whoever speaks for the ‘British travel industry’) today announced that the ‘troubles in Egypt’ will probably reduce this year’s profits by 20 per cent. My heart bleeds. The turnout in Cairo’s equivalent of Trafalgar Square surprised everyone by being far larger than expected. Until last night many of the media pundits were fearing that the protest movement was running out of steam. Despite today’s turnout, I have a terrible feeling that it will: unless the army in Egypt decides enough is enough and kicks Mubarak out, he can more or less hang on until the time suits him to leave, all the while ensuring that the current regime changes its clothes but then it is business as usual. And so far the army has stayed clear of everything. I heard on the radio last week that things will not be that straightforward anyway, as the army ‘owns’ something like 25 per cent of all ‘private businesses’ and will not want to lose that (although I must admit I am baffled as to how the army can ‘own’ anything). But unless the army decides to throw in its lot with the protest, the regime simply has to sit tight, make all the right noises (i.e. form several ‘committees of investigation’) and wait – it won’t be long – until the rest of the world’s media gets bored and shifts its attention elsewhere There’s lots of woolly talk about the winds of change blowing through the Near and Mid East as they did through the former Communist bloc countries, but that strikes me as mere journalism, cacking up the story to keep it on the boil. I’m not the best informed on either topic, but it does strike me that you can only compare like with like. And given that countries such as Romania and Bulgaria have got the same thugs in charge merely whistling different tunes while they count their fortunes, these winds of change – if the same ones are blowing - don’t necessarily mean the outcome will be any better.
The U.S. is coming horribly unstuck over the upheaval in Egypt and gives the impression it is finding it very difficult distinguishing between its arse and its elbow. (I would write ‘the Obama administration’ instead of ‘the U.S.’, but that would sound far too partisan given the George Dubya wasn’t exactly Mr Competent when it came to foreign affairs and I have no axe to grind.) But all those Brownie points Obama gained over the mass shooting in wherever (there are plenty to choose from) and ‘uniting the nation in its moment of grief’ or whatever miracle he achieved are well and truly down the tubes given his and Hillary Clinton dire and utterly incoherent performance over whether Murbarak should stay, leave or simply buy everyone a round or two, tell a few jokes and go home to his palace. Is the U.S. in favour of democracy or not? Well, actually, the real answer is: only when it suits U.S. interests which would be despicable, except that every other country in the world is equally hypocritical. But it has now lost a great deal of credibility over Egypt.
In a sense it is, in fact, quite unfair of me to single out the U.S. over its response to the crisis in Egypt. The rest of the West has also behaved like a one-legged drunk at a hoedown and in a way you can see al Qaeda’s point when it suggests that bombing’s too good for them, squire, and we had that Satan in the back of our cab once, not as bad as he’s made out to be, quite the reverse, really, got some good ideas, has that Satan, no sorry, I don’t go south of the river. (That last bit will be truly incomprehensible to each and every non-Brit reading this, but do I care? Do I fuck.)

UPDATE — We all like a happy ending but it seems that is not what is in store for Egypt. According to the Guardian, the army, which made great play of ‘remaining neutral’ over these past few weeks has ditched that position and is now firmly playing the regime’s game. It did all seem to good to be true.

Let me clear up a slight misunderstanding...

After I told the anecdote I had heard about Piers Morgan lording it over his one-time deputy, a regular reader has commented that she was glad I had given Piers a write-up as she has a soft spot for me – though she put it far more bluntly and regretted the fact that he is married – and that and very much appreciates his wit. Were I feeling more jaundiced, I would write ‘wit’, but it is the end of the day, I am due off work soon and I’m feeling reasonably mellow. Unfortunately, I am not feeling mellow enough to put my reader straight: sorry, K., but my piece was not intended to be complimentary. As far as I am concerned Piers Morgan is a 24-carat pillock. (‘Pillock’ might be very much an English expression with which non-English readers are unfamiliar, but I’m certain they get the gist of what I am saying.) Morgan’s comment to his former deputy – along the lines of look where all his deputy’s hard work had got Morgan – might well have been funny, but unfortunately a sense of humour is no guarantee that a chap is a straight-up guy, especially in our industry. I have met many lawyers who have had me in stitches but who were also complete bastards. Stalin had a tremendous sense of humour, but no one insists what a lovely chap he was. So, sorry, K., I’m not Piers’s greatest fan (make that second-greatest, as you are claiming the top spot). Nor, I should imagine, is the first Mrs Morgan. Incidentally, a columnist for this paper who I chat to regularly and who once co-hosted a TV programme here in Britain (and who is also no great fan of Piers’s) tells me that the new Mrs Morgan, a Celia Walden, is said to be very nice and sweet, but not the sharpest blade in the box, which explains why the gal hasn’t yet rumbled Piers.

