Gasbags and lurkers

I don't think extroverts and introverts will ever understand each other. They have such different outlooks and such different temperaments. The confident, sociable gasbags are baffled by the reticent, thoughtful lurkers and vice versa.

Personally I'm a confirmed introvert. I enjoy a modest amount of socialising and chattering, but too much of it and I start to panic, feeling my identity is being lost in a thickening fog of compulsive blather that's draining me rather than nourishing me.

To an extrovert, that inner panic is bewildering. They love talking to others and they would go on all day and all night if they could. The idea that you've had enough, that you might be hankering desperately for some peace and quiet, is incomprehensible.

Unfortunately, instead of trying to understand each other, extroverts and introverts tend to be mutually suspicious, always accusing the other lot of being the oddities and weirdos who make daily life more difficult.

If only those boring silent types would contribute a bit more, say the exasperated extroverts. If only those narcissistic windbags would shut up for a second, say the irritated introverts.

As an introvert, I believe an hour or two of private thought about something is probably more productive than an hour or two of gabbling away to someone else about it. An extrovert would believe exactly the opposite.

As an introvert, I like to contemplate beautiful sights in silence, gradually absorbing the full grandeur and impact. This isn't enough for the extrovert, who needs to share the excitement with as many people as possible, take 23 photos and post half a dozen Facebook updates. To them, staying silent can only mean chronic emotional constipation.

I guess this mutual perplexity will run and run. But one thing's for sure. Extroverts and introverts need each other's opposing qualities to get the maximum out of life. A bit like chocolate chips and cookies.

Whistle stop

New laws were passed a while back to protect whistleblowers and stop them being penalised for exposing things other people would like to keep hidden.

But in practice the laws have had little effect and people who're brave enough to ask awkward questions and challenge malpractices are still relentlessly persecuted.

They can lose their job, lose their home, lose a lot of friends, and be quite traumatised by hate campaigns and personal attacks. They still take a huge risk in speaking out.

Julie Bailey, the woman who exposed the substandard care and unnecessary deaths at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust, has been so persistently harrassed that she has had to sell her business, sell her home and move to a caravan park fifty miles away. She has effectively been run out of town.

Hers isn't an isolated case. Others who "tell tales" in the same way have been similarly persecuted and hounded to try and shut them up and prevent them telling the truth. I know personally of one woman who can no longer find work in the food trade after she complained of sexual discrimination and had to change career to make a living.

The fact is that unless you're prepared to have your life ruined and your professional reputation trampled on, you shouldn't speak out about wrongdoing and corruption but should pretend you know nothing about it and everything in the garden is rosy.

Too many people and organisations still object to their work or their behaviour being criticised, even if the criticism is well-deserved and in the public interest. They'll go to any lengths to close ranks and silence the troublemakers. No wonder whistleblowers are still such a rarity.

Pic: Julie Bailey

The unflinching truth

Prepare yourselves! My new no-holds-barred autobiography, out tomorrow from Snipcock and Tweed ("Counting The Cost", 872 pages, £24.99) will be a shattering exposé of my chequered and controversial life, marked by brutal honesty, eye-watering revelations, and unflinching hatchet jobs on all my friends and relatives.

Humiliating financial circumstances have forced me to relive all those notorious, headline-grabbing episodes I'd prefer to forget and plumb the depths of gratuitous muck-raking and character assassination.

Recoil at the sordid details of the all-night chocolate cookie binge. The hysterical outburst on the number 4A bus. The uplift bra calamity. The awkward stumble on the loose paving-stone. The mangled credit card. Images that will haunt you for weeks. Insights that will change your life.

The complete story of the runaway pram is told for the first time. The frail pensioner who lost her left leg. The giant egg. The missing sock. The burnt toast. The unbelievable chain of events that led to one of the biggest disasters in post-war British history. Including newly-discovered, stomach-churning photos.

Nothing is spared in the account of my tragic unrequited crush on Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. The repeated visits from her 20-stone bodyguards, the restraining orders, the arson attacks on my country hideaway, the sabotaged car brakes, my poisoned Alsatians. I make no secret of my tormented heart, my hopeless misery, my searing emotions.

I nail once and for all the persistent rumours that I was born with three legs. I prove that the photos were faked and the so-called reliable source was an alcoholic welder from Dundee. I reveal the real owner of the amputated leg, a 90-year-old widow called Fiona.

All this and more in the literary sensation of 2013. Buy it now or be out of the loop! An ideal topic for dull dinner parties! And at 872 pages, the perfect doorstop! What are you waiting for?

