Gift of the gab

The Irish are famous for their gift of the gab, but it's not a trait I share. I can be embarr-assingly inarticulate in company, struck dumb while everyone else is rabbiting away non-stop.

I'm just too self-conscious, too aware of what I'm saying and of how it might be received. Might I offend someone? Might I say something inappropriate? Might I blurt out something utterly stupid?

Other people can blather away effortlessly about anything under the sun, the words pouring out like water from a tap, totally confident they'll say the right thing. Nothing seems to put them off.

How I envy that remarkable ability when I'm standing awkwardly next to some total stranger (or even someone I know well) wondering what to say next and filling the silence with nervous ear-tugging or head-scratching.

Of course I'm aware that being tongue-tied can be just as off-putting as saying the wrong thing, but that doesn't seem to help. I only have to realise I'm tongue-tied to become even more so.

I can't see off that little policeman in the back of my brain watching my every word like a hawk, waiting to nick me for some petty social offence. Why won't he just go away?

They say as you get older you get less shy, because you simply don't care any more what other people think. Well, I keep waiting for this magical quality to kick in, but there's no sign of it yet.

Perhaps I should just make a virtue of my failings and become a Trappist.

Con job

I’ve just resigned a job which the most extraordinary bit of deception persuaded me to accept. In a nutshell, I was interviewed for a job that didn’t actually exist – or at least only part of it existed.

The advert in the paper was for an admin officer cum PA. The job description was similar. The questions I was asked at the interview were based on the job as advertised.

But when I started work, I discovered the admin officer job didn’t exist. It was all a funding scam. There was funding available for an admin officer so that’s what they advertised for. In reality I was doing little more than answer the phone and greet visitors.

The two senior staff who had recruited me acted as though this was entirely normal and nothing unusual had happened. They assumed I would be quite happy doing very little and they could leave me to my own devices the rest of the time.

Well, spending my time checking blogs, reading the papers and watching Barack Obama’s speeches was fun for a while, but then it palled. I wasn’t learning anything and I wasn’t using my existing skills. I was in danger of completely vegetating. So I decided enough was enough.

Now this is a charity we’re talking about here. Somebody funded them in good faith to create a phantom job. Somebody funded me to sit on my arse all day indulging myself in whatever way I wished.

I’ve written before about charities wasting money and this is a classic example. If the money’s available, grab it fast. Who cares what it’s used for? Just produce a phoney purpose for the cash and stuff your pockets. I’m sure it happens all the time (along with the perfectly valid spending, I hasten to add).

The next time I’m interviewed to be an admin officer, I shall ask a few searching questions. Like, is this on the level or is it all smoke and mirrors? Is this job any more real than Tinkerbell?

Gender bender

Controversy is raging over the beautiful model Isis Tsunami who appears in the TV reality series America’s Next Top Model. Not because she swore or criticised the Pope. But because she’s a transsexual.

Some of the other contestants say she's merely a drag queen who shouldn’t be on the show. One TV presenter openly laughed at her and discussed her genitalia. Others have talked about an audience-grabbing publicity stunt. But many are lauding her inclusion on the show as a sign of enlightened attitudes.

Many years after the first transsexuals appeared, they're still the subject of heated debate and have never been totally accepted as ordinary men or women. They're regarded by many as a strange mixture of the two.

I must admit to being politically incorrect on this issue. While I have no problem with men adopting a female identity and behaviour (or vice versa), or even becoming buxom supermodels, I’m bemused by someone wanting to be treated as a genuine woman on the same basis as a person actually born a woman.

The fact is that a man is always anatomically and biologically a man however much his body has been changed to resemble the opposite sex. He may look like a totally convincing woman but he is not. Which is why a lot of women have trouble accepting a transsexual as one of them, or are even overtly hostile*.

I’m even more bemused by the increasing legal recognition of a new sexual identity, with the issuing of new birth certificates, passports, marriage certificates etc. Of course it makes life easier for the person concerned but at the end of the day it’s a denial of physical facts.

