One of those things

I've remarked before on the widespread under-provision of women's toilets and the fact that women invariably have to queue while men don't (I was reminded of this by a male journalist who found himself having to queue for a pub toilet).

There are obvious reasons for increasing the number of women's toilets and they shouldn't need explaining. Women usually take a lot longer because of menstruation, fiddly underwear, checking make-up and not being able to use a urinal.

But most men couldn't care less. As long as they can slip in and out of the toilet in 60 seconds they're not bothered. Women having to queue is just "one of those things" and they simply have to suck it up.

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, pledged some time ago to increase provision of women's toilets in the city. Whether he's made any progress is unclear. I imagine he's had plenty of resistance from intransigent males.

Personally I think we need at least a 2 to 1 ratio of female toilets to male toilets. There should be enough female toilets to abolish queues altogether. Why should women have to wait while men can use the loo at top speed?

Speaking up

"It's time for men to speak up" is the plea from many women after the murder of Sarah Everard. Okay, so I'll speak up.

I like to think that in general I've always treated women fairly well, unlike the large number of men who see women as second-class citizens to be exploited and abused. I never ever saw women as second-class but always as my equals.

I guess that whether you treat women well or badly largely depends on what sort of boys and men you've happened to mix with in your life, something that's pretty unpredictable.

Looking back over the years, I remember very few boys or men who've voiced consistently derogatory attitudes towards women. Nothing more than the odd sexist remark from some pig-headed male, which was easily squashed.

Even at my single-sex boarding school, there was never any misogynistic culture. In fact women were barely mentioned. The latest Beatles or Elvis record were much hotter topics.

Fortunately I've been in workplaces where women were treated as equals and given the same opportunities as men - like newspaper offices, bookshops and charities. It was never suggested women should do the shitty jobs while men cornered the enjoyable ones.

There have been times when I've treated women carelessly, like the way I abruptly split up with a girlfriend in my early twenties. But that's a rare occurrence.

I thank my lucky stars I've never been swept into the sort of virulently women-hating culture that produces men like Sarah Everard's killer. Men who think it's normal to harass, stalk and generally prey on vulnerable women.

Yes, it's time for men to speak up. It's also time for boys' education and upbringing to make it clear that treating women as a lesser species is simply unacceptable in the 21st century.

University of life

How true that formal education only goes so far and most of our education is from the university of life. Anyone who imagines they will leave school fully equipped for adulthood will be rapidly disabused.

When I look back at my schooldays, it's laughable how many essential adult skills they never taught me and how naive and ignorant I was until I enlarged my education by other means.

I may have absorbed plenty of French, Latin, Mathematics and Chemistry, but my awareness of anything other than academic was abysmal.

One glaring omission was any knowledge of women. I went to two single-sex schools and saw little of the other sex before I started work. It took me a while to adjust to these strange beings with their very different view of life.

I never learnt any practical skills apart from woodwork (Why woodwork? You may well ask). I'm still an ignorant bungler when it comes to cookery, clothing repairs and alterations, painting, electrics, plumbing, or car mechanics. I wasn't taught anything about money matters like banking, mortgages, insurance, wills or tax returns. All those things I had to find out for myself over the years.

And what of all those social skills I only picked up after leaving school - dating, sexual relationships, holding down a job, dealing with difficult people, being true to myself, being discreet, and how to behave at things like leaving dos, marriages, births and funerals. About the only social skills I acquired at school were dodging bullies and routinely exposing my naked body.

Probably the most useful skill the university of life has taught me is critical thinking. When I was young I was remarkably gullible and would happily soak up other people's ideas. Gradually I learnt to look at those ideas more carefully and see if they actually made sense or not. An awful lot of them didn't.

A skill that's been much more useful than chemistry.

Innocence

People say innocence is a splendid thing, and isn't it awful when you finally lose it and become a wised-up adult? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could somehow return to that blissful childhood state?

Well, no, I don't agree. Innocence puts you at a huge disadvantage and opens you to all sorts of trickery and exploitation. The sooner you lose it the better, in my opinion. The sooner you get to know the wicked and devious realities of adulthood, the better equipped you'll be to get what you want out of life.

