No squeeze, please

Women are constantly urged to have mammo-grams in order to spot cancer early and be more likely to survive. Seldom do they hear from doctors who think mammo-grams actually do more harm than good.

Many women who find the procedure horribly painful and unpleasant endure it only for the supposed health benefits. But Dr Iona Heath, a London GP, refuses to have a mammogram herself.

She maintains that often the only result is "overdiagnosis" and unnecessary treatment, increased anxiety for the patient and their family, and in some cases treatment for a cancer that would have resolved itself of its own accord.

Yet health authorities continue to promote mammograms and lead women to fear that if they don't have them they are tempting fate, being irresponsible and possibly heading for a premature death.

But according to one study*, the percentage of women surviving cancer for ten years is exactly the same whether or not they are screened. And screening can lead to unnecessary tumorectomies and mastectomies that cause serious psychological distress.

What really annoys Dr Heath is the lack of balanced information about the pros and cons of mammograms and the one-sided publicity that tries to hoodwink patients by suggesting they are 100% positive.

Well, good for her, cutting through the official consensus and pointing out that there's a different viewpoint that women are not being allowed to hear.

It's too often assumed that a certain medical procedure is the only correct one, when there are equally valid alternatives. When that procedure can lead to pain, distress and mutilation, it's particularly shocking that the alternatives are neither explained nor offered.

* Cochrane Review of Breast Cancer Screening

NB: This is based on an article by Dr Heath in the Independent on July 7, which is no longer publicly viewable. But there's more information here (thanks, Dave) and here.
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Ethnic organisations in Belfast have had letters from Combat 18, a fascist group, demanding they leave Northern Ireland by July 12 or have their buildings blown up. The Belfast Islamic Centre, the Polish Association and the Indian Community Centre have been told "non-whites" are not welcome in Northern Ireland. The police have pledged to increase security around their premises.

Out to lunch

All those beleaguered companies out there are relying on their clear thinking and business acumen to get them through the recession, right? Er, not always - some of them are turning to psychics, mediums and astrologers.

They're so unsure of their own judgment, they're resorting to the supernatural to show them the way forward. Trade is booming for those who predict the future and what life has in store for you.

People like Russell Grant and the British Astrological and Psychic Society say consultations by business types like bankers and lawyers have jumped by up to 30 per cent since the recession started.

They want to know whether to make a major change to their business, whether a key decision is the right one, or even whether to sack their staff.

As one of the psychics says, instead of paying consultants £20,000 a month for often dubious advice, why not pay a lot less for a psychic who might actually be more help?

Well, it's certainly cheaper, but to imagine a psychic's advice is more reliable than your own conclusions is bizarre. Of course it must be nerve-racking trying to make vital business decisions in the midst of economic chaos, but to believe some smooth-talking soothsayer can magically point you in the right direction is bonkers.

I'd like to know how many of the psychics' clients have actually made the right decisions and kept their businesses afloat, and how many haven't. I suspect it would be roughly 50/50, much the same as if the psychics' special powers had never been called on.

And if all these hundreds of psychics were apparently unable to predict the recession in the first place, can we really have much faith that they can miraculously foresee what's coming next?

Marriage guidance

When I said Jenny and I hadn't drawn up a pre-nuptial agreement, I was lying. We did in fact draft one, which went like this:

1) The following are strictly forbidden: instant coffee, linoleum, artex, sliced bread, referring to the living room as "the lounge", garden gnomes, doorbells that play tunes, leggings, any kind of sport, comb-overs, nasal hair, tattoos, leaving hairs in the basin, not changing the toilet roll, not cleaning the crumbs off the breadboard, floral wallpaper, net curtains, matching crockery, tarot cards, and lucky charms.

2) Neither partner may sulk, moan about work, be grumpy, pick their nose, gossip about celebrities, embarrass each other in company, wear over-tight clothing, worship a supreme being, believe in astrology, or talk to their imaginary friend.

3) Fancying, or flirting with, the opposite sex (or the same one) is perfectly natural. We can't help but acknowledge beauty and sexiness. But go any further, buddy, and you're toast.

4) Each partner must adore and relish the other's body, which is infinitely fascinating and delightful. There must be no mention of fat, weight, age, wrinkles, knock-knees or hairiness. Except of course comb-overs or nasal hair, which are beyond the pale.