Don’t get me wrong. I totally accept the reality of transsexual feelings, the conviction that despite your physical sex you’ve always felt yourself to be the opposite sex and as the cliché has it, you’re trapped in the wrong body. That fundamental sense of mis-identity seems undeniable. But it’s another thing entirely to want the world to accept that you ARE the opposite sex.

I don’t see any obvious answer to this dilemma. A transsexual doesn’t want to be seen as a drag queen or a mock-female, she wants to be taken as the real thing. But if she ISN’T the real thing, then what?

And now I expect a hail of criticism to rain down on me….

* See in particular “The Transsexual Empire” by Janice Raymond

Men's liberation

According to a new Irish Times survey, Irish men are shedding the old masculine stereotypes fast. And far from being confused and demoralised by feminist demands, the vast majority are content with their life.

The survey says 53% show their feelings easily, 58% think it's okay to cry, 51% are very sentimental, 48% get annoyed by men who stress 'manliness', and 79% are content with their lot.

That puts paid to the conventional wisdom that men feel they're being pushed around by bossy females and just can't be themselves any more. Or the idea that men are still so strait-laced they can't express tenderness or warmth or any emotions other than rage.

Or does it? People don't always tell the truth in surveys, they often say what they think is expected of them, or what will make them look normal or likeable. If the men's partners were asked about their answers, would they agree?

I have a strong suspicion there's some glossing going on here, and the women in their lives might very well say "Mark expresses his feelings? You're joking. He's like a bloody sphinx." Or maybe "Pete's content? But he moans about everything non-stop. He's the original grumpy old man."

But perhaps I'm being too cynical and men really have changed dramatically. That's what my male readers tell me, anyway. It's certainly encouraging to think that despite all the 'backlash' propaganda about shell-shocked men clinging to their masculine comfort blankets, many of them have no problem with opening up and showing their real selves a bit more.

In fact in all sounds so positive I think I'm going to cry.

Slumming it

Every so often some journalist or politician looking for attention decides to see what it’s like living on welfare. You know the kind of thing – “My life on a fiver a day” by Terry Twatt.

It’s always completely bogus. They’re not really living on a fiver a day because they’ve got a nice stock of Armani togs and all their hi-tech gizmos back at their real home in some fashionable urban neighbourhood.

They know they’ve only got to survive a week of low-life grot before they can race back thankfully to their normal life and resume shagging their sleek, perfectly-honed bedmate.

They don’t even have to keep it up 24/7 because they can always sneak home for a few hours and make up some plausible diary entry about the Tesco budget loaf being eaten by giant rats.

They know full well that one week in a grubby hovel is not the same as a life-sentence of poverty, dead-end jobs, greedy landlords and constantly struggling to make ends meet.

They don’t have the crippling back story of mountainous debts to loan sharks, four children to feed, a winter’s worth of fuel bills, and windows being broken by the local yobs.

A week of slumming it is about as realistic as having a few pints and pretending you’re an alcoholic.

Instead of grabbing their flea-ridden fleeces and pretending to be poor, Terry Twatt and his ilk would do better to tell us just why poverty is so entrenched and why a long string of British politicians have failed to give the residents of one of the world’s wealthiest countries a decent standard of living.

And why the fat cats running our big companies are paying themselves more and more while the wages of their overworked employees are steadily shrinking.

But that would be far too controversial. And not nearly so entertaining as a bit of down-in-the-gutter make-believe.

Suffragette mayhem

I had no idea the Suffragettes were so active in Northern Ireland until Jenny and I went on a tour of Belfast's Crumlin Road Gaol and discovered that many suffragettes were sent there for bombings and arson attacks.

The gaol is no longer in use, but in the early 19th century militant women campaigning for the right to vote were often inmates.

There were the same moderate and militant factions that existed in the movement generally. It was the more forceful women who planted bombs, set fire to buildings, destroyed mail in post boxes and smashed windows.