PS: Rats! All copies of the book have had to be withdrawn following a legal writ from Ms Huntington-Whiteley. She claims there are numerous defamatory statements, unauthorised photographs and factual errors in chapter seven. I can't say right now when the book will be re-published.

Future shock

I have what you might call future-phobia*. I'm nervous about the future and what it might bring. I don't have that optimistic horizon that most people possess.

Where other people assume the future will bring something better than they have right now, that life is essentially a matter of onwards and upwards, my imagination runs riot with all manner of unpleasant possibilities.

I'll run out of money; I'll go senile; I'll get some dreadful illness; the house will fall down; I'll live to 100, by which time I'll be a brainless vegetable; I'll die alone and not be found for weeks; I'll turn into a crazy eccentric, shouting at people in buses; I'll be dumped in some vile care home; and so on and so forth.

Why do I have these gloomy (and extremely unlikely) scenarios? Why don't I assume the exact opposite,a happy and healthy old age in which nothing very nasty happens and I enjoy all the things I enjoy right now?

After all, the future, by definition, is largely unknowable. Anything could happen, and there are sure to be plenty of surprises and odd quirks of fate. Good luck is just as likely as bad luck, and to dwell on the second is irrational and perverse.

But then, as we all know, humans are irrational creatures and trying to banish the irrational from our psyches is no easy task. I can tell myself over and over that my fears are unbalanced, that I'm looking at things from a lop-sided perspective, but the fears defy my earnest logic.

No doubt in twenty years' time, if I'm still on this planet, I'll laugh at all the absurd fears of my earlier years and wonder how on earth I imagined such grim turns of event. And then I'll have a chocolate biscuit and a nice cup of tea.

* It's very common but there doesn't seem to be a technical name for it. Secret Agent Woman, any ideas?

Feeding time

Why are people still so hung up about breastfeeding? It's a totally natural activity, all the experts recommend it, there's nothing sexual or porny about it, yet any public glimpse of it is still seen by many as shocking or even distasteful. Why such extreme reactions?

One woman suggests it's partly the lack of breastfeeding photos in the media. If you never see pictures of it, it turns into something odd and furtive, something you feel uncomfortable about. If images of breastfeeding were everywhere, that sense of peculiarity would disappear.

It's not only photos we're lacking. It's any mention at all, other than in parenting columns. It seldom comes up in books or plays or movies. Or public health ads. Or people's photo albums. Even in ordinary conversation, it's a bit of a taboo.

Not so long ago pictures of heavily pregnant women were thought outrageous. Now they've become normal and nobody bats an eyelid. Breastfeeding photos need to become equally common. And not just photos in a domestic setting but in those public places we use all the time - restaurants, cafes, shops, cinemas.

Feeding your child with your own milk (or someone else's child for that matter) is one of the most natural and beautiful things in the world. It's far more natural than the sort of images routinely plastered over the media every day - images of death and destruction and disaster.

Newspapers fall over themselves to publish pointless pictures of buxom, scantily-clad women. Yet when breasts are put to their intended use, suddenly mass coyness descends and nobody must see this awful, corrupting sight. It's absurd.

If breastfeeding mums were as visible as page three girls or underwear models, maybe ordinary women with hungry children wouldn't find themselves relegated to a filthy toilet or dingy storeroom as if they were hopeless perverts.

Head scratching

There are many things in modern life I totally understand and welcome. There are other things I don't understand at all. I ask myself, what is this all about? What's going on here? But I'm buggered if I know the answer. Here are just a few of the things that leave me scratching my head:

1) The obsession with celebs
2) Tattoos
3) Tongue-piercing
4) Stag and hen weekends
5) The prejudice against public services
6) Posting naked selfies on Facebook
7) Wearing a face veil
8) Having private quarrels in public
9) Personalised number plates
10) Going mental on a plane
11) Nouvelle cuisine
12) Barbecues
13) Thongs*
14) Cosmetic surgery
15) Weddings on the other side of the world
16) Gangnam
17) Letting kids run wild
18) Teeth whitening
19) Designer labels
20) Lads' mags

I'm not saying these things are wrong. I'm not saying they should be stopped (well, maybe some of them**). I simply don't understand the attraction or the need or the pay-off. Different strokes for different folks and all that. Of course if I lived in Australia, I would have to attune to 12. I mean, barbecues are compulsory, aren't they? Don't you get jailed if you refuse to have one? Or so I'm told....

* that's the underwear and not the Aussie footwear
** maybe 5,10, 17, 20?

Couth or uncouth?

We all have a different idea of what's meant by good manners, don't we? What to one person is quite normal behaviour strikes someone else as the height of rudeness and vulgarity. What one person sees as a stimulating argument, another sees as a blatant attempt to spoil a happy atmosphere.