Personally, I lost my innocence very late in the day. I was absurdly naive and blinkered for far too long. Not only did I believe in Father Christmas until I was ten, and probably the tooth fairy as well, it was only in my late teens, after I left school and started work, that I abruptly realised how dumb I was and how much of the world's horrors and injustices - and simple facts of life - had been kept from me by my over-protective parents.

I remember emerging from my totally single-sex schooling into a female-packed workplace and realising I knew virtually nothing about women except that they were shaped differently. It took me a while to stop being intimidated by them and start feeling comfortable in their company.

As a local newspaper reporter, I was rapidly confronted with the more unsavoury aspects of life that were hidden from me for so long. Homelessness, squalid housing, poverty, political corruption, alcoholism, violent crime, suicide - the list was endless. I was shocked at so many ugly truths. But my eyes were opened, I was learning fast, and the bubble of innocence had popped.

For the first time I started thinking seriously about my personal identity and realising it wasn't what I had assumed. I had taken for granted that I was much the same as the other young boys I knew - heterosexual, traditional, obedient, well-behaved. I discovered I wasn't necessarily any of those things but was rebellious, deviant, politically left-wing, eccentric. I had to totally reconstruct my idea of myself and kill off the innocent little boy.

So, no, innocence isn't a splendid thing. It's a liability to be shaken off at the earliest opportunity.

No shorthand

It's been pointed out to me many times that I generalise too much about men and women. That we're all complex individuals, sometimes very different, sometimes very similar. Generalisations are hazardous.

So I'm going to try not to generalise about men and women in future. I'm going to treat them as individuals with their own particular identities. I look male, you look female. But maybe I swoon over my favourite lip gloss, while you swoon over the latest football scores. We can't be pinned down that easily.

It's a tempting shorthand to say men are emotionally repressed or sex-mad, while women are hopeless with machines or incurably romantic, but it's all half-baked nonsense that's probably false as much as it's true. It's the stuff of tabloid newspapers rather than real life.

People may say their man or their woman is "absolutely typical" of the gender stereotypes. They may say "Men - they're all the same." They may say "You know what women are like." But they don't really mean it. They know the actual men and women in their lives don't fit neatly into any gender boxes and have all sorts of unpredictable quirks and tastes. The throwaway statements are just lazy thinking.

So I've vowed not to generalise any more. Whether I'll stick to it is another matter. I might forget myself and slip back into easy clichés. I might forget that suits and ties or dresses and heels do not always a man or woman make. People are not what they seem. Appearances are deceptive. The public persona is not the private zeitgeist. Scratch the surface and glib assumptions quickly crumble away.

If I start backsliding, let me know. And none of that feminine shyness, girls.

Hairy females

Every so often there's a public questioning of why women have to shave. What's wrong with having hairy arms and legs, demands a rebellious female, to a wave of shock and outrage from her more conventional sisters.

The latest renegade is Emer O'Toole in the Guardian, who says she has now resisted shaving for 18 months and found it isn't the problem she thought it would be. She's quite happy to be hairy, and so apparently are most of the men she comes across, including her current boyfriend.

Yes, people sometimes giggle or make comments about her hairiness, but that's their problem, not hers. Children are generally curious rather than critical, wondering why women shave in the first place. She doesn't mention her academic colleagues at the University of London but presumably they aren't bothered.

Of course it's relatively easy for a middle-class leftie Londoner to get away with such scandalous gender-defying insurrection, but I wonder how easy it would be in less enlightened communities. The reaction in the average suburban street would surely be frosty enough to send her running for cover.

The problem is that the vast majority of women have been so thoroughly conditioned into the idea that body hair is repulsive, unhygienic and masculine that from puberty onwards the daily ritual of frantic depilation becomes firmly entrenched, particularly when every other woman looks impeccably waxed and plucked and lasered.

I imagine also that Emer is lucky enough to have only a modest sprinkling of body hair, intriguingly different rather than wincingly unattractive. Some women unfortunately have such rampant growth they simply wouldn't contemplate letting it all hang out.

I must say my own attitude to body hair is somewhat ambivalent. The idea of leaving your body as it is without forcing into some arbitrary gender stereotype is obviously appealing. On the other hand I've always found thickets of body hair either on men or women distinctly unalluring, and given the choice between women keeping their body hair or men removing it, I would actually opt for the latter.

