Mind the biscuit

Can it really be true that 25 million Britons have been injured while eating biscuits? And that the worst offenders are those innocent-looking custard creams?

A new survey claims biscuits are pretty dangerous objects. You could be hit by flying fragments, scald yourself while dunking them, poke yourself in the eye, or fall off your chair getting them from a shelf.

Is this really credible? Have you personally ever been injured by a biscuit? Do you know anyone who has? Do you know anyone who's ever heard of anyone who has? Or is your life mysteriously free of biscuit-related catastrophes?

I suspect the whole unlikely scenario was invented by a bored teenager on work experience, munching a particularly unexciting and nondescript custard cream.

The research company however insists its results are absolutely genuine and painstakingly gathered. "We tested the physical properties of 15 popular types of biscuit, along with aspects of their consumption such as dunkability and crumb dispersal."

So there you have it. How thorough is that? So thorough that no doubt several researchers were themselves injured as they tested dunkability and fragmentation-potential. Some of them are probably still in intensive care right now, martyrs to exhaustive scientific inquiry.

Oh, and I haven't even listed all the possible dangers of biscuit-handling. You could also break a tooth or filling, be bitten by a pet competing for the biscuit, choke on the crumbs, or slip on a crushed digestive. Believe me, it's lethal out there.

Next up from this diligent research team: the mounting death toll from pot noodle. Hospitals overwhelmed as popular snack proves fatal. Could you be at risk?

So neurotic

"Neurotic" is one of those vague terms we sling at people, more as an insult than a description. "Natalie's so bloody neurotic, it's impossible to work with her."

It's pretty damning because it can mean all sorts of unflattering things. The person's obsessive, they worry too much, they complicate things, they dither, they're over-emotional.

It's not a word we welcome. It implies we're pretty useless at dealing with everyday life. Everything is too much for us, the tiniest thing makes us panic, we fumble our way along like a halfwit.

Once someone has attached the term to you, it's hard to shake off, even it turns out to be quite mistaken. I remember a workmate called Jane who had a deceptively ditzy style. She always looked dazed and ineffectual, with a hesitant voice, a deferential manner and a constant air of timidity.

She was instantly summed up as neurotic, yet this was far from the truth. Underneath the quavery exterior was a steely core, and she did her work brilliantly. She was actually smarter, more efficient and more reliable than many of her workmates, but the "neurotic" tag clung to her obstinately.

It doesn't help either that it's one of those common psychiatric terms that implies the person's a bit deranged and in urgent need of professional treatment.

You don't have to be as considerate and helpful as you would to any normal person because their problems are too complex, too tangled, you'll just get sucked into their hopelessly dysfunctional psyche. Best to give them a wide berth and leave them to it.

All in all, a juicy term of abuse. It isn't often aimed at me but when it is I'm startled enough to take a good hard look at myself. Am I really that loopy? Am I really out to lunch? Or was it just a throwaway remark?

Breaking muse

People often ask me, what is the secret of your consistently brilliant blog? Where do you write such dazzling posts? What are the surroundings that inspire you to such dizzy heights of eloquence?

Well, I've taken a deep breath and revealed this candid picture of my blogging room. It is in fact the Marilyn Monroe Memorial Library in the East Wing, overlooking the Boating Lake.

It may look quiet and sedate but unfortunately my creative endeavours have often been interrupted by disturbing and gruesome tragedies.

My half-sister Sophie, in a state of hopeless depression after the death of her beloved chihuahua, jumped from the window and was killed instantly as she hit the granite flagstones by the statue of Oscar Wilde.

Uncle Bernard, the incorrigible womaniser, was seriously injured when the massive light fitting fell from the ceiling and fractured his skull. He was in a coma for seven weeks, which came as a great relief to the 15 women he was actively pursuing.

My cherubic niece Tiffany was overcome by fumes from the fresh varnish on the writing desk and was found in a deranged state by the housekeeper. She had torn hundreds of pages out of my priceless first editions.

Still, never mind these depressing memories. What of the creative secrets hidden in this innocent-looking room?

In a special compartment under the floorboards there's a stash of banknotes to persuade rival bloggers to abandon their pointless outpourings. If that doesn't work, there's also a shotgun and a phial of arsenic.