They included Dorothy Evans and Madge Muir who were arrested for possessing explosive materials.

During the court hearing, Dorothy Evans put up so much resistance she had to be restrained by six constables and the hearing had to be reconvened in Crumlin Road Gaol.

Remanded in custody, they promptly went on hunger strike and were released.

Then they hired a car, decorated it with suffragette flags and drove defiantly round Belfast before being rearrested.

Thanks to the persistence of women like them, in January 1918 the Representation of the People Act gave the vote to certain women, and in 1928 the Equal Franchise Act granted the vote to all women over 21.

And now huge numbers of people entitled to vote don't bother to do so - but that's another story.

(Information from leaflets available at Crumlin Road Gaol)

A dignified end

Under English law, if you help someone else to die because they are suffering from an unbearable terminal illness, you can be prosecuted for assisted suicide and jailed for up to 14 years.

Although people aren’t usually prosecuted and the authorities generally turn a blind eye, the law still exists and relatives who help in this way always risk this draconian penalty.

Now 45 year old Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis and wants to end her life with her Cuban-born husband Omar by her side, is taking legal action to force the Director of Public Prosecutions to state his policy on prosecuting assisted suicide.

She is planning to visit Dignitas, the Zurich clinic that helps terminally ill patients end their lives in comfort and dignity abroad.

But the legal uncertainty is causing her great anxiety. "I can't let Omar travel with me to Switzerland because that might be construed as assisting me in my death," she said. "But he says he is prepared to face jail if he could do something to stop my life being unbearable."

I think it’s quite wrong that people who seek to die because of their wretched quality of life, and want a loved one to help them, are still triggering a so-called crime that could put someone in a prison cell for a lengthy period.

I certainly wouldn’t want to spend years in pain and suffering, unable to enjoy life as I had in the past, and feeling increasingly despondent and hopeless. I would much rather end what’s left of my life. I don’t see why the law should deem anyone helping me to be a criminal in the same way as a murderer or a rapist.

People always raise the ugly spectre of relatives being got rid of for some malicious purpose like inheriting their money or moving into their house, but I’m sure safeguards could be arranged to avoid that sort of abuse. This remote risk shouldn’t prevent people ending intolerable suffering.

I hope the DPP recommends scrapping this insensitive law as soon as possible.

Photo: Debbie Purdy and Omar Puente

Touching up men

I see Yves Saint Laurent has launched a version of Touche Eclat for men, so we too can conceal those dark, under-eye circles that result from our reckless round-the-clock lifestyles and lack of sleep.

Now we too can look fresh and sparkling after a quick application of the wonder potion our womenfolk have been surreptitiously dabbing on for years. All in a discreet “pewter tube that’s easy to stow in your man-bag”.

Well, not me, you understand, I no longer lead a reckless round-the-clock lifestyle. In fact I never did, I always preferred the comforts of my duvet to drunken chatter in the small hours.

But aren’t we rather missing the point here? Instead of plastering ourselves with miracle repair creams, shouldn’t we be reining in the lifestyle a bit to something less gruelling? Anyway, what’s wrong with signs of wear and tear? It just shows we’re normal human beings.

One newspaper interviews a few likely users. Gerald, 27, admits he works 10 to 12 hours a day and likes late nights. Clement, 21, says he works up to 12 hours a shift and sometimes gets only four hours’ sleep. Hey, how about slowing down the treadmill, lads, and taking it a bit easier? What exactly are you getting out of those 12-hour-a-day jobs?

But some of them admit they might use the stuff if they’re looking a bit dishevelled. That is, if they can figure out how to apply it without getting it everywhere except under their eyes. “How the heck do women do this?” wails one of them plaintively after several abortive attempts to get it in the right place.

Personally, at my venerable age (“Approaching sixty from the wrong direction” as Dame Edna once put it) I need rather more than a quick smear of Touche Eclat to refresh my disintegrating features. I think a full restoration by a master builder would be more effective. Not that I have any problem with wrinkles. Each wrinkle is a trace of fun, as they say.