. . .

Like many people, I am rather fond of the very long list of colourful expressions we have in English, but, of course, all languages have their colourful expressions. Not the sharpest blade in the box is one, and along similar lines there are a sandwich short of a picnic, the lights are on but no one’s home and the lift doesn’t go to the top floor. Expressions with other meanings I’m fond of include referring to a man’s wedding tackle and describing a practice men engage in on their own (well, usually, I suppose) as the five-finger shuffle. Then there’s describing shoplifting as a five-finger discount. A neighbour once said of my father-in-law, a retired Cornish farmer who would rather not spend money than spend it, that he would skin a turd to save a penny. Of course, there are all the standard expressions and phrases which you will have heard – a great face for radio, fur coat - no knickers, and up and down faster than a whore’s drawers. Then there’s describing someone one knows who has a tendency to corpulence as having more chins than a Chinese phonebook.
I’ve got to get off now, but if I think of any more, I shall record them here.

My man Mozart, the egregious Tony Blair, three cheers for Neville Brody and Mandy Rice-Davies (again. Hi, Mandy)

There are times when a beautiful piece of music demands to be pissed about with. This is one of my favourite short pieces. and when I hear it, I think of just one thing - traffic. Some things simply have a companion with which they will forever be associated whatever the weather: strawberries and cream, Russia and corruption, Britain and rain, and, of course, Mozart and traffic.



I am indebted to my good friend Jacques Pernod for all the help and advice he has given me over the years, and he, I’m sure, would also like me to mention his assistants Peter Schnaps & Dieter Esel.

. . .

Few crises survive beyond a few hours without an appearance by the egregious Tony Blair. So with the crisis in Egypt: Blair appeared on Sky TV and did what he always does: state the bloody obvious at great length and with apparent authority as though dispensing a unique wisdom from on high. Here are two quotes from the interview he gave Sky News:
‘What is inevitable is that there’s going to be change and the question is; what change and how do you manage it?’
Then there is this startling insight:
‘Change is inevitable in Egypt and that the country cannot put the “genie back in the bottle”.’
Well, call me a cynical fart, but anyone seeing the images being screened on TV at the moment will have gathered that it isn’t a storm in a teacup. But that’s Blair’s schtick: he says what everyone else knows, but appears to make it sound profound and wise.
I have long, long believed that he suffers from some kind of psychological flaw akin to sociopathy, but without the violence. I have no doubt at all that he really does believe his own bullshit. A few years ago, at a Labour Party conference and when he was still PM, he gave a speech which became increasingly unreal. He seemed to go into a trance. But what he was telling his audience was merely what he knew his audience wanted to hear.
It is always difficult to be objective about someone one dislikes, and I readily admit that I am open to the charge of being biased against him. I also admit that there might still be some who still believe Blair is a man of principle, but I should imagine their number is diminishing by the day. But I do believe that Blair as the man who gives all conmen a bad name, and I am proud to say (although there is no way I could prove as much) that I regarded him as a nine bob note (nine dollar bill, nine kopek piece) long before he was first elected Prime Minister in 1997. As, of course, did a large number of ‘old’ Labour, but who went along with the man because he could apparently deliver an electoral victory. Looking back, and bearing in mind the slow-motion car crash that was the last few years of the Major government, it’s pretty obvious that Sooty and Sweep would also have delivered that victory. The big mystery is how on earth did Neil Kinnock (now Lord Kinnock, natch – nothing seduces an old leftie faster than the smell of ermine) manage to lose against Major in 1992?
I shall not recite the list of Blair’s misdemeanours here as that list will be well-known to those who loathe him and those who still have a soft spot for him (rather as one might have a soft spot for a rogue uncle who you know is purloining any small change he comes across and regularly finishes off the whisky, but who has a raffish charm it is hard to resist). Well, I for one have never found it hard to resist Blair’s raffish charm, his faux sincerity, his ‘man of the people’ act. The only positive thing is that he is now yesterday’s man, and for someone with his ineffable conceit, that will rankle. Good.