People can feel so strongly about someone's "bad manners" or "discourtesy" that they cut them dead, even if they were close friends. They find the other person's conduct so repulsive and embarrassing they just don't want to be exposed to it again.

I remember carefully avoiding one woman after she invited me for a birthday drink and then steadfastly ignored me while chatting busily to her other friends. Jenny and I gave another friend the brush-off after she turned up an hour late for a (by then overcooked and inedible) meal. She breezed in without any apology as if this was perfectly acceptable.

Table manners can be a big bone of contention. I don't even notice if someone always talks with their mouth full, while someone else will be cringing with distaste. I loathe messy eaters who spray crumbs and food fragments in all directions, while other people aren't remotely bothered.

Conversational habits are another bugbear. Is the person who gushes non-stop about themself tediously narcissistic or admirably self-confident? Is the person who hardly says a word a good listener or a lazy deadweight? Is the person who finds the hole in every argument a pain in the arse or a breath of fresh air?

Attitudes to personal criticism vary widely. I can take very heated criticism without turning a hair, while others are grievously offended by the mildest challenge. I know I have plenty of faults and I don't mind if others point them out - as long as they're polite about it. But my father took the slightest criticism as almost a declaration of war, and would sulk for days.

What's meant by good or bad manners is a tangled question. But one we shouldn't waste too much energy on. If we're so obsessed with someone's eating habits that we pay no attention to what they're saying, that's absurd. It's jolly bad manners in fact.

Forced to love

Living in the society I do, where marriages are based on love and affection, it's hard to believe there are still many countries where a forced marriage to someone you don't like, don't love, or don't even know, is commonplace.

It's bad enough when they're similar ages, but even worse when the bride is still a child and the bridegroom maybe decades older, and the girl has very little idea what she's getting into or how she might be treated. It may seem quite romantic until she's faced with the reality of an uncaring husband.

Noora Al Shami's story is horrific, but I imagine all too typical of what a forced marriage can really mean in practice. Her husband treated her like a sex object, like a toy, and it was only after ten years of constant physical attacks that she managed to escape and rebuild her life by training as a teacher.

Of course it's not so long ago that British couples were forced into shotgun weddings by parents embarrassed by an "out of wedlock" pregnancy, and many of those marriages were also disastrous. Thankfully attitudes to unmarried parents are now more relaxed and this home-grown variety of forced marriage has ended.

But elsewhere the custom is alive and well, with many declared and undeclared reasons for marrying someone off. It can be to provide citizenship, to attract a bridal dowry, to increase the population, to resolve tribal feuds, or for the sake of family pride. The obvious potential for conflict, violence and misery between two people who turn out to be incompatible is routinely ignored. Likewise the likelihood that a strong and arrogant older man will treat his young wife like a doormat.

Even a relationship based on love and affection can be hard enough to maintain in the face of everyday problems and challenges. The chances of a forced marriage being successful must be very low indeed. Yet utterly reluctant girls and women - and presumably some of the men - are still pushed into it by determined families unconcerned with the possible consequences.

There must be many women like Noora, trapped in dismal marriages, who at times wish they'd never been born at all.

Pic: Not Noora Al Shami

Swept away

It really annoys me when people look down their noses at someone who's got into some horrible mess and declare that it's all their own fault and they should have known better.

They stubbornly believe that the reason they've never stumbled into the same sort of mess themselves is their own superior character - their innate common sense, self-discipline, intelligence, or whatever.

They're too blinkered and obtuse to realise that we're all capable of screwing up our lives if the circumstances allow it, and that what brings it about isn't wilful irresponsibility but some personal weakness we're simply unable to resist.

If they haven't succumbed to such a weakness, it's not because they're inherently superior but because they've just been lucky enough not to land up in a situation that exposes that weakness and triggers it off.

People who have disastrous affairs, or go broke, or get themselves sacked, or are caught shoplifting, aren't merely "lacking in self-control". They've been so smoothly tempted or charmed or beguiled or persuaded into something risky that they're simply helpless to resist, despite their better judgment, despite their gut-feelings, despite everything. They just find themselves swept away and powerless to do anything about it.

Whatever we may think, we could all find ourselves on that slippery slope. There are plenty of stories of people who thought their lives were going fine, that they were sitting pretty, and a few months later everything's in ruins.

The sight of people crowing and gloating over other people's unexpected misfortunes is something I find quite sickening.

Generosity

I think of myself as a not especially generous person, but that may be because I'm thinking of generosity in the money sense. I'm probably quite generous in other senses though, like being forgiving, or being empathetic, or overlooking faults.