5) Honesty and frankness is essential at all times. We will always discuss our thoughts, feelings and experiences freely and openly in order to have a complete and meaningful relationship. Of course reckless intimacies with aesthetically-pleasing dental nurses are excluded, not being "experiences" in the normal sense.

6) We will both do our fair share of domestic chores, regardless of so-called prior commitments, long-standing allergies, invisible dust syndrome, or arthritic fingers. Except of course when there's something really really unmissable on the telly.

7) Er, that's it.

Wedding vows

I didn't realise that up till now pre-nuptial agreements weren't legally binding in Britain. So if your spouse had agreed never to claim on your private fortune, or whatever, it would never have been upheld anyway.

But the English Court of Appeal has just ruled that such contracts are in fact legally valid, and German heiress Katrin Radmacher needn't give her ex-husband Nicolas Granatino a penny - as he had agreed before the wedding.

I think the idea of a marriage contract briefly flashed through my mind before I married Jenny, but of course in our case it was pretty pointless. Neither of us had a vast fortune, a stash of Old Masters or anything else of any great value.

But if there's a possibility of gold-digging or any other kind of unscrupulous go-getting, I guess such contracts are a sensible way of preventing it and ensuring the marriage is for genuine reasons.

Mr Granatino had previously been awarded £5.8 million of Katrin's £100 million fortune, but the court decided she didn't have to pay it.

The judges said a pre-nuptial agreement was realistic when divorce was commonplace and could lead to a lot of stress and expense if nothing had been agreed about dividing up assets.

Perhaps we missed a trick not drawing up a PNA. It could have laid down a few useful markers. I could have put strict limits on Jenny's sessions of retail therapy while she could have insisted I clean the house from top to bottom every week.

Although for those couples like us who stay together and aren't likely to divorce anyway, it would just be an extra cash cow for the lawyers as they cobble together all those unnecessary legal provisos. And if you do divorce, then they sting you twice - once when you tie the knot and once when you unravel it. So keep that cheque book handy....

NB: This is the situation in English law. But the law in Scotland and Northern Ireland could be different again!

Photo: Katrin Radmacher

City roulette

I'm always amused by those dubious surveys declaring that London (or New York or Stockholm) is the world's best city for something or other - quality of life, happiness, tourist potential etc.

The indicators used to measure these things are always quite arbitrary and seldom the ones ordinary folk like me would use.

It's all very well quoting household recycling, life expectancy and school success. All very worthy, I'm sure, but are they really the things that get you and I excited? I think not. In my case it's much more likely to be the accessibility of Belgian chocolate, a well-stocked bookshop or a flattering pair of jeans. Bugger life expectancy - what's the point of living for 80 years if you've been thoroughly miserable for half of them?

You can see how arbitrary it all is when every new survey contradicts the previous one. Tokyo's the world's greatest city? You must be joking, it's Berlin of course - it has more electric cars and hairdressers than any other city. Or was it espresso bars and cycle lanes? Good news for tourist chiefs in the chosen city, but for the losers - it probably just prompts a cynical snort of disbelief.

As for the things that can't be measured at all, like breathtaking scenery, a friendly atmosphere or an intellectual buzz - what happens to them in the midst of all these statistical calculations and pie charts? It's these intangibles the researchers overlook that make our own city such fun.

And what about the areas outside the cities that the number-crunchers don't even consider? Are they saying the Orkney Islands are a soul-destroying backwater? Or Nova Scotia is a God-forsaken wilderness? There's an underlying assumption that city living is better, even if your city's only number 21 in their roll-call. Many rural dwellers would beg to differ.

But personally, I'm absolutely certain Belfast's the greatest city on earth - and I've got the figures to prove it.

Photo: Donegall Square, Belfast
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Katie, the sweet tortoiseshell cat from three doors up, one of our regular visitors, has been missing since the weekend. I do hope she hasn't come to a sticky end.

Fraught parents

New mums and dads are still expected to be besotted with their little darlings, loving the experience of being parents, and getting a whole new lease of life from child-rearing.

Any parent who steps out of line and tells another parent they're disillusioned, depressed and disheartened is still seen as a bit peculiar and lacking normal human reactions.

But anonymous internet sites tell a different story. Parents let rip with their secret thoughts and feelings and some of them are at their wits' end. They fantasise about getting their children adopted, killing them, killing themselves. And they wonder why on earth they wanted children in the first place.