. . .

Usual routine on a Monday morning (although later today, as my brother didn’t get up and thereby wake me, but had a lie-in. I assume he had a day off), and I listened to Andrew Marr’s Start The Week in bed, while getting up, and on the way to work. The man himself still irritates me – I cannot rid myself of the suspicion, which seems to be confirmed every time he opens his mouth – that he thinks of himself as rather a bright, well-informed, well-connected and cultured sort of chap, and I have no doubt at all that at some point in the future he will be considered as a suitable candidate to chair the Arts Council and might even land the job. The British Establishment are not daft, and their talent for
survival is without equal. But his guests are usually an interesting bunch, and this morning’s included a Neville Brody (left).
Neville is now about 55 years old, but grew up in the punk era and carried with him that age’s vitality. He first came to prominence as the guy who art designed The Face (which I never read as I was then entering my 30s and really felt it was a magazine for younger people). Many of that magazine’s stylistic devices, often developed because of a lack of money, have been – now there’s a surprise – taken one by mainstream graphic designers working for banks, insurance companies and international conglomerates. But that is not Brody’s fault. He has recently been appointed the head of Department of Communication Art & Design at the Royal College of Art, and started his job on January 1 by promptly renaming the department the Department of Visual Communication. He went on to say that he does not believe in the student/teacher relationship but in ‘collaborative research’. It was at that point that I felt my hackles begin to rise, but I listened on and I’m glad I did. Brody went on to bemoan that for the past 20 odd years, students have been in the grip of a ‘success culture’ where they learnt in order to grab some lucrative employment and make shedloads of money. But the times now being hard, he reckons all that is over and that instead there will be an ‘explosion of ideas’. Well, I bloody well hope he is right. There was nothing quite as disheartening as everyone buckling under to ensure they were fucking rich by the age of 30. And ironically it was the same culture which made the abortion of Brit art and all its ‘conceptual art’ possible. So here’s to far more interesting times. Let’s hope all these new students can somehow shock us without resorting to daubing their work with shit, as those two charlatans Gilbert and George did.
. . .
Part of my daily routine, at some point in between brushing my teeth in the morning and brushing my teeth at night, is
to check how many people have read this blog during the day. I started doing this when I discovered Google’s stats feature, and it tickles me that, for whatever reason, folk as far away as New Zealand, Russia, Canada and Indonesia drop in. How long they stay is another matter, and is not recorded in the stats. And whether it is the same people from those countries is also not indicated, but I do like to think that to a man and woman, they are astonished by the breadth of my learning and interests and do nothing for the rest of the day but tell their friends about ‘this amazing blog I’ve found, man, I mean it’s far out, too much, you gotta, just gotta check it out, I mean, you just gotta, man’. Or something like that. Note that I assume all readers are, like me, raddled sixtysomethings whose best days are long behind them and rooted in the days when we could think of nothing better to do than grow our hair and give each other beads and the clap.
One feature of that facility is to list ‘referring URLs’ and from this something very puzzling has emerged: a disproportionate number of visitors happen upon my blog after tracking down piccies of Many Rice-Davies (above). I can’t even remember in which blog entry she was mentioned, but
I do remember grabbing a picture of her from Google images and using it. And that is the one which leads others to this blog. It has to be said that she is a very attractive woman, although the picture was taken several years ago when she was still a spring chicken. But I like to think she is probably still as attractive, though older. She and Christine Keeler came to prominence in the Profumo affair. Mandy apparently has a head on her shoulders and seems to have thrived. Christine (and I've used the image which is always trotted out on these occasions - sorry, Christine, but it is a nice pic of you) didn’t do so well in life, although for all I know she is happy. Either way, I wish them both well.