In the writing desk drawer are the computer codes that lace my posts with subliminal messages compelling visitors to keep reading. Mostly they refer to sex, chocolate cake and designer dresses.

But that's enough of my fearless candour. I shall now lock the door, draw the curtains and wait for the Muse to let rip. If she's gone off in a huff, I'll just have to paint my nails and finish off the marzipan cupcakes.

With thanks to Catalog Living

Unsavoury kilts

It seems the old Scottish custom of not wearing anything under your kilt is no longer sacred. It's being attacked as unhygienic, childish and offensive.

Firms that hire out kilts are complaining that because of the no-underwear tradition, kilts are being returned to them in a disgusting state that upsets their staff, and they have to be thoroughly cleaned before they can be reused*. Some firms are now demanding underwear as a condition of hire.

Regular kilt-wearers however are having none of it. They say insisting on underwear is namby-pamby nonsense and undermines an age-old custom. Kilt-wearers like fresh air and freedom of movement around their intimate areas, and they can't see what all the fuss is about.

But I daresay their women folk aren't entirely happy with the scantily-clad tradition, and aren't too keen on the possibility of accidental exposure.

Personally I've never seen the attraction of kilts anyway. Rather ungainly, old-fashioned things, surely? Why hordes of women find them so exciting and dashing escapes me. If men fancy wearing a skirt (and why not, for heaven's sake?), how about something subtler and prettier?

I must say I'm seeing kilt-wearers in a different light after those squalid revelations from the hirers. I think I'll keep well away from anyone in a kilt in future for fear of unsavoury goings-on. Me, I'm definitely in the compulsory underwear camp. Good grief, lads, have you no sense of personal decency?

* That's the kilts, not the staff

Be my guest

Even if we were desperate for money, Jenny and I would be very reluctant to take in a lodger. We could so easily end up with the lodger from hell, taking advantage every which way and driving us nuts.

But the number of people taking in lodgers to make ends meet is rising dramatically in the current economic downturn.

More than 200,000 British households now have a lodger - that's a rise of 15 per cent in three years and a level not seen since the sixties. The typical lodger-landlords are middle-class thirty-something couples.

Some of them have had their fingers burnt though. They've had lodgers who keep stinking food in the fridge, cook meals at all hours of the night, take umpteen showers a day and monopolise the washing machine. Then when they ask the lodger to leave, they dig their heels in and refuse to go.

Jenny and I simply wouldn't want to take that risk. Because however carefully you try to vet someone and predict how reliable and well-behaved they're going to be, you can always be fooled by someone who knows how to fake it and present themselves as the ideal lodger.

It's simply not worth the possibility that our cosy and comfortable domestic routine would be hit for six for someone who couldn't care less about our wishes or our well-being.

In my twenties I shared a few places with other people and sometimes it was a nightmare. They would invite all their friends round for wild parties, never do any housework, play loud music at any hour and leave food to fester and rot. I would have to move out rapidly and with a huge sigh of relief.

If all lodgers respected their landlords and behaved with sensitivity and courtesy, the idea of taking them in would be more appealing. Unfortunately too many lodgers turn out to be a law unto themselves.

PS: Okay, be honest, am I just mean and selfish and uncharitable?

PPS: Jenny points out that even if lodgers are a pain in the arse, they may be paying the landlord's mortgage. In which case complaints ring a bit hollow....

Binge and run

Have you ever been tempted to walk out of a restaur-ant without paying when you notice the exorbitant prices on the menu?

A couple who were arrested in London are suspected of doing a runner from a string of posh restaurants, clocking up unpaid bills amounting to £2500.

The bills included bottles of vintage champagne, repeat orders of foie gras, hare, venison, mille-feuille and other exotic items.

I must say when I see the phenomenal prices some eateries charge for very basic dishes, simply because the venue is fashionable and luxurious, and the obscene levels of profit involved, the idea of stuffing oneself and then scarpering is very appealing.

I do wonder whether these affluent diners are simply savouring their over-priced titbits or whether their real aim is to feel superior to all the impoverished grafters peering enviously through the windows.

I'm sure most people would love to dine out in style every night rather than cobbling up another makeshift meal in a poky kitchen. Unfortunately they don't have bank accounts hefty enough to finance such casual extravagance.