It may be just a small minority of parents who feel like that, but nevertheless it contradicts the stereotype that once your child is born the natural parental instinct kicks in and you turn into a loving, devoted mum or dad who takes to childcare like a duck to water.

Sites like Mumsnet, Netmums and Parentline Plus are full of despairing confessions from parents who feel totally inadequate and inept and are begging for advice on how to cope better with a hopeless situation.

What causes all this hidden misery is anyone's guess. The experts have plenty of ideas - post natal depression, too much anxiety and stress, perfectionism, rosy expectations of parenting, the urge to compete, you name it.

Certainly it can't help that having a child is so often idealised as the best experience you can have, giving your whole life a new meaning and totally reinvigorating you. If the reality falls in any way short of this utopian picture, then of course you're going to feel pissed-off and cheated and wonder where you're going wrong.

But the fact is that childrearing is full of trials and tribulations and pitfalls like anything else in life, and it doesn't necessarily come naturally to anyone.

Perhaps if we were more realistic about what it involves, there might be fewer distraught mums and dads wanting desperately to turn the clock back.

Shoplifters galore

When people are hard up, one thing they resort to to make ends meet is shoplifting. Not surprisingly, shoplifting is rising rapidly in Britain - last year it was up 8 per cent on the year before and the number of shoplifters in jail has jumped tenfold in ten years.

It's not just poverty of course. People also shoplift for the sheer thrill of it, because they're dared to do it, or because they're addicted.

And haven't we all been tempted when something's absurdly expensive but we really really want it? We think, there's no staff in sight, I could just put this in my bag, walk out the door, and nobody would ever know. But guilt and decency stop most of us before we actually do it.

I've only shoplifted once. When I was much younger, I stole a few things from a grocer. I wasn't poor, I had no need to steal, I did it for the thrill and also because I thought the shopkeeper was a mean old skinflint and I wanted to get even. But I felt so guilty afterwards, I've never shoplifted since.

Naturally shops don't like to talk about shoplifting, they try to pretend it doesn't happen. Which means shoplifters themselves don't often get the chance to explain why they do it. They're just seen as common criminals and frequently slung into jail* rather than getting the help they need to break the habit.

Many shoplifters are women trying to keep their families afloat and stealing out of sheer desperation. Putting them in a prison cell for months is no solution. But the real solution - reducing poverty and raising incomes - is one the politicians always shy away from.

As for the teenagers who shoplift, nicking lipstick and eye shadow to keep up with their favourite celebs, that's more about the endless obsession with image and appearance. And that's an even harder nut to crack.

* One in three female prisoners are shoplifters, and more women are jailed for shoplifting than any other crime (Home Office figures)

The ties that bind

What makes a house a home? I've been chewing this over ever since we moved, and the answer has come to me -emotional ties.

The thing that turns an anonymous house into one that's your own, one you identify with, is not simply specific things like books or pictures or momentoes or favourite chairs but those emotional ties that get richer and richer the longer you live somewhere.

The more you've done in a house, the more you've experienced there, the more visitors you've had, the more things you've bought for it, the more changes you've made, the greater those personal connections that make the house feel endearing, familiar, cosy, lovable.

Just filling a house with bits and pieces, however beautiful they are, doesn't in itself make the house your own. Which explains why some houses look so spartan and unlived-in even though they're sumptuously furnished with the trendiest items. In the end it's up to us to add all those extra personal echoes that bring everything to life.

Memories in particular increase those emotional ties. The longer you live in a house, the more memories you have of it - both good and bad - and those memories add meaning and significance to your physical surroundings. The day the boiler packed up, that wonderful birthday party, next-door's cat pawing at the door. This is where it all happened.

When you first move into a house, you have yet to build all those personal bonds. You're conscious only that this was someone else's house, full of all their associations and not yours. Step by step you have to strip off their imprint, like stripping off old layers of wallpaper, and replace it with your own. It's a long process, but also an exciting and creative one.
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Of the 115 Romanians forced to leave their homes in South Belfast, only two are staying in Northern Ireland, while the rest are returning to Romania. Despite all the offers of help they received from local residents, in the end it's a victory for the racists who have managed to ethnically cleanse their neighbourhood. The politicians, police and other authorities have trotted out the usual ritual condemnations but never gave the ousted families the protection and security they needed. Jenny has more to say about it here.