Plus ça change . . . (or why dog can rarely resist the temptation to take a large chunk out of other dog)

Now here’s an odd thing: New York’s esteemed Times is undoubtedly a heavyweight and serious newspaper of record. It is unlikely to carry reports about the most recent breast enlargement of whichever TV starlet is elsewhere flavour of the month or, given the number of other newspapers in the world, that one has just sacked an assistant editor. Like vice-presidents in US corporations, assistant editors on British papers are two a penny despite their rather high-falutin’ title. As a rule, when a senior hack is pipped at the post for the deputy editor’s job, he or she is sweetened with the title ‘assistant editor’ and, doubtlessly a pay rise, to ensure they aren’t tempted to jump ship and take with them editorial secrets to a new berth on a rival. But back to the New York Times and its surprising decision to report on a sacking at Britain’s News Of The World. The Screws, as we call it as the mainstay of its content is stories of illicit sex by footballers, soaps stars, politicians and businessmen, is certainly on of Britain’s bigger titles, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that the Times should therefore take an interest. But two days ago, it carried the shocking news that one Ian Edmondson, an assistant editor on the Screws had been sacked. It went on to explain that Ian (who might well be fat, paunchy and balding, but I really don’t know, so don’t assume he is) knew about a practice engaged in by Clive Goodman, one of the paper’s reporters, of hacking into the voicemail of celebs’ mobile phones. This practice is now officially frowned upon though when it went on under Edmondson’s indulgent eye, it most certainly wasn’t and proved to be a lucrative source of stories. But times have changed and our Ian now got the chop.
This was not the first time the venerable, oh-so-proper New York Times reported on the phone hacking allegations. Two weeks ago, it reported that an official investigation into the allegations was being reopened by the Crown Prosecution
Service which had earlier decided there was not enough evidence to bring charges against Andy Coulson (pictured and looking far younger than he has any right to do), who was Screws editor at the time the practice was going on. Coulson resigned after Goodman was jailed for his journalistic initiative, although he denied then and has always since denied that he knew what Goodman was up to. He went on to work as prime minister David Cameron’s ‘communications director’ and is credited with sharpening up the Tories’ public performance considerably, but he resigned that post, too, after the story of the hacking allegations and questions as to whether he knew more than he says refused to go away.
Well, you might think, there’s the story the New York Times was interested in: the ‘communications director’ of Britain’s prime minister leaves under a cloud. Not exactly world-shattering news, but certainly something a paper of record can take an interest in. Well, funnily enough, the Times didn’t take an interest in that aspect of it at all. So why is the Times so concerned with a relatively minor, semi-criminal practice engaged in by at least one (though we all suspect far more) more than 3,000 miles away? All becomes obvious when you mention the name ‘Rupert Murdoch’. It is a name which is most probably familiar to many: he owns, or largely owns, a ‘media empire’ which most of the rest of us don’t. It is called News Corp and part of that empire is a company called News International which owns the News Of The World. Oh, and another part of that empire is Dow Jones & Company which owns and publishes the Wall Street Journal which just happens to be one of the New York Times’s arch rivals. Oh, and Murdoch also owns the New York Post, another of the Times’s rivals, although given the Post’s constituency, it would be silly to describe the paper as an arch rival. Rival will do.
So there you might have it: serious ‘paper of record’ not above a little commercial mischief-making. Perhaps. Certainly, the Times has ample wriggle room and could well deny it is up to nothing of the sort, but to that I would respond ‘pull the other one, it’s got bells on it’.

. . .