I quite easily forgive people for hurting me, or upsetting me, or being rude to me. I don't hold grudges for years afterwards or plot their early demise. I just assume they were having a bad day or didn't think before they spoke.

I try hard to understand other people's feelings and opinions and circumstances. I don't instantly dismiss them as idiots, cranks or time-wasters. I assume there are good reasons why people are miserable, or poor, or intolerant, and I want to know what those reasons are.

I accept that people have all sorts of faults, the same as I do, and I work around those faults rather than condemning them. Cutting them a bit of slack seems kinder than making them feel guilty and incompetent.

I don't let an instant dislike of someone put me off them. However disconcerting a person may be at first glance, I always give them a chance to correct me and show me their finer qualities. And they usually have some.

I will give people time. If someone has a complicated problem, or a long tale of woe, I'll hear them out for as long as it takes. I'm not one of those super-busy, self-important people who always have something more urgent to attend to.

I try to accept people as they are and not as I would like them to be. I try to respect their uniqueness and individuality and not force them to be something I find more comfortable or definable.

In return I hope others will be generous to me in the same ways. That they'll give me time, be forgiving, be compassionate, allow for my faults.

We can have all the material goodies in the world, we can have beautiful homes and possessions, but if we aren't generous to each other, if we treat each other brusquely and harshly, then life becomes cold and sad.

It's the people who've been generous to me, who've treated me with unexpected warmth and sensitivity, that bring sunshine to my life. They make up for all those who were mean and curt and discouraging, those whose hearts are frozen.

The rose-tinted dead

Not many people give their honest opinion about someone who's died. However extreme and infuriating they were, people find all sorts of clever euphemisms to dress up unpleasant traits as something quirky and endearing.

Whatever the grim reality, most of us want the enduring memory of the person concerned to be a little rose-tinted, with their more objectionable qualities carefully softened or ignored. Those awkward characters who tell the truth are seen as malicious and embarrassing.

As one journalist notes, obituaries can be little masterpieces of misdescription. An "eccentric" could well be a social outcast, someone with "blokey humour" is likely to be a fierce misogynist, and someone who "enjoyed a tipple" was probably a confirmed alcoholic. There's a vast vocabulary of flattering or at least neutralising terms to help us out.

Obviously no one wants to offend grieving relatives and loved ones, but why go to such absurd lengths to pretend someone was a lovable old rascal when in reality they were a total pain in the neck or even a vicious monster? If that's what they were, why not say so?

It's odd that people don't want to speak ill of the dead,even though it's no longer going to hurt or distress them, yet rabid criticism of the still-living and still-vulnerable goes on all the time.

In any case, however thorough the attempts to clean up someone's image and hide all the skeletons in the closet, sooner or later the truth will out in some no-holds-barred biography or a bit of careless drunken gossip or the chance discovery of some revealing love-letter or diary entry. Secrets seldom stay secret forever.

I really don't care what people say about me after I'm dead, as long as it's not total invention. Of course I can be selfish and argumentative and obsessive and timid and scatty and brusque. So what? I've never pretended to be a saint so why pretend I'm one after I've gone?

San Francisco

Wow, what to say about San Francisco? First off, it isn't the paradise on earth it's hyped up to be. It's a very dysfunct-ional city, with not much that works efficiently and dozens of down-and-outs in every public space.

Many of the main streets are seedy and grubby, with lots of tacky tourist shops and stalls. The famous areas like Fishermans Wharf are jammed with tourists and day-trippers. There are long waits for the cable cars, as there aren't nearly enough of them to meet the demand. Most of the hotels are on busy thoroughfares and quite noisy at night.

That said, if you're willing to dump your inflated expectations and make the most of the city as it really is, there are many interesting and beautiful sights -  and people. We visited quite a few of the well-known SF 'hoods, as well as Berkeley, and found all sorts of little gems and treasures.

We loved Castro, the gay district, where we visited the GLBT Museum and Harvey Milk's old camera shop. We loved swish North Beach and Nob Hill. We loved the Golden Gate Bridge and also the Bay Bridge, which is just as elegant and impressive. We loved the wide range of art in the De Young Museum. We loved the sixties time-warp of Haight-Ashbury. We loved the cool and studenty Uni of California campus at Berkeley.

But oh dear, it's such a chaotic and shambolic city compared to say, Vancouver or Sydney. It was hard to get a complete map of the bus routes, there's no direct bus from downtown to the Golden Gate Bridge, the Museum of Modern Art has been totally closed for enlargement for at least 18 months, and there were masses of derelict buildings. Plus the cable car shambles and the ubiquitous street-people I've already mentioned.