So, girls, if your beau beats a hasty retreat to the restaurant toilet in the middle of that Italian meal, he’s not necessarily stocking up on condoms. He might just be reviving his weary eyes in case you doubt his nocturnal vigour. That is, if you aren’t in the toilet doing the same thing.

Photo: Stuart Pilkington from Big Brother

Back from the dead

Just imagine cremating someone you think is your father, and then five years later you see him alive and well on TV. First you'd think it must be his double. Then you’d think, Jeez that IS my father - so who the hell got cremated?

A Manchester man found out that the father he thought was dead and gone was actually living in a care home but had lost his memory and didn’t know who he was.

The man earlier named as his father was a body found outside a hospital wearing clothes like his father’s. He had lain undiscovered for so long (I’m putting it politely) he was difficult to identify.

The police had issued an appeal with photos of the real John Delaney but when he was found wandering round central Manchester in a confused state, with bruises and amnesia, social workers didn’t make the connection and gave him a new name.

They couldn’t appeal for information about him because under the law at that time they had to have consent from a relative first.

So he languished in the care home until quite by chance his son (also John) happened to switch on a TV programme about missing people and there was the familiar face. It must have been quite a shock.

Well, I guess you’d be ecstatic (as his son was) if you’d loved your dad to bits and suddenly there he was back from the dead. On the other hand, if you’d loathed your dad and you were only too glad to see the back of him, what a nasty jolt if he turned up again! I suppose you could always turn off the TV sharpish and forget you ever saw him.

But for five years, the son must have been agonising about how his father’s body came to be undiscovered for so long and what dreadful circumstances had led to his death. He must have been thinking that if he’d kept a closer eye on him he’d still be alive. While all the time he WAS alive and had all the care he needed.

And what about the other family, the family of the cremated man? They’ll never know what happened to their own missing relative. He’ll always be just a huge question mark.

Down in the mouth

The tooth fairy who’s so shamefully neglected Heart has been neglecting me too. I have a raging tooth abscess that makes eating or drinking virtually anything extremely painful. It’s the first time I’ve had an abscess and I sincerely hope it’s the last.

Clearly that feckless tooth fairy has been down the Wand and Tutu with her hedonistic Fairyland mates, happily supping the fairy nectar and forgetting all those mere mortals relying on her diligent protection. I’ve already sent a furious email to the Fairyland Directorate.

I went to the dentist because of a persistent toothache. Liz couldn’t see anything wrong so she took an x-ray and then showed me the nasty little shadow creeping around the root of my molar. That’s an abscess, she explained in her most professional, seen-it-all-before, nothing-to-worry-about tones.

There are two options, she added. Either extract the tooth or suck out the toxins and do a root filling. I looked round for the tooth fairy to ask her advice but she still wasn’t there. There weren’t even any lingering traces of fairy dust on the windowsill. She had obviously gone on a week-long binge without a care in the world and I was on my own here.

Well, since as some of you know I’ve only got 26 teeth anyway, I decided to defend my poor little molar and prevent it being sacrificed to the forces of bacterial darkness. I shall endure the rigours of the dental chair to save my frail, embattled chopper.

I’m sure it won’t be that bad. It can’t be worse than waxing, surely? Or maybe it can. I hope Liz has the epidural organised. And maybe a few bottles of whisky, just to be on the safe side.

In the meantime, I’m taking a course of high-dose antibiotics to clear the infection and hopefully the pain. At the moment chewing my favourite foods is more like chewing a rose bush. Jenny’s culinary expertise is wasted on my failing machinery.

If I ever catch up with that wretched, indolent tooth fairy, she’ll get a piece of my mind. And I’ll confiscate her magic wand for a week. That’ll wipe the grin off her face.

PS: It’ll all cost me an arm and a leg because the whole surgery’s just gone private and I carelessly hadn’t got round to signing up with a new NHS dentist. Rats.
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Good grief! Jesus with an erection! Whatever next?