Mind you, on the odd occasion when I've found myself in some fancy restaurant renowned for its haute cuisine, the servers have an unnervingly supercilious attitude, as if they know far more about culinary nuances than you, the uneducated punter, could possibly know. They give the impression you're gracing their tables on sufferance, only tolerated for the sake of financial gain. They'll wash their hands of you at the earliest opportunity.

When I recall occasions of that sort, I think maybe there's something to be said for a makeshift meal in a poky kitchen.

Curiosity

I'm an intensely curious person. I'm never satisfied with the obvious. I'm never satisfied with glib platitudes. I want to know more, I want the facts behind the facts, I want the hidden story.

So you have marital squabbles? Medical problems? Financial headaches? Tell me the details, the sheer awfulness, the whole desperate mess. Don't fob me off with vague hints, lay it all on the table.

The trouble is that most people don't want to tell me the full story. They're suspicious of my curiosity. They think I'll criticise them, or laugh at them, or lecture them. They're embarrassed by their own foolishness or vulnerability or incompetence. They can't believe I'm simply interested in what they're going through, what they're having to contend with.

So most of the time my curiosity is frustrated. I have to make do with imagining the missing pieces in the jigsaw, imagining what they're not telling me. And quite possibly conjuring up something far more lurid and catastrophic than is actually the case.

Someone will hint at marital tensions, and immediately I'm assuming sexual infidelity, domestic violence or seedy obsessions, when the reality may be nothing more than persistent snoring.

I don't mind other people's curiosity about me. I don't have anything to hide (well, very little). People can ask away as much as they like, I'm happy to tell them whatever they want to know. I'm a fallible human being like anyone else, I make mistakes, I get into tight spots. I don't feel any need to cover things up and pretend I'm perfect. I don't expect criticism or ridicule, and actually I seldom get it.

There's nothing wrong with curiosity. It shows a healthy interest in life. What does disturb me is people with no curiosity at all, people who respond blankly to anything and everything, be it trite, odd or utterly insane. That's what really sends shivers up my spine.

A warm welcome

What a wonderful way to welcome new women employees to your office. Circulate pictures of them to the male employees and ask for a rating of the top ten most attractive recruits.

Wouldn't that make you feel good? It wouldn't? What's the matter, lost your sense of humour, love?

Unluckily for the 17 men who did exactly that at an Irish branch of Price Waterhouse Coopers, a journalist discovered their jolly jape and alerted their managers. But only after the pictures were forwarded to other firms and then flooded the internet.

The company is now promising a full investigation and say they will "take all necessary steps and actions."

Apart from wondering how the 17 men had the time for such concentrated ogling, it baffles me how they could possibly see such an exercise as a welcoming gesture. The answer presumably is that their intention was never to be welcoming but to put the women in their places as bits of totty whose specialist skills are of no importance.

I can only imagine what the 13 women felt, as none of them has had the courage to speak out. Shock, horror and embarrassment probably don't begin to describe their feelings at being turned into a global public spectacle for the amusement and sexual frisson of countless horny males.

They joined the company expecting to be seen as productive and valued employees, only to be relegated to pin-up status in a leering beauty contest.

They rapidly discovered that their male colleagues may look polished and professional in their crisp little suits, but underneath lurks the same old swamp of misogynist crudity.

PS: Incredibly, many of the media stories include all 13 pictures, which only encourages further circulation. My link is now to the story in the Irish Times, which doesn't include the pictures.

PPS: And when are we going to see pictures of all the 17 men, with their names and personal details? Somehow I think their identities will be carefully hushed up....

Pic: Fiona and Sharon check out the Top Ten Ugliest Male Employees at Soddit and Halfwit Ltd

Guilt

Guilt is an ambiguous thing. It can be a healthy feeling of regret and the need to put something right. Or it can be a hopeless neurosis, a constant brooding over past mistakes.

Men are assumed to be low on guilt, just ploughing ahead regardless and not too worried about the consequences of what they do. Anyone who objects is seen as an oversensitive fuss-butt, unable to deal with real life.

Women are thought to be guilt-ridden, forever wondering if they've caused offence or not been generous enough or treated someone badly. They're always ready to apologise, declare their own shortcomings and make frantic amends.

I have to say I follow the male pattern here. I seldom feel guilty and I tend to think that if something I do causes some unexpected disaster or distresses someone, it's really just bad luck. Of course I'll do what I can to put things right, but I don't lose any sleep over it and I don't beat myself up over my miscalculations.