There is no denying that, whether you love him hate him or – surely the view of the vast majority of people – you are indifferent to him, Rupert Murdoch has achieved a great deal in building up a his media empire. It has to be said that he did not do so from scratch but built it from a comparatively small newspaper group his father had owned. But before he inherited the business, he did spend a little time getting to know what life as a hack was like. I know this because around 1955, the writer and journalist Michael Green (The Art Of Coarse Rugby and The Art Of Coarse Acting, and the Squire Haggard column in the Daily Telegraph) spent some
time as a sub-editor on the Birmingham Post where, for a short time, Murdoch (pictured) was a fellow sub after graduating from Oxford. His time on the Post was quite short because his father died, and Rupe returned to Melbourne to take over the family business. I mention this because 25 years later, I spent two years working as a sub on the Birmingham Evening Mail, the post sister paper. So Rupe and I have a connection. Spooky.
I know Murdoch is the bête noir of loads and loads of people, but there is one comment he made which somehow endeared me to him for life. The Times is now part of News International and, as far as I know, still not making a profit. In fact, the last time it did make a profit, again as far as I know, was in the 19th century when it lease the patent for the then revolutionary roller press and was able to produce, distribute and sell far more copies than its rivals who still had to make do with laborious flatbed press. Eventually, the patent expired and the good times were over for The Times. It slipped into making a loss and even when it was taken over by Lord Norhtcliffe in 1908 (though he was then still Alfred Harmsworth and arguably the Rupert Murdoch of his day), it could not be coaxed into making a profit.
In 1981, two years after the Times was closed because of an 11-month strike, the Thomson Organisation realised it could not carry on and the paper (with its sister title The Sunday Times) was bought by Murdoch. By then it had firmly sunk into the habit of believing its own bullshit and regarded itself (though few others did) as the world’s premier newspaper. Murdoch’s British profits were firmly base on the decidedly downmarket Sun and News Of The World, and the maiden aunts who predominantly staffed The Times were horrified to be associated with such folk. It has long been regarded and had long regarded itself as the Establishment’s newspaper and there were even ‘questions in the House’ as to whether it was advisable that a paper of such a pedigree should be allowed into the soiled hands of some such upstart as Murdock. So its ‘editorial board’ demanded an undertaking from Murdoch that ‘he would not interfere editorially with the paper’. To which Murdoch, now perhaps the holder of a Yankee passport but in spirit forever an Australian, replied: ‘I didn’t spend fucking £5 million pounds buying a newspaper not to interfere editorially’. Even now it makes me smile with pleasure.

I am a man: An apology

I can’t speak for the rest of Europe, the US or the rest of the world, but something very odd has happened in Britain in these past 20 years. Once women were regarded as the skivvies of the world, when a vacuum cleaner and washing machines were seen as a great present for a man to give to the wife to help her ‘do the

housework more efficiently’. So thoughtful. Sadly, a woman’s lot has changed very little in almost every part of the world, and women still get the thin edge of the wedge. The Taliban diktat that women should be locked away from the age of 12 is just a very extreme manifestation of the attitude of many cultures.But here in Britain the boot is, in many ways, very much on the other foot, and we have apparently progressed in leaps and bounds to a situation where women are now equal. In fact, make that ‘more than equal’ Women professionals in the broadcasting media in particular delight in what they regard as a complete reversal of fortune. Well, bugger that because, incredibly, in 2011 many women are still paid less than men for doing exactly the same job, many women. However, that is no barrier to a very British pseudo-feminist triumphalism that the sisters have now finally come out on top. And boy do they like to let you know it. There is not even a pretence that ‘equality’ has been achieved. No, sir, they are now das Damenvolk. Tune into Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on any day of the week and you won’t have to wait long until you come across the unshakable conviction that all men are pretty useless. And it is a conviction which has also become a mainstay of much radio drama and of the routines of quite a few women stand-up comedians.
Attitudes purveyed in the media, whether in factual or fictional programming or in TV advertising are very rarely a true reflection of real social attitudes. They are more a kind of wishful thinking or something akin to a political manifesto. But given our habit of imitating what we see on the small screen, such highly artificial poses soon gain a broader currency. To put it another way, it is a question of life imitating art.
Without a second thought young and not so young lasses up and down the land will strike attitudes in imitation of what they see in their favourite soaps and sitcoms. And the prevailing attitude in a great many of these is that men are hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, fickle, unreliable and self-centred, and many a cheap laugh can be had from saying so. ‘Typical of a man’ is a refrain one has increasingly heard, and it is one which is repeated so often that anyone querying the observation is liable to have his intelligence as well as his integrity questioned. But beware the man who is foolish enough to say ‘typical woman’ — a shitstorm of biblical proportions is liable to explode and engulf him in such self-righteous anger that a six-month spell in jail would seem far more preferable.
Professional feminists, by which I mean those hacks and TV types for whom being feminist strikes me as being solely a strategy for career development, are still probably in the minority and their numbers are wholly disproportionate to the noise they make. And most certainly they do the real sisters no favours at all. The drive to ensure woman are treated equally has achieved a great deal in these past 40 years, and few women will allow themselves to be condescended to as once they were, and we should always remember that in many areas a woman is paid less than the man she works next to, so there is still quite a lot still to be done. But trying to do so by insisting, and apparently believing, that men are complete and total wankers isn’t doing it.