Plane blight

Our new home is about three quarters of a mile from Belfast City Airport, which is handy if we're taking a plane. And it's far enough away for any aircraft noise to be barely audible. But it's a different story for those right next to the airport.

There's been a continual stand-off for some years now between the airport, which wants to extend the runway, have more flights, and generally see a lot more passengers, and local residents who bitterly oppose any increased activity.

The airport always minimises its expansion plans, insisting the planes won't be any bigger, the flights won't be any more disturbing and so on. The locals are deeply suspicious (and right to be) and fight each new proposal every inch of the way.

Of course the airport says the residents are just standing in the way of progress and economic prosperity. And if they really object to the airport so much, they're free to move somewhere less noisy.

It's a thorny issue - freedom to fly wherever you like versus peace and quiet for ordinary houseowners who don't want to install triple glazing simply to have a normal life. Why do so many people have to fly to so many places, often for no good reason except a bit of self-indulgent pleasure? Can't they do something else that doesn't involve flying?

Well, I have to say I enjoy flying and I enjoy visiting places that realistically you can only fly to. Perhaps the real problem is airports that were thoughtlessly sited near to residential areas and now keep growing regardless of the rising antagonism.

They could easily be resited somewhere less populated, and reached on high-speed transport links. Although that would bring fresh protests from those wanting to protect the green belt.

Is there any simple answer to the flying dilemma? I suspect not, it's a bit of a zero-sum game. I fly, you pop in the earplugs.
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Some 115 Romanians have been terrorised out of their homes in south Belfast by racist thugs. They are now under police guard at temporary accommodation. And a man who helped organise an anti-racism rally has been told his house will be firebombed. See Jenny's post on this sickening episode.

Say cheese

You'd think that someone who ate virtually nothing but cheese would be really unhealthy. How could you possibly get all the nutrients you need? And wouldn't you be begging for a heart attack?

But it seems that Vicki Zukiewicz is quite healthy on just such a diet. The only things she can stomach apart from cheese are the odd potato, hunk of bread or slice of pizza (with cheese topping). Yet she's alive and well.

She says the texture or taste or smell of anything else turns her right off. No matter what delicious meal her husband is eating, she won't touch it. Try as she might, she can't overcome her engrained aversion.

It creates huge problems when she's socialising. In fact she avoids any social occasions involving food and usually eats at home, where at least her phobia is understood and allowed for.

Naturally everyone tries to psychoanalyse her, asking her what childhood experience brought this on, and diagnosing all sorts of fancy conditions. But she pooh-poohs them and says that's just the way she is and there's no rhyme or reason for it.

I do wonder how healthy she really is, though. Does she have regular medical checks to confirm her physical fitness? Is she a normally energetic, alert 32 year old? Or is she storing up trouble for the future?

I've heard of people with similarly limited diets before - and they were surprisingly healthy too. There was a boy who ate only marmite sandwiches and apparently came to no harm.

It seems awfully sad though that she finds so many tasty foods utterly repugnant. I can't imagine going without the fantastic flavours and aromas of all my favourite dishes. I would feel bereft, diminished, shorn of an essential everyday pleasure.

And much as I like cheese, eating it non-stop would smother its appeal pretty quickly.

Photo: Vicki Zukiewicz

PS: Cheese has more nutrients than you might think, including calcium, phosphorus, protein, amino acids, vitamin A, the B vitamins, iodine, magnesium, zinc, sodium, aluminium, nickel and selenium.

Vile bodies

Why do women criticise their own bodies so mercilessly? I think most men get very impatient with this constant self-loathing, particularly when they've failed to notice any of the so-called imperfections.

Enormous bum? Hideous nose? Huge feet? Where do these obsessions come from? Presumably from endless comparisons with unreal supermodels who bear scant relation to ordinary women.

All my ex-girlfriends made much of some alleged deficiency which usually was invisible to me. No amount of reasoned argument would convince them they were just fine as they were.

Celebs interviewed in the media will invariably mention some part of their anatomy they'd love to be rid of, it's so loathsome. It seems to be female etiquette never to say that actually you're quite happy with your body. That would suggest a goodie-goodie-two-shoes surfeit of complacency.

I think it's time for a women's self-acceptance week, in which women are forbidden to criticise their bodies and can only appreciate them, listing all the features that are attractive and likeable. Plastic surgery would be banned for the week, as well as all media articles telling women how to improve their bodies.