It occurs to me though that if men were a bit more prone to guilt, a lot of the horrendous massacres and barbarities they've carried out across the world wouldn't have happened. If they could feel a shred of human empathy with the victims of their atrocities, they wouldn't be capable of them.

But too much guilt can paralyse a person and make them so timid and hesitant their whole life stalls. They blame themselves for everything and can't accept that shit happens despite the best of intentions.

A smattering of guilt helps us to be civilised. But too much of it can be a millstone.

PS: Is there a difference between regret (feeling you did something wrong) and guilt (feeling bad about it)?

Old and past it

I'm devastated to have to tell you that I'm being replaced as the presenter of nickhereandnow on account of being "too old and wrinkled and generally past it."

The new presenter will be gorgeous, pouting Veronica Trinket, aged 25, the glamorous supermodel and fashionista. "I'm looking forward to this exciting new opportunity" she gushed. "I don't know anything about blogging but I'm keen to learn."

I had an unexpected phone call from Simon Hatchett, Human Resources Director of the British Blogging Corporation, on Friday morning.

"I don't like to say it, Nick," he said, "but someone has to. There's a general feeling that you're a bit over the hill and due for retirement. To be frank, your face looks like a mountain path and your eyebags are bigger than my wife's tits. A bit of botox and plastic surgery might do the trick, but I hear you believe in natural ageing."

"I certainly do" I spluttered. "You heartless monster. You moronic crowd-pleaser. Don't you realise I'm the one who creates the unique flavour, the special ambience of nickhereandnow? How can that possibly be left in the hands of some gormless anorexic coat-hanger? Are you insane?"

Needless to say, my protests fell on deaf ears. I'm dispensible, I'm yesterday's cheeseburger, I'm a laddered pair of tights. I've got to go, the sooner the better.

But I'm not taking this lying down. I shall join the sacked BBC Countryfile presenter Miriam O'Reilly (53) who is suing the BBC for sex and age discrimination, and sue the pants off Mr Hatchett.

And don't be surprised if gorgeous, pouting Veronica is involved in a very nasty accident.

Pic: starving but wrinkle-free Veronica Trinket

Smoke alarm

I haven't much sympathy with workplace smokers, but the new tendency to make them clock out and clock in whenever they take a fag break does seem a bit over the top.

Apparently a number of local authorities are now asking smokers either to clock out while they smoke or work overtime to compensate.

Not surprisingly smokers are objecting to being singled out for penalties. What about non-smokers who waste their time on the internet or Facebook? Or make themselves a cup of coffee? Or spend ten minutes gossiping with a workmate? Or spin out that out-of-office trip to do a bit of shopping? Shouldn't they be penalised as well?

The truth is we all sneak little breaks from work to give ourselves a boost or fend off a heavy workload for a while. Either we should all be sanctioned or nobody should. It's hardly fair to jump on smokers and nobody else. I'm with the smokers here.

Those non-smokers who claim to feel resentful about 'privileged' smokers should look more honestly at their own personal indulgences and the little work-avoidance tricks they themselves get up to. If they aren't careful, they could find themselves hoist by their own petard.

We all have our dodges, especially if we've had decades of work-experience to suss them all out and refine them into barely-noticeable spells of truancy. One of the vital skills to pick up on your first job is the art of ingenious skiving. But still, that's another subject altogether.

Still together

Curious as we are, there are questions we hesitate to ask long-established couples, because there's always a sub-text that's a bit dodgy.

Like "So how come you're still together after 17 years?" which translates as "But you're like chalk and cheese. You squabble all the time. You like completely different things. Surely you should have split up ages ago?"

Secretly you keep wondering how they continue to rub along after so many years. Surely they've both changed so much they must now irritate the hell out of each other? But you just can't ask. It implies all the wrong things.

Even less can you ask "So how's your sex life? Still going strong?" because there's always the awful possibility they gave up on it long ago, or one of them has bizarre sexual tastes the other finds repulsive.

Asking if they're the same fiery political radicals they used to be can be hazardous too. You might find one of them's done a stealthy U-turn and become a crusty old bigot railing at the feckless and the workshy.

It may be that that old-established couple is just as compatible and besotted as they were on day one. They may still get on like a house on fire. But asking too many leading questions is inviting disaster.