One of the lads

Men sometimes try to befriend me thinking we can establish some kind of masculine matiness, nipping down to the pub for a pint and having a good barney about women, football, cars and gadgets.

Sadly I have to disappoint them as I just don't share their blokey obsessions. Or their assumption that we have to get together to preserve our masculinity against the constant threat of creeping feminisation.

I wouldn't mind talking about women, except that their take on the opposite sex is likely to be more defensive and critical than appreciative. Women as liability, women as shopaholics, women as over-emotional fusspots etc. Sorry, lads, I just don't see them that way and never have.

The one thing I'd love to discuss is the male experience and its problems and dilemmas, but that's just what men usually don't want to bring up. That would open such a huge can of worms, so many hidden anxieties and insecurities, that they avoid it all costs and stick firmly to the well-trodden conversational footpaths.

When women get together they discuss the female experience in exhaustive detail but for men it's still often the unmentionable elephant in the room.

If a friendly chat with a guy got to the bottom of why I find it so hard to show I'm upset or sad or demoralised, or why I don't always pick up the emotional nuances of what a woman is saying, or why I'm so bad at multi-tasking, or how I feel about my partner earning a lot more than me, that would be time well-spent. But it's much more likely he'll ask me which team I'm supporting in Saturday's big match.

Men still think anything too personal or intimate is girly stuff, okay for women to fret over but too trivial for men. There are more important things to sort out. Like Saturday's big match. And anyway, it's only gay guys who like that personal stuff.

One day men will get together not to build up masculine defences against the feminist hordes but to let down those defences and share all the things they still clutch to themselves like secret hoards of treasure.

In the meantime, my apologies, guys, but I can't spare an evening eyeing up the ladies, analysing that disputed goal, comparing rival sat navs, swilling beer, and generally proving I'm one of the lads. Because I'm not one of the lads, I'm just an average bloke looking for some like-minded souls.

Real men

What the hell is a real man? There are still plenty of men out there raging against feminists they claim have emasculated ‘real men’ and turned them into pathetic shadows of their former selves, trailing helplessly in the wake of powerful, castrating amazons.

Phew, what a negative, self-hating attitude they do have. And there was I thinking men’s lives have been hugely enriched by all these loud-mouth feminists urging us to express our emotions, be more sociable, listen more, show more sensitivity to others and be generally more civilised.

Journalist Sarah Churchwell wonders why these old-style men still see heterosexuality as ‘a zero-sum game, in which any gain made by women entails a loss to men (a loss always located around their testicles, for some reason), instead of just, well, happier women.’ Exactly.

When men talk about being real men, she says, what they really mean is upholding the traditional, unchallenged stereotype – ‘hirsute, drunken and boorish’ and ‘a selfish jerk’. And they’re not going to take any advice from women, no sirree.

Of course there’s no such thing as a ‘real’ man any more than there’s a ‘real’ woman or a ‘real’ teenager. Men are just what they turn out to be which surprisingly enough is pretty varied and unpindownable.

The lauding of ‘real men’ is invariably an attempt to bring back a male-dominated society in which men rule the roost and women do what they’re told, preferably in the kitchen, the bedroom and the cosmetic surgery clinic.

As regular readers know, I’m not even sure what masculinity means, if anything. I’ve never felt masculine in my life. I may look like a man and act like a man but that’s only what I’ve been taught to do. The real me is something much subtler and deeper.

The concept of a ‘real man’ needs to be dumped in the dustbin where it belongs, along with ‘the good old days’, ‘Britishness’, ‘the generation gap’ and all those other meaningless phrases people trot out to justify some reactionary, narrow-minded rant. I’ve never doubted my reality, thanks.

Busybodies

Don't we all hate busybodies who poke their nose into things that don't concern them and aren't doing them any harm? Shouldn't they just mind their own business and butt out?

Well, yes and no. Busybodies who tell us we should get married, or have children, or earn more money, or get more exercise, are a pain in the arse. Who asked for their opinion?