Men would make a point of complimenting women, though predictably the recipients would see it as phoney flattery and wonder what the man was trying to get out of them. "You're just saying that", "Ha ha, pull the other one" and so on.

Or perhaps we men should spend a week being as relentlessly self-critical as our womenfolk, systematically pulling ourselves to pieces and wishing we looked more like Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio. It would be interesting to see the reaction....

Be my guest

Short of guests for that all-important social event? Racking your brains for remote acquaintances you can barely remember? Easy - just hire some fake friends to plug the gap.

If you live in Tokyo, there's a company that does exactly that - hires out "friends" to make your birthday party or wedding go with a swing.

Simply attending costs £127, while there's an extra charge for making a speech, singing or dancing. They can pretend to be anything you want - a lover, a secretary or a distant relative. In fact whatever you think will impress the genuine guests.

But who on earth would be sufficiently devious or insecure or pretentious to go to such lengths? Are there that many people who're so desperate to keep up appearances and pretend they've got a huge social circle?

Surely they'd be found out pretty quickly when one of the bogus guests failed to know some elementary fact about the person throwing the party or housewarming? That's funny, they never heard about the car accident. Or the overdose....

Mind you, recollecting some of the dismal social events and vacuous conversations I've had to endure in the past, maybe a few fake guests would have livened them up a bit and sent me home pleasantly happy rather than wanting to shoot myself.
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Now we've moved to the other side of Belfast, Jenny has relaunched her blog as East Belfast Diary to write about her new neighbourhood.

A lethal lapse

If ever you needed proof of the devastation a moment's careless driving can cause, the heart-rending story of the Beachy Head suicides really brings it home.

As Josephine Elias, a property consultant, was driving at top speed round a blind bend on a country lane in 2005, she smashed head-on into the car driven by Kazumi Puttick, whose 16-month-old son Sam was sleeping beside her.

Sam was thrown through the windscreen and across the road, severing his spinal cord and leaving him quadriplegic.

His distraught parents gave up their jobs to care for him and were totally dedicated to giving him the best possible quality of life.

Two weeks ago Sam developed pneumococcal meningitis and died. Kazumi and Neil Puttick were so shattered they threw themselves off Beachy Head in Eastbourne, with Sam's body in a rucksack.

This catastrophic chain of events was triggered off by one simple act of carelessness by a self-absorbed driver. According to reports, she was also distracted by dogs in her car.

All she had to say this weekend, in a statement from her solicitor, was that she was "deeply saddened". An amazingly cool reaction to the trail of damage she has left behind her.

I can guarantee that at this very moment there are other drivers hurtling down country lanes at breakneck speed, equally oblivious to who or what might be round the next corner.

If it was a food product that was causing this level of carnage and tragedy, it would be taken off the shelves. Unfortunately cars are too necessary to be banned, so idiotically reckless drivers will continue to ruin other people's lives for years to come.

Photo: Sam Puttick

Lovers apart

It must be really hard maintaining a long-distance relationship, where a couple are separated by hundreds or thousands of miles and only meet up at long intervals.

Their passion for each other must have to be pretty strong to overcome the obstacle of being so physically divided, not to mention sexually deprived.

When I lived in London, I once had a girlfriend in Birmingham, and we would only see each other at weekends. It was so frustrating and agonising not meeting more regularly that she eventually moved down to London.

Ironically the increased proximity led to less passion rather than more and we split up six months later. It really was a case of absence making the heart grow fonder.

But how people cope when they're in London and New York, or for that matter one partner is working away from home for months on end, I just don't know. At times they must be desperate for physical contact and the emotional warmth that goes with it.

You have to be very trusting too, not to suspect your loved one of having other relationships behind your back. Anyone liable to paranoia would soon be in trouble. You have to be confident your partner is honest and loyal and not a compulsive flirt.

When you do manage to meet, you're anxiously looking for any sign that your partner's enthusiasm has dimmed, that while you've been apart they've noticed all your bad habits and disillusion has set in.

That so many long-distance relationships not only survive but thrive is a tribute to the doggedness of the human heart.

New home

Phew! We've finally moved house and what a strange experience it is. It's a bit like being shot into a parallel universe, leaving a familiar locality and suddenly being in a totally different one.