Instead of a cheerful confirmation that they've never been closer, you might suddenly get frosty stares, shifty evasions and elaborate lies. Or even a bitter rant about how their other half doesn't understand them, is an obsessive control freak, or is emotionally paralysed.

Wiser just to enjoy their company and their apparently still viable relationship than to broach those delicate questions you're dying to ask. They could backfire dramatically.

And naturally Jenny and I remain as compatible and besotted after 29 years. How could you suggest anything different? What do you mean, how's our sex life? What do you mean, are we still fiery political radicals? How dare you, what a cheek. What is this, the Gestapo? Kindly leave the premises immediately....

No, the pic's not me and Jenny, just a happy-looking couple!

Meat rage

Just why do meat-eaters have to be so viciously abusive to vegetar-ians? I mean, what is their problem?

Harriet Walker in the Independent directs a tirade of insults against us meat refuseniks as if we were some alarming social menace. So what did we ever do to her except decide to eat differently?

Referring to the PETA* ad in which a scantily dressed Pamela Anderson is marked with the sort of prime cuts you see in a butcher, she says " Let's face it, there's nothing sexy about vegetarianism. As the thousands of beardy, socks-and-sandals wearing diehards will attest, this advert is the raciest thing to have happened to the movement since Linda McCartney."

Well now, Harriet, let me point out a few things:

1) Why should vegetarianism be sexy? It's a diet choice, not a miniskirt. If I want sexy, I'll watch a Penelope Cruz movie.

2) I don't have a beard and don't wear sandals. I do wear socks though, since tights might raise a few eyebrows.

3) Oddly enough, women vegetarians don't have beards.

4) I'm no more a diehard than those who insist on eating meat and dismiss vegetarianism as rabbit food. I simply dislike the unnecessary killing of animals.

5) The advert is only racy if you think a bikini-clad Pamela Anderson is cutting-edge erotica. In this day and age, I think not. And again, why do stuffed peppers and pumpkin risotto have to be racy? Is there nothing free of sexual innuendo?

Still, perhaps we should be more sympathetic. Such irrational torrents of abuse are of course a typical side-effect of eating large quantities of meat. She really can't help herself, she's the victim of an uncontrollable addiction. I do hope she gets better soon.

*PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

Naked fury

Nude protests are catching on. Those intrepid souls who don't mind baring all their physical imperfect-ions are doing so to oppose a wide range of injustices.

The latest campaigners to shed their clothes are those angered by high apartment rents in Berlin. They visit apartments on offer, strip off and dance.

The protests are organised by a group called Hedonist International, which has also stormed a neo-Nazi pub.

Some estate agents called the police while others were more laid-back and laughed it off as a harmless amusement. But Berlin's socialist mayor was rattled enough to announce rent-capping in newly-gentrified districts.

There have been many other nude protests - against the fur trade in Dublin and Barcelona, office dress codes and airport full-body scanners in Berlin, political reforms in Mexico City, animal cruelty in Sydney, bullfighting in Pamplona and tree felling in Los Angeles.

Naked campaigning isn't favoured in Britain though. I guess people are either too embarrassed by their wobbly bits, they don't think anyone will take any notice (except dirty old men), or they don't want to die of frostbite.

I wouldn't mind stripping off myself if the cause was right. I couldn't care less about my wobbly bits, we all succumb to gravity sooner or later. I stripped off often enough in front of my fellow pupils at boarding school to lose any sense of awkwardness.

Maybe the traditional British stiff upper lip is more than a match for mass nudity. We'd just survey a line of bare buttocks while sipping our Starbucks latté and mutter casually "Some rather enticing curves. Work-outs or anorexia, I wonder?"

Pic: Protest against the fur trade in Barcelona. The placard reads: "How many lives for a coat?" Couldn't find a decent pic of the apartment protest.

Too outspoken

Should a teacher who thinks schools are appallingly run speak out in public or should she be quiet and keep her frustration and rage to herself?

Katharine Birbalsingh, Deputy Head of St Michael's Academy in South London, gave a scathing speech to the Tory Conference, saying state schools were badly run, bureaucratic, dumbed-down and tolerant of unruly behaviour.

Fairly common opinions, you would think, shared by thousands of teachers and parents across the country. Not exactly controversial. Even Ofsted, the schools supervisory body, condemned her own school as "inadequate".