Not that the female hair-purging routine is going to stop any time soon, despite the brave boycott by one truculent columnist. Neither are the lads going to uproot their beards, chest hair and pubic undergrowth, however much their womenfolk might fancy the idea. Some things are sacred.

PS: What's the norm in gay relationships, I wonder? Shaving or not shaving? I've no idea.

(Emer O'Toole's piece on body hair is hilarious and worth a read) 

Looking one's best

"When she lives independently of Bill, she forgets how much time she has to spend pretending to be better or prettier or nicer than she really is. She had waxed her legs, shaved her armpits, tweezered her face, and is now so stiff with foundation, powder, blusher and lipstick she feels that if she smiles too much half her face may fall off. Polly, whose normal appearance is that of a small woman who has had an unfortunate encounter with a tornado, has even had her hair done, and is also wearing the kind of reinforced underpants that women who have had babies tend to resort to." (Amanda Craig, Hearts and Minds)

Of course if you ask a man, he'll say he's quite happy with his partner as she is, and actually it's other women she's trying to impress, not him. To which the woman will reply that he may say that but he thinks differently. In reality he wants her to be slimmer and sexier than all the other women he meets and he'll go off her pretty fast if she isn't.

I think there are both types of men, some more accepting of women as they really are than others. Hopefully I fall into the first camp and I don't expect women to go to those ridiculous lengths to fit some artificial glossy stereotype.

Mind you, it works the other way round as well. Some women don't mind men in the raw, men who make no effort at all to be what women want them to be. But other women recoil from such selfishness and want their guy to be attractive, emotionally sensitive, solvent, domesticated, sociable and generous. They can be equally critical of men who don't meet their exacting high standards.

If that means expecting men to be civilised and considerate and act like mature human beings, fair enough. If it means expecting them to be supermen who'll rescue them from every disaster and cater for their every need, that's asking the impossible. Nobody's that perfect.

Whorish habits

Why on earth do men use prostitutes? Having never been to one, I'm bemused as to why so many men seek such an obviously shallow, unsatisfying experience.

An international research project has asked 700 men why they pay for sex and what they get out of it. The answers are fascinating.

Many of them feel intense guilt and shame about what they're doing and find their encounters unfulfilling and empty. They know the women themselves probably feel disgusted, miserable, dirty and scared. Yet still they visit prostitutes to satisfy some deep-seated need they have to respond to.

Some who are shy say it gives them intimate contact with women. Some use a prostitute to avoid thoughts of committing rape. Some have sexual tastes their regular partners object to. And some just want total control of the sexual act. The reasons they come up with are numerous and often bizarre.

Many say the habit of seeing prostitutes is so strong the only thing that would stop them is strict enforcement of the relevant laws and a high chance of embarrassing public exposure.

But whatever the reasons they give, I still don't accept that such men are unable to find less sordid ways of dealing with their sexual needs and frustrations.

Surely it's melodramatic nonsense for any man to claim that his sexual urges are so uncontrollable and so powerful he has no choice but to make use of some unhappy, dehumanised woman desperate for an income. It's even more repugnant that he probably already has a wife or girlfriend who is blissfully ignorant of his squalid backstreet activities.

Men have insisted since way back when that one of women's essential roles is to satisfy men's sexual impulses. It's about time that ludicrous and oppressive idea was laid to rest.

Trophy jeans

A surprisingly large number of women still think that having stunning looks is worth more than just about any other achievement.

Some 29% of women say that slimming enough to get into an old pair of jeans would be more satisfying than sex or getting a promotion. And around 20% say it would be better than a lottery win or a best friend's wedding.

The guilty secret of a good 35% of women is a pair of "trophy" jeans that used to fit and which they're trying to slim back into.

Well, I can totally understand that. I mean, at the end of the day, what really boosts your self-confidence? Knowing you look good or getting more money? Liking what you see in the mirror or a quick bit of nookie? Come on, be honest here....

Actually I used to have a pair of "trophy" jeans myself. They had a 30 inch waist and they were obscenely tight-fitting. When I was brave enough, or rash enough, to go out in them gay men were unusually friendly. And the ruthless fit was doing me a serious injury.

In the end I saw sense, admitted my true size, and reluctantly threw them out (I hasten to add that this was before Jenny came on the scene. She would have saved me from myself before I even stepped out the front door).