But busybodies who're concerned about some blatant injustice and want to put it right are a different matter. Without them, all sorts of social scandals would never have been tackled.

It was busybodies who got steamed up about slavery, sweatshops, industrial accidents, child labour, slums and chain gangs, while others looked the other way.

If the do-gooders (as they're often snidely described) hadn't raised their voices in protest, these things would just have continued unabated. Many more people would have suffered.

And if it wasn't for today's busybodies (i.e. people with a conscience) complaining about domestic violence, people trafficking, mistreated immigrants or filthy hospitals, nothing much would be done about those either.

Sometimes poking your nose into unexpected places and passing judgment on what you find can be a good thing, even if those alighted on bristle and try to shut you up.

As long as it's something genuinely abhorrent and pernicious, why not? No, I don't want to be lectured on my dress sense or my dust bunnies. But yes, I do want to be told about sex slavery in Soho. There is a difference.

Mistrial by jury

Hugely-expensive court cases are collapsing in Britain because jurors are doing their own private research - including trawling the internet for information on the person accused. This is despite the judges warning them not to.

The person on trial, who has gone through months of anxiety and nail-biting waiting for the case to start, has to wait all over again after the judge is forced to end the case and order a retrial at a later date.

The case against an 18 year old man charged with murdering a 71 year old cabbie had to be abandoned at Newcastle. And in London the trial of a celebrity's nanny accused of child cruelty was also abruptly dropped.

In Newcastle the juror had actually gone to the death scene, taken photos and done research into his own theories about what happened on the night in question. And then discussed his ideas with other jurors.

I can understand a juror's temptation to make their own inquiries into things they're not clear about. I did jury service twice in London and there were often things that were puzzling or confusing, or even totally unbelievable.

But the whole point of a court case is that the jury makes a decision based on what they've been told in court - which hopefully is rigorously tested for bias or lies. If jurors start doing their own digging, they'll come across all sorts of dubious rumours and anecdotes which can seriously slant their decision.

If I was accused of something and I thought the jurors were busy sniffing around on their own I'd be horrified.

Unfortunately the internet makes it all too easy to find information about people at the click of a mouse. And nobody even knows you're doing it unless you're careless enough to tell someone.

In the end, you can only trust people to take the job of deciding a person's guilt or innocence seriously and not deliberately put a spanner in the works. Happily from my own experience, most jurors seem extremely conscientious about holding someone else's fate in their hands.

But is it art?

Popped over to London to see my 86 year old mum's new sheltered flat (well, more like bedsit), which is very cosy and much less trouble than the four-bedroom house she had before.

We went to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in Piccadilly which rather bemused my mum. The large number of abstract and semi-abstract paintings left her scratching her head, as she prefers the more realistic stuff - landscapes, portraits, still lives, that sort of thing.

Me: That's a brilliant painting (i.e. colourful abstract)
Mum: There's nothing to it. I could have done that.
Me: I doubt if you could.
Mum: And that one's got paint dripping off the bottom.
Me: Yes, that's the Jackson Pollock drip technique, mum.
Mum: I see (i.e. what the hell's he talking about?)
Me: And I love this one.
Mum: But what does it mean?
Me: Whatever you want it to mean, mum. That's the whole point of abstracts.
Mum: Well, I can't say I like it (i.e. it's a load of bollocks)

She was also fascinated by the little red Sold stickers.

Mum: Goodness, that one's got a lot of stickers.
Me: I think it's the painting we're meant to be looking at, not the stickers.
Mum: But I can't see why they all like it so much.
Me: Well, it must be to their taste, mum.

I hasten to add that my mum has many admirable qualities - including a fierce desire to hang on to her independence for as long as possible. But her appreciation of art is strictly limited and anything under the heading of "contemporary" or "modern" blows every fuse instantly.

I think she's missing out on a vast swathe of artistic culture. She probably thinks I'm a pretentious poseur taken in by talentless charlatans. I can't see a meeting of minds anytime soon. Or in the next decade, come to that.