But she has now been sacked after the Head and school managers decided her speech was unacceptable and she should have kept her mouth shut and pretended school standards were just fine.

She has taught in state schools for over a decade, so she knows what she's talking about. She thought it was about time someone spoke up and told the truth.

"British education is not just broken, it is fundamentally broken. Teachers are too scared to speak out because they think they'll lose their job" she says.

Regardless of whether you think the Conservative Conference was the right place to speak out (she's a Conservative supporter), the question is whether she has a right to voice her revealing and thought-provoking opinions about a schools system that virtually everyone is dissatisfied with.

If her speech helps bring about some much-needed changes, then why should she be penalised for it?

She says she worked a 70 hour week "because I love children and I like making life better for them." I fail to see how sacking her helps either the children she's dedicated to or the "inadequate" school which clearly needs a good kick up the administrative arse.

Pic: Katharine Birbalsingh

Lost masterpiece

So I thought I'd say something about the meaning of life, the history of the universe and the global epidemic of existential angst.

- Ssh. Time for some silence.

- What do you mean?

- Silence is very therapeutic. It cleanses your inner being.

- That's as may be. Who're you anyway? Who said you could take over my brain?

- Oh, I've been running your brain for a long time. You were making such a mess of it, I was asked to step in.

- That's outrageous. You can't just jump into my brain. Bugger off right now.

- I'm only doing my job. You'll thank me for it later.

- You'd better be gone in five minutes. Now as I was saying, the meaning of life in a nutshell, stripped down to its basic essence, is this....

- There're huge parts of your brain you're not even using. Did you know that?

- Don't be ridiculous. My brain is as busy as a beehive. The level of activity is breathtaking.

- There's a bit here that's completely dormant. The bit that contains the literary masterpiece of the 21st century.

- Good grief. How do I activate it?

- It needs a special password. Do you know it?

- No. Fuckity fuck fuck. Buggery bollocks. So I'll never write it. It's lost in a neurological black hole. I could have been another Dostoevsky.

- Too bad. At least you enjoy pink frocks and six-inch stilettos. Goodness, is that the time? Must rush, I've got another ninety brains to fix before lunch.

- As I was saying, the meaning of life....

Unsightly smalls

You'd think a humble clothes line in someone's back garden would be pretty uncontro-versial. Well, think again, because in the States it's becoming a serious bone of contention.

Many householders hate the things. They think they're ugly, vulgar, over-intimate and spoil the look of the neighbourhood. They want to get rid of them completely.

But other people are all in favour. They see them as a natural and sensible way of drying clothes that's also environmentally-friendly. They want everyone to use them.

Temperatures are rising, and not just in the tumble-driers. Line-lovers are deliberately flouting their landlords and neighbours and hanging out their clothes to dry anyway. So take us to court, they say. It won't stop us.

They point out that tumble-driers use about 10 per cent of household electricity, second only to fridges and freezers. This is a colossal waste of energy when energy consumption is going through the roof. And what's so ugly about a clothes line anyway?

Jenny and I always use a clothes line in good weather. Or drying racks inside when it isn't. We've never used a tumble-drier and don't intend to start now. We know that clothes dried outside always smell fresher and cleaner when we bring them in.

Nobody gets steamed up about clothes lines round our way. You can see them in every other garden, even draped with lacy underwear. Nobody thinks they're unsightly or unseemly.

Okay, so our clothes line doesn't sport many fashionable designer labels. Some of the clothes may be past their best. Some may be ten years old. We don't care and nor do the neighbours. There are more serious things to get our knickers in a twist about.

Drawing a line

A cruise entrepren-eur visiting a new terminal at Portsmouth was shocked to discover that passengers on his five-star cruises might come across smelly, shirtless, unshaven lorry drivers. This would ruin the luxury ambience, he said.

As well as whiffy lorry drivers there would be young people lying around and customers might trip over them. Lord Sterling of Swan Hellenic wants the cruise passengers to be segregated from the unsavoury hoi polloi to "create a certain atmosphere".

I presume that means an atmosphere of snobbery and elitism well away from the unwashed minions who drive their caviar and oysters across Europe.

Actually segregation might be a good idea. Then the lorry drivers and fun-loving youngsters wouldn't be made to feel uncomfortable and awkward by the sneering glances of the well-to-do as they embark on their exclusive £8000 cruises.