. . .

Part of the problem is, I think, that we always try to impose our ideas on life rather than accept what life tells us. Years ago, I heard the following short parable: A young boy and a young girl, still children of about seven or eight, are happily playing around a pond stark naked, with the lad strutting around as though he were king of the castle. So the girl asks him what he is so proud of. He points to his willy and tells her: ‘I’ve got one of these.’ So the young girl points to here mary and tells him: ‘My mummy says that because I’ve got one of these, I’ll always have one of those.’ Too true. For unless a man is homosexual and not in the slightest interested in women, they can, in many situations, run rings around a man purely because they have what he wants. Our professional feminists (and I stress that by that somewhat dismissive term I do not mean those many women who have worked very hard to change our thinking and ensure that woman are treated less like skivvies) might not like it and deny that it is true, but they are all too often inclined to deny, if it suits their agenda, that water is wet.
At this point the reader might feel I am being rather crude. Not at all. For when I talk of ‘man’, I mean the male of the species. And the prime purpose in nature for the majority of the male of the species is to reproduce as often as possible to ensure the survival of his genes. The female of the species, on the other hand, is not interested in reproducing with any old male who might be in the mood, but wants to ensure that the male she does choose to mate with has the best possible genes. To put it bluntly, the male is interested in quantity and the female in quality. So she chooses, but he doesn’t. And so, I suggest, there is not, as we seem to suppose, symmetry between the sexes. Each gender has his and her strengths and weaknesses, but in our intellectual arrogance we try to impose our views on life.
So I have always thought it rather ironical that in this ostensible feminist age men are urged to ‘find their feminine side’ and are applauded when they do. But were we similarly to urge women to ‘find their masculine side’, we would, quite rightly, I think, be accused of talking complete cobblers. (I was going to write ‘complete bollocks’, but in context that might not be the most useful phrase to use.) But in many ways that is exactly what has happened. One of the ‘achievements’ of the past 20 years (NB yet again: it still hasn’t been to ensure wage parity between the sexes), all in the name of ‘equality’, means that woman are now allowed to emulate men. And that, ironically, means that it is more or less officially sanctioned that they can behave just as badly as men: they can now, without attracting opprobrium, get just as rat-arsed, use just as much bad language and sleep around just as much. And this is seen as progress, this is regarded as improving the lot of the sisterhood. Give me a break.

. . .

In the interests of quality and assisting women with their choice of mate, I offer the following. I have been made aware that there are doubts that I was ever young. This is a libel which hurts and offends me deeply, so here (pic gone missing, but O shall find it, don't worry) I offer definite proof that I was not always an old, semi-balding fart with grey hair (dear American reader, that’s ‘gray hair’) and a very short beard, but a youngish, reasonably dashing blade about town. It is a photo I came across recently after many years and which I cherish deeply. And you think I’m joking. Think again. My best wishes to old farts and fartesses the world over. I feel your pain. Fan mail and, more pertinently, very welcome invitations to join suitable women in bed to the usual address, please.