I got back to Belfast to find our brand-new multi-million pound city centre underpass had been completely flooded by torrential rain and had to be closed and pumped out. An urgent inquiry is under way by red-faced politicians.

Home help

I was moved by the generosity of a 93 year old North Devon woman who has used the proceeds of her first published novel to buy a house where her friends can stay instead of ending up in lifeless nursing homes.

Lorna Page thinks most nursing homes are so awful (“You sit there all day staring out of the window”) she wants to provide something better that will be life-enhancing rather than stultifying.

“I started asking people if they wanted to move out of their care homes and live with me and I’ve had dozens of offers. They are queuing up” she said.

It’s equally impressive that she’s become a published author in her nineties. She didn’t even think the book (A Dangerous Weakness) was much good but her daughter-in-law persuaded her to send it to a publisher.

Personally I’d hate to end up in a nursing home. I’ve visited quite a few and they always seem desperately soul-destroying. The residents sit around like zombies looking bored to death and stupefied by a barrage of powerful drugs.

Last year Jenny and I visited an aunt who was in a Belfast nursing home temporarily while she recovered from an operation. The sight of the several dozen permanent residents slumped speechless in their armchairs doing absolutely nothing was so terrifying I couldn’t get out of the building fast enough.

I would rather be roasted slowly on hot coals than end up in a place like that. I hope to hell I just die quickly of a heart attack or a rapid cancer rather than spend years incarcerated in a nursing home not in full possession of my faculties but still dragging out my life.

Other people see it differently. They believe a lot of those apparently comatose nursing home residents are actually quite content, their minds meandering happily through old memories and experiences and conjuring up all manner of fabulous interior landscapes.

I wish I could believe that, but I think hopeless despair seems more likely. Count me out.
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I'm pleased to read that Dr Paul Miller, the psychiatrist who Northern Ireland MP Iris Robinson claimed could "cure" homosexuals has severed his connection with her. He has also been suspended from his psychiatric job at the Mater Hospital in Belfast. Unfortunately he is being made the scapegoat for the controversy, while Iris still refuses to resign over her description of homosexuality as an "abomination" and a practice "as bad as child sex abuse".

Ideal workmates

My new workmates are a lovely bunch. They made me feel at home right away. They happily help me out when I'm floundering. And best of all, they haven't yet brought up any of those irritating topics I'm sick to death of talking about. Mainly because whatever I say no one ever understands. I simply don't compute. For example:

1. "Goodness, you're so thin. You need fattening up. Have a scone. In fact, have two scones."

2. "So why are you vegetarian? What's wrong with meat? Doesn't veggie food get boring?"

3. "Why do you have a blog, then? Isn't it just a substitute for a proper social life?"

4. "What, you're not interested in sport? No sport at all? Not even the Olympics? Not even Tom Daley?"

5. "You never wanted children then? Wouldn't you like to be a Grandad? I just adore my kids."

6. "So why did you come to Belfast? Do you like it here? Do you ever think of going back to London?"

7. "How come you quit journalism? But it's so glamorous, so exciting. Hobnobbing with all those celebs."

8. "What, you never watched The Apprentice? I couldn't drag myself away. I was really rooting for X." (actually one person did ask me this)

9. "You don't like getting drunk? But this is Ireland, mate. Everyone gets wrecked. How else can you enjoy life?"

10. "You're so bloody healthy, how do you do it? What's your secret? It must be genetic."

But they have talked to me about whether the office needs a trade union, the best holiday spots, what changes the new chief executive might make, and the war in Iraq. Now that's more like it. Things we can have a sensible conversation about. Things we might even agree on. Where my own position might actually be understood. It makes a nice change.

Am I really that perplexing or is it just that imagination is in short supply?

Back in the kitchen?

A new study says people increasingly believe that family life suffers if a woman works full-time. Both men and women have changed their views on the issue. But why is the criticism aimed only at women and not at men?