But we value looks more than we like to let on. Even if I never passed as a Hollywood heart-throb, I'm glad I'm still thin, I haven't lost my hair, and I'm not racked by a smoker's cough. But I'll leave the trophy jeans to the twenty somethings who still have a chance of slithering into them.

Passion killer

It must be quite a shock for a woman who jumps into bed with her boyfriend, looking forward to a night of pleasure and passion, only to find she has an unexpected problem - she's allergic to sperm*.

Apparently up to 10,000 British women have the allergy. Any contact with the stuff and their body rebels - itching, stinging, swelling, blistering, hives and breathing difficulties are the possible effects. Not quite what they had in mind.

Julie Boyde of Ambridge, Pennsylvania, only discovered the problem on her wedding night. Previously she and husband Mike had used condoms so she was unaware there was anything wrong. Then suddenly the pleasure disappeared.

Doctors tried to cure the allergy with a special serum but it made no difference. As the couple want to have children, and she objects to IVF, now the only thing they can do is adopt. A big disappointment for both of them, I'm sure.

It must rather spoil your sex life if you have to tell every new boyfriend that you're ahem, allergic to you-know-what. Guys who're proud of their masculine virility must find it a bit of a let-down that certain options are strictly out of bounds and tamer substitutes are required.

I wonder if some guys can't quite believe what they're hearing and think it's just another female excuse like having a headache or time-of-the-month. Or if they even find it insulting - "What do you mean I'll bring you out in a rash? Nobody else has ever complained...."

It must be a tricky situation to handle. I suppose the best course is to find a man who understands and then stick with him. Or become a lesbian....

* The medical term is Seminal Plasma Hypersensitivity

Barbaric cuts

While we're scoffing our Christmas dinners, refilling our wine glasses and generally having a good time, let's spare a thought for the hundreds of little girls whose Christmas will be one of fear and pain.

Female genital mutilation is thriving in Britain, despite it being illegal and despite the appalling health risks. And Christmas is the time when many young girls are "seen to" by the "cutters" who do it for a living.

An estimated 70,000 women in the UK have had it done and some 20,000 girls are still in line for it. The victims can die of bleeding or tetanus, and later may develop urinary incontinence, recurrent infections and chronic pain. It can also cause major problems with childbirth and psychological disorders.

The British government has done scandalously little to stop it. Their attitude seems to be that it's a cultural tradition they shouldn't interfere with. So, unbelievably, not one person has been prosecuted in 25 years.

The Somali model Waris Dirie, who was mutilated when she was five, says "No one can undo the trauma that is caused by this horrible crime. It stays in your head for ever."

A government that's vetting some 15 million people for their possible paedophile tendencies, but turns a blind eye to the mass amputation of young girls' clitorises, is a very odd one indeed. Clearly their own daughters aren't at risk, so they don't really care.

The idea that because something is a long-standing cultural ritual from elsewhere, we should respect it and not intrude, even if it involves monstrous cruelty and suffering, is ridiculous. Cruelty is cruelty and should be prevented, whatever the perpetrator's background.

It's about time the government stopped sitting on its hands, stopped ignoring this barbaric practice and put the "cutters" in jail where they belong.

Women on the march

For years it's been fashionable for women to deny they're feminists and say they don't need that sort of militancy any more, they're getting on fine without it.

I always wondered how they could be so blasé about the obvious fact that women are still second-class citizens in so many different ways.

Now it seems feminists are coming out of the woodwork again and women are no longer making light of the numerous burdens and disadvantages they have to labour under.

They are joining women's groups, going on marches, visiting feminist blogs, and are generally less willing to stay silent and pretend everything's okay.

Membership of the Fawcett Society has risen by 25% in a year, over 2000 women took part in a Reclaim the Night march in London, and the website The F-Word is getting over 110,000 hits a month. University women's groups are thriving again and half those declaring themselves feminists are under 25.

Apart from the widespread frustration that men still get the upper hand in so many areas, women are said to be increasingly sickened by the growing sexualisation of everyday life and by women's bodies once again becoming more important than their skills and abilities.

If you ask me, not before time. The only result of women scoffing at feminism has been rising complacency and arrogance among many men, who conclude that they can still happily put the little woman in her place and grab all the goodies for themselves. If they're about to be seriously challenged again by seething females, I for one can't wait.