All my expectations and routines have to be rewritten as everything has changed - the house itself, the local streets, the shops, the neighbours, even the overheard conversations.

But what fun it is exploring a brand-new neighbourhood, having no idea what's down the next street. What will I discover? A fabulous restaurant? A useful dry cleaner? A lovely old church? Or a row of derelict houses and a pawn shop?

I could wander around for hours drinking in all the sights, alternately delighted and horrified, wondering why something amazing isn't more widely known about, or why something monstrous hasn't been burnt down.

As for the house itself, it always takes months or even years to get a place exactly the way you want it, reflecting your own tastes and interests, creating a sense of friendly cosiness. What works in one house is inexplicably wrong in another.

For a while there's always a lingering feeling that it's all a dream, that I'll suddenly wake up in my old house and find the new one was a passing mirage. Slowly it'll dawn on me that it's for real, that my senses aren't deceiving me.

In fact a couple of neighbours have already introduced themselves, as well as their cat Katy who had a good sniff round our kitchen diner before sloping off looking distinctly unimpressed. She was no doubt hoping for a new feline buddy.

And just what makes a house a home? Leah said it all in her brilliant post here.

Vital organs

For many years I've carried in my bag a card that allows any part of my body to be donated to others if I die. This seems a much better idea than simply burying or burning them.

If I have perfectly healthy organs that can benefit others, and there are people out there desperate to have them, why not pass them on? Why not recycle them and keep someone else alive and well?

I really don't understand those individuals who are too squeamish or possessive or fastidious not to permit such therapeutic use of what they leave behind. It's just flesh and tissue in the end.

There's an irrational fear that if someone allows the use of their organs after death, their death will somehow be surreptiously hastened to harvest parts that are urgently needed.

I don't know of any cases where this has happened, though I know of instances where people already dead have had bits secretly removed and stored without the knowledge or permission of the relatives.

Even if I were to be the victim of such unauthorised removal, I still wouldn't object if the parts were being put to a good use such as research or training. They'd be no more use to me, after all.

And isn't the possibility of helping someone less fortunate (or even half a dozen) more important than the tiny risk of that offer being abused by someone unscrupulous? It's like refusing to give to charity because someone somewhere might waste the money on boardroom chandeliers.

One of the best-known cases of posthumous organ donation is that of Nicholas Green, a seven year old Californian boy who was killed by robbers in Italy. His organs and corneas were donated to seven different Italians waiting for transplants. Organ donations in Italy have tripled since his murder and thousands of people who would have died are still alive and healthy.

How could anyone say no to such simple, undemanding altruism?

Grumpy old men

Males of my age are commonly assumed to turn into grumpy old men. Isn't that what old men do? We're programmed by our Y chromosomes to become universally surly, cantankerous and impossible to deal with.

We're supposed to rage and curse at stupid motorists, hate teenagers and sales assistants, fume at red tape and form-filling, attack dumbing down and falling standards, and despise anything invented in the last twenty years.

Thus the popular TV programme "Grumpy Old Men" in which elderly curmudgeons vent their spleen at everything in sight, complaining that there's nothing left to enjoy and saying they'll be glad when they're six feet under and out of their misery.

Well, I keep waiting for this mysterious overnight transformation in which my habitual good humour turns into bad-tempered misanthropy, but I have to report that it hasn't yet happened. I remain a cheerful, open-minded soul ready to give anything or anyone a fair hearing.

I've nothing against teenagers or sales assistants, I'm all in favour of the internet and mobile phones, I'm very tolerant of careless motorists who're probably shagged out from a demanding job, and every day I'm delighted and fascinated by life's constantly evolving possibilities and wonders. It takes an awful lot to make me seriously grumpy.

Of course in twenty years' time when I'm a decrepit old wreck who can't hear, see or walk, I might have cause to be sullen and generally pissed off with my lot, but right now grumpiness is uncalled-for.

Perhaps grumpy old men should all be put through a sort of detoxification programme, alcoholic style, to dry them out and purge all those nasty toxins from their system. Why glamourise the foul-mouthed old sods?

A shocking truth

I expect most people have heard of the notorious experiment* in which volunteers were asked to give massive electric shocks to an innocent and protesting man. Two thirds of them did.

The experiment was repeated recently, but the volunteers weren't kinder, they were actually more ruthless. This time 75 per cent gave the maximum shock - three times.