Family life can suffer just as much if the man is away at work. But that possibility is seldom commented on. This carries more than a whiff of new attempts to force women out of the workplace and back into the kitchen (or nursery) where they belong.

The study says that in the mid-1990s 51 per cent of men and 50 per cent of women agreed a woman working full-time wouldn't damage family life. Now the figures are 42 per cent of men and 46 per cent of women.

Likewise only 54 per cent of women now think a job adds to their financial and social independence, as opposed to 65 per cent in 1991. But is that their genuine belief or are they coming under mounting pressure to stay at home and give more attention to little Emily or the dirty washing?

Considering workplaces make more and more provision for people's family lives, and that other employees are increasingly sympathetic to the problems of sick children, doing the school-run or other domestic emergencies, it seems odd that women increasingly think family life is being damaged. I can't help thinking there are other factors involved.

On the other hand, many women are genuinely disillusioned with the potential of the workplace for their personal fulfillment. Long hours, heavy workloads, monotonous routines and unpleasant colleagues are making them think twice about their commitment to paid work. If an opportunity arises to quit, they often grab it with relief.

It seems to me that what's really damaging family life is not women (or men) in full-time work but the rising cost of living - particularly housing costs - that means couples are both forced into the workplace to make ends meet. Family life is bound to suffer from this mutual inability both to look after children properly and to have enough health-preserving downtime.
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Sorry, a rather skimpy reply to Quickroute's tag on the Film-Of-Your-Life meme - but food for thought anyway! Let's see now. To play the world-weary but mischievous Nick - who else but Bill Nighy? To be the simultaneously sexy and brainy Jenny - Jennifer Saunders (Janis Joplin would have been good too!). To be my ailing but plucky sister Heather - Meryl Streep. And to be my elderly but combative mum Audrey - it has to be Patricia Routledge (from Keeping Up Appearances). A blockbuster in the making, don't you think? I won't tag anyone else, but if you want to share your own cast list, feel free! Now who could play Baino, I wonder?

Ah, Baino has given us the answer - Dawn French. Nice one!

Young and fragile

It's disturbing that there are internet sites inciting young people to take their own lives and advising them on how to do it. Experts say they know of at least 30 suicides in which the internet has played a major role - not to mention attempted suicides.

But what should be done about these sites if anything? Should we respect free speech whatever the subject and whatever the possible results? Should such sites be closed down? Should they be forced to include links to organisations with a different point of view?

The British government are so concerned they are urging internet service providers to veto "harmful or distasteful" suicide sites, and to provide automatic links to bodies like the Samaritans or ChildLine giving advice on depression and emotional problems.

They're also looking at the existing laws to see if they're strong enough or if they need to be updated.

It's a thorny issue. Once you start interfering in the content of websites and saying what is or isn't acceptable, where do you stop? Even if some young people are impressionable or emotionally fragile, it is right to block off anything that might influence them for the worse and say they're not even allowed to see it?

Just about any website can have a bad influence on people if they are susceptible and interpret what it says in an unintended way. If only a very small number of people might be vulnerable, is it justified to take such draconian action? And if someone wants to commit suicide, shouldn't they have the right to do that anyway?

But I'm not happy with this classic liberal free-speech argument, the idea that anything goes and it's up to the individual to take responsibility for their feelings and actions. A caring society has to protect people at risk and ensure their safety and well-being, rather than leaving them to their fate.

There are already thousands of measures protecting young people from harm and exploitation, and a good job too. I think the government is right to urge safeguards and precautions.

We shouldn't freely allow people to encourage those in emotional difficulties to take an extreme solution, if there are other courses of action that might enable them to sort out those problems and turn their life around.

Iris rejected

Yesterday saw the Belfast Gay Pride Parade 2008 in the city centre. Loads of gorgeous transvestites and exuberant gay couples stunning the shoppers and tourists. Participants again attacked Northern Ireland Assembly member Iris Robinson for saying homosexuality was an abomination and that therapy could turn gays into healthy heterosexuals. She is still unrepentant and refuses to resign.