They could take off their sweaty shirts and sprawl around without feeling inhibited. They could even play loud music and flaunt their tattoos without anyone cramping their style.

The cruise passengers could have a special deluxe lounge where they can enjoy each other's fully-dressed fragrance, properly seated in well-padded chairs, and aren't forced to endure the trauma of irregular behaviour and uncouth habits.

Lord Sterling is quite right to be concerned. If you just had any old person mixing with any old person, who knows what unpleasantness it could cause? One's tolerance is limited, dontcha know? One has certain expectations and too much lowering of standards does rather strain one's fortitude. One has to draw a line somewhere, dammit.

Now where's that steward with my G and T?

Off the boil

I don't understand anger. I'm a pretty placid, patient person, and when I see other people fuming and raging about something I wonder where all that boiling energy comes from.

My father was an extremely angry person. Not half an hour would go by without him raging about something or other - the government, my mother's messiness, my own messiness, his boss, other people's bad manners, young people, you name it.

It wasn't altogether surprising when he suffered a stroke and discovered his blood pressure was way too high. But that didn't stop him flaring up about one thing after another. He seemed to see everything and everyone as a personal affront, out to annoy him and make his life difficult.

When I was ten, my lovely grandma took me aside and advised me not to grow up full of anger like my father. It would only make me unhappy, she said. For some reason I was so struck by what she said that I resolved from that moment not to be an angry person but to be more philosophical.

And so I have been. All my life I've found it difficult to get angry about anything. People who know me are always flabbergasted if I get seriously angry, they assume something enormously traumatic must have occurred.

I just don't see the point in getting angry. To my mind, it seldom achieves anything except to make a difficult situation worse and to alienate people. Decisions taken in the heat of anger tend to be either disastrous or badly flawed. The energy it consumes leaves me drained and battered.

I know that if I take a deep breath, stay cool, and assess the situation calmly and carefully, I'll react far more sensibly than if I explode in anger. Other people will also react more sensibly, not being cowed and intimidated by a violent outburst.

Some people think that by not getting angry I'm repressing some vital part of myself, something healthy and life-enhancing. I don't think so. I see it as taming a rather primitive and destructive emotion that tends to cause more harm than good. I have no time for it.

PS: If it's repressive to avoid anger, then isn't it also repressive to modify any kind of unpleasant behaviour, like rudeness or malice? That would be absurd.
.................................................................................

Finally met up with the wonderful Grannymar, who's been a blogmate for around three years now. I thought I knew all about her but there was plenty more to find out. We were amazed to discover how long we'd been chatting....

Loss of libido

On top of everything else expected of today's women, they're assumed to be hot for sex at any time of the day or night. If they aren't, they're obviously suffering from Female Sexual Dysfunction, and they need a few pills to gee them up again.

Or so goes the conventional wisdom. Which Ray Moynihan, an Australian lecturer, demolishes in his latest book.

There's no such thing as Female Sexual Dysfunction*, he says. It's a pseudo-medical disorder promoted by drugs companies to market drugs that supposedly put it right. Except that they don't because it doesn't exist.

Yes, some women aren't very interested in sex, or their interest has declined. But that's perfectly natural. They may be too busy, other things may be more enjoyable, men's behaviour may be offputting. That's not necessarily a problem. Even if they think it is, it's really a psychological or relationship problem, and counselling is more suitable than a bunch of chemicals.

How come it's "normal" for women to be hot for sex, or somehow defective if they aren't? And it's not just men who say that. It's also the agony aunts and lingerie boutiques. Nobody dares stick their neck out and say "Actually sex is no big deal. So what if you're not panting for it?"

One female journalist compares sex with shopping. You may have been crazy about shopping when you were young, but twenty years on it's just a bit of a chore. Should the doctor give you pills to make you shop more often? How ridiculous.

Women are often afraid, she says, that if they aren't interested enough in sex, their man may leave them for a woman who is. So what they're really concerned about isn't loss of libido but loss of security and status.

And if there's anything guaranteed to make you less interested in sex, it's the endless onslaught of sexual images and references in the media. We feel permanently surfeited by it, even without doing it. No wonder there are still so many women who say "Not tonight, darling, I've got a bit of a headache."

* Of course this is just a modern version of the discredited idea of frigidity