Pic courtesy of the Fawcett Society

Surgical free-for-all

Once again there's a call for better regulation of plastic surgery* to prevent tragic botch-ups and stop inexperienced medics from doing risky procedures.

Demand for cosmetic surgery jumped again last year, but there are no controls on it apart from a voluntary code of practice that's easily ignored.

In France all advertising of cosmetic procedures is banned, and only registered specialists can do them. Quite right too when most of the operations are medically unnecessary and can ruin people's lives if they go wrong.

The London Independent mentions Jill Saward, ex lead singer of Shakatak, who almost died during a facelift after complications caused by high blood pressure. "I was an idiot, I should have thought much more carefully about it" she says.

One solution would be to ban cosmetic surgery altogether, but I think people should be able to make up their own minds about it, as long as they are made fully aware of the serious risks involved.

An estimated 100,000 procedures are done in Britain every year, many by doctors with no specialist training. Things like Botox injections and laser peels are often done by staff with no medical qualifications at all. How can this be allowed?

If only women (and a growing number of men) could accept the way they look as perfectly okay, without comparing themselves with digitally enhanced models and finding a long list of imaginary defects. Then plastic surgery wouldn't be such a boom industry and the sacrifice of innocent flesh to finance someone's millionaire lifestyle might lose its attraction.

But if misguided souls will insist on putting themselves under the knife, at least the surgeon's competence should be properly vouched for.

* Surgery done privately that is. There are of course very strict controls on cosmetic surgery done by the NHS.

Out of bounds

Diehard sexism is alive and well in the Irish Republic. A court has ruled that a Dublin golf club can continue to ban women because the club "caters only for men's needs".

Well, who can argue with that? Obviously golf is a necessity to hairy, beer-bellied, balding males in a way that doesn't apply to women.

Apart from the fact that women, as we know, don't possess arms or legs or a need for leisure pursuits or exercise, they clearly wouldn't know what to do with a little white ball a few yards away from a hole.

Seeing that it wasn't a piece of jewellery or a lipstick tube or a vacuum cleaner, they would be utterly baffled, throw it away, and get back to filing their nails.

This is all plain enough to the Irish Supreme Court, who decided by a 3-2 majority that the club's "principal purpose is to cater only for the needs of persons of a particular gender".

Those needs, they explained, included "social fraternisation". Fair enough. It's well known that women never socially fraternise, it's a conspicuous genetic failing.

Women everywhere keep themselves to themselves, shunning company and never answering the front door. They hate gossip or conversation of any kind and often retreat to caves on remote Himalayan peaks. The idea of playing golf would fill them with palpitating horror.

The Irish Supreme Court judges understood all that perfectly. Except for the dissenting judge Susan Denham who declared that golf was no more a need for men than for women. Good Lord, what an eye-wateringly peculiar statement. Is she mad?

Warped priorities

Somalia is a country in the grip of famine and administrative chaos. So what is the powerful Islamic al Shabaab movement concerned about? Whether women are wearing bras, naturally.

According to them, women shouldn't wear such heretical garments as they are instruments of fraud and deception. They are tricking men by altering the natural shape and mobility of their breasts. Anyone found in one is therefore severely punished.

So sorry, ladies, if you thought your underwear and visible contours were a matter of personal choice, then think again. Religious purity demands that such issues are vetted and approved by those who are privy to the divine vision.

Several bra-wearing women in Mogadishu were recently arrested and publicly whipped for their disobedience. Though how exactly their bras were discovered is not entirely clear.

Of course you might think, but hang on, at one time all those radical feminists in the West were throwing out their bras too, so what's the difference? The difference is that the feminists chose to chuck them out, and they did so as a protest against male ideas of attractiveness. There was no coercion involved and no divine intervention.

When Somalia is in a state of virtual anarchy, with almost half the population malnourished, the government in disarray and hundreds of thousands relying on international aid, you would think religious leaders would have higher priorities than confiscating bras. But you would think wrong.

PS: And do the bra suppliers also get flogged?

Lethal lipstick

Oh dear, oh dear. It seems that women touching-up their make-up while driving cause up to half a million road accidents a year.

They just can't resist sorting out that smudged mascara or refreshing their lipstick as they cruise along the nation's roads. Sometimes with calamitous results.