What this extraordinary experiment shows is that when it comes to the crunch, people are more likely to be obedient and conformist than to challenge authority and help someone in distress.

However guilty and nasty they felt about being cruel, they were scared to simply refuse and walk out. They somehow justified the instructions, repressed their finer feelings and did what they were told.

Even knowing how mindlessly callous some people can be, I still find this level of submission incredible. Are so many people capable of ignoring heart-wrenching, insistent cries of pain and misery? It seems they are.

I'm totally sure I would be one of the refuseniks. Apart from my ingrained rebelliousness and suspicion of experts and authority figures, there's no way I could willingly inflict pain on an innocent person for no good reason. And a so-called scientific experiment with no clear purpose is not a good reason. I would be out of the door like a shot.

We like to pride ourselves on being questioning and independent, looking carefully at a situation and doing the right thing. But it seems that in practice this can prove to be a fragile self-delusion.

Our cherished principles can all too easily be undermined by our human weakness for less moral considerations - wanting to please, not wanting to be awkward, or just following procedures. We're not always as strong-minded as we like to think.

* the Milgram Experiment at Yale University in 1961

On the move

Hey, Jenny and I are actually moving house at long last, fifteen months after we first put our own house on the market! We can't quite believe it's really happening - for definite!

After months of not getting any offers, and houses we planned to move to falling through for one reason or another, finally all the jigsaw pieces have fallen into place and we're off - from South Belfast to East Belfast.

In a couple of weeks we're leaving the posh, leafy streets of the South (Queens University, the Queens Film Theatre, fashionable Lisburn Road, the Botanic Gardens) for the almost as posh Belmont (Stormont, Campbell College and several other swanky schools).

Once again I'll have to completely reorientate myself, in an unfamiliar neighbourhood with different shops, bus routes, amenities, landmarks. I really love exploring a new area and getting to know all the backstreets and quirky old buildings.

But what an upheaval it is, so many details to sort out with so many people - estate agents, solicitors, removal men, buyers, sellers, banks, phone companies. And of course all the friends and relatives who have to be updated. Aaargh!

I will have lived in thirteen homes altogether, including my boarding school and a slummy bedsit in the illustrious Abbey Road. One was next door to Sade's house, two were in red light districts, two adjoined railway lines, and the present one is under a flight path.

One thing I know is, homes all have their distinct personalities. Some I could never live in, they feel cold and unwelcoming the moment I step through the door, while others just vibrate with happy, exuberant lives.

I wonder if some houses enjoy being houses, while others would rather not be there at all?

Photo: a typical Belmont street

NB: Blogging and commenting may be a bit erratic over the next few weeks, what with the run-up to moving and transferring our broadband connection. Be patient!
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Jenny has given me the intriguing Noblesse Oblige Award - "for his constant efforts to make sense of the world - some entertaining, some deadly serious, all expressed wonderfully clearly." Well, gee thanks! Nepotism rules, okay!

Enough is enough

In one of the papers today, four teetotallers explain how awkward it can be when they're surrounded by drinkers all happily chucking booze down their throats.

Inevitably when they refuse any alcohol, those who enjoy it keep asking why they abstain. Wouldn't they have more fun if they had a glass or two? Is it a religious principle? Are they recovering alcoholics?

The idea that they simply don't like the taste of alcohol, or they don't like hangovers, or they enjoy themselves fine when they're sober, seems to mystify people. How can you not want to ingest as much of the stuff as possible?

I'm subject to this sort of questioning sometimes, as I drink very little and find two glasses are more than enough to blur my brain and senses in a way I find embarrassing and annoying. My tolerance for alcohol is very limited, and it does nothing at all for my sociability or my intelligence.

But there's still the general assumption that I should be drinking more, that I can't really enjoy myself without at least a bottle of wine inside me. There's even an attitude that if I don't wake up the next morning with a colossal hangover, my evening out must obviously have been a washout.

Well, sorry, but I like my alcohol in moderation, too much of it does nothing for me whatever. If others genuinely relish non-stop quantities of it, good luck to them, though when I see people lurching out of pubs, vomiting profusely and having to be taken home by others for their own safety, I do have my doubts.

Can this really be pleasure? And am I really just a miserable killjoy?
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The Belgian city of Ghent now has a weekly vegetarian day, to counter the impact of livestock on the environment. Nice one!