Or so says a survey of 4000 women drivers by a car insurer, in which 3% admitted to having a collision while applying cosmetics. And 27% confessed they regularly put on make-up while on the move.

The biggest culprits were women aged 17 to 21, while the least guilty, not surprisingly, were women of 56 or older, who practically never crashed for that reason.

Well, that's awful. What are you thinking of, ladies, have you no sense of social responsibility, no concern about the lethal vehicle you're flinging along the tarmac? How many innocent people are you putting in danger?

Hold on, though. Why are women getting all the blame here, as if they're the only ones doing crazy things at the wheel and threatening carnage?

There're plenty of men out there fiddling with the radio, lighting fags, checking maps and sending texts. Not to mention doing their own form of preening by combing their hair, putting on ties, having a shave and dabbing on moisturiser. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of crashes they've caused by indulging their fleeting impulses.

The fact is we're all prone to do a dozen other things while we're meant to be concentrating on the road and making sure we don't mow anyone down. It's hardly the failing of one particular sex. We're all fidgety and easily distracted (and want to look hot) and get bored by the endless flow of vehicles and asphalt. We do our best but hey, we're none of us perfect.

Heel appeal

Many women are expected to wear high heels at work, despite the damage they do to the wearers' feet, knees and backs. Shouldn't women have the choice to wear something healthier and more comfortable?

The British Trades Union Congress says yes, of course they should. They've just passed overwhelmingly a motion that employers should carry out risk assessments on women wearing high heels.

They say high heels result in two million working days being lost every year through permanent physical damage, and women should be free to wear more sensible shoes that don't cause injury.

Yet shop workers, office staff, airline crew, hotel employees and others are required to wear high heels as part of their dress code. Ubiquitous health and safety regulations apparently don't apply to harmful footwear.

Not surprisingly the TUC motion hasn't been universally welcomed. Those women who're addicted to high heels can't see what all the fuss is about. As far as they're concerned, heels are glamorous and intimidating and get them more respect in the workplace, particularly from male colleagues*.

Union delegate Loraine Monk said women shouldn't be lectured to about what to wear. "This well-meant motion will see the union movement portrayed in the media as the killjoy fashion police."

Come again? If you point out the damage high heels can do you're being a killjoy? So if you point out that long hair can get caught in machinery, or bare flesh may lead to skin cancer, does that make you a killjoy too? If there's anything that kills joy, it's a bad back and painful feet.

I frequently see women clumping across offices or shopfloors in obviously uncomfortable shoes they must be dying to remove, yet traditional workplace dress codes say a woman doesn't look professional or authoritative unless she's wearing them. So how come men are instantly endorsed without having to teeter three inches off the ground?

Stilts belong in the circus, not in the office.

*See for example the outraged protest against the "shoe police" by Flic Everett in the Daily Mail
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Johann Hari of the London Independent has a superb article today about the relentless cult of the stick-thin female body and its destructive effects on ordinary women.

Follies of age

How embarrassing it must be for young women who get brazen advances from ageing males they find utterly unattractive.

I can't imagine why balding, pot-bellied, flabby, wrinkled old guys think they have some sort of appeal to women decades younger who naturally gravitate to lean young men of a similar age.

I wouldn't think for a second that my 62-year-old body is of any interest to a twenty-something female, yet how many times have I seen lecherous old goats pestering some nubile partygoer as if they were in with a chance.

And often of course they have wives or partners who've been witnessing their inappropriate approaches for many years - that is, if they haven't experienced it once too often and called it a day.

Film-makers fuel this syndrome by depicting the most unlikely matches between gorgeous young women and raddled Casanovas long past their prime. The women could clearly snag any number of handsome young charmers with a click of their fingers, yet miraculously they've fallen for the older guy. Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

Some put it down to the male menopause - ageing blokes who are suddenly nostalgic for their horny youth and try to recreate it with the office temp. I don't think it's that at all. I think they honestly believe they're still dynamite between the sheets and will leave any bedmate gasping for more. They cling stubbornly to this absurd delusion despite all evidence to the contrary.

It's excruciating watching some squirming victim trying desperately to get away and indicate her total lack of interest. Just what does a woman have to do to explain the obvious to Mr Never-Gives-Up?

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.

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)