It's not a city I would want to live in or come back to. It's not even much fun to walk around because of all the steep hills - daunting even to the fit and healthy - and the crowded and shabby main streets. I'm puzzled as to why so many people are so enthusiastic about it. I guess its nostalgic reputation as a mecca of alternative culture and sophistication is way out of line with the reality, which is rather more prosaic and predictable.

Pic: Castro Street

Thoroughly decent

I'm sure you've all had quite enough of me rambling on about my 101 neuroses. Just for a change then, I'm going to blow my own trumpet and tell you what a thoroughly decent and honourable person I am.

So at the risk of seeming smug, patronising, supercilious, self-righteous, holier-than-thou, goodie-goodie-two-shoes etc etc, here are all my thoroughly lovely qualities:

1) I don't harbour malicious thoughts about friends, loved ones or workmates.
2) I don't make anonymous attacks on Twitter.
3) I'm not interested in porn.
4) I'm not misogynistic, homophobic or transphobic.
5) I'm deeply disturbed by all the poverty, violence, misery and oppression in the world.
6) I've never had an extra-marital affair.
7) I like fluffy kittens and cupcakes.
8) I mind my own business and try not to judge other people's lives.
9) I don't gossip, and I'm good at keeping secrets.
10) I don't annoy the neighbours with loud music or all-night parties.
11) I deplore machismo and male posturing.
12) I do my share of the housework.
13) I'm a good listener.
14) I don't hide my emotions.
15) I'm not easily offended.
16) I'm not the jealous type.
17) I like teddy bears and ice cream.
18) I'm not an angry or bad-tempered person.
19) I do all my own laundry.
20) I take off my high heels on delicate parquet flooring.

No offence meant

Some insults are obviously exactly that. If someone calls you a f***ing arsehole or a stupid cretin, then there's no way you can miscon-strue it. They're having a go at you.

But other insults are more subjective, aren't they? What one person sees as a hideous insult another will find entirely trivial and not worth remarking on. So much depends on how the words are interpreted.

People sometimes say I've insulted them when for the life of me I can't see where the insult lies. As far as I'm concerned, I respect them, I value them, I may even admire them. Yet they're convinced I've abused them in some way.

They'll take what I've said as a criticism of their religion, their work, their political views, their parenting skills, or whatever, and any attempt I make to put the record straight is simply ignored.

Personally, I'm fairly insult-proof. If someone says something that might possibly be an insult, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume a quite innocent meaning. They'd have to be blatantly rude for me to take offence.

Even if they're saying something clearly derogatory, often I can see it's because they've obviously misunderstood me or imagined something about me that's complete nonsense. So usually I just laugh or shrug my shoulders or take no notice. Why fly off the handle at some gormless misunderstanding?

But some people just seem to look for insults, they love the sheer drama of feeling insulted and fuming at someone. They'll see an insult in every other sentence - a sly dig here, a snide reference there, a sarcastic aside somewhere else. Everyone is getting at them, everyone is busy sharpening a knife to stab them in the back.

The fact is, I don't insult anyone out of the blue, for no good reason. They'd have to insult me first, and quite flagrantly, for me to respond in kind. Even then, I find it hard to be insulting. I always feel uncomfortable and mean, however justified my reaction, however hurt or crushed I may be.

All I can say is, like beauty, insults are often in the eye of the beholder.

Kitty corner

These three adorable little kitties are called Fluffy, Taffy and Tiddles. Aren't they just the sweetest little darlings in the whole wide world?

Unfortunately they can't speak. But if they did, they could tell you some fascinating facts about cats:

1) Cats were sacred to the Ancient Egyptians, who worshipped a cat god called Bastet, and mummified their cats to prepare them for the afterlife.
2) Cats spend two thirds of their day dozing or doing absolutely nothing.
3) Studies show that many more people claim to own cats than there are cats. (?)
4) The word "tabby" comes from a cloth: a kind of striped silk taffeta. It derived from the Arabic Attabiy, the quarter of old Baghdad where it was originally made.
5) Up to 85 per cent of white cats with two blue eyes are deaf.
6) Like many small animals, cats have a non-fatal falling velocity - in cats this is about 60 mph. Once they relax, they orient themselves, spread out, and parachute to earth like a squirrel. Some cats have fallen 30 storeys or more without ill effects.
7) A single pair of cats and their kittens can produce 420,000 kittens in seven years.
8) Sir Isaac Newton invented the cat flap.
9) Cats can make over 100 vocal sounds, while dogs can make only ten. (?)
10) A cat's tail contains over 20 bones, helping it to balance on narrow surfaces.
11) A cat can move at a top speed of around 30 mph.
12) A cat can jump up to five times its own height in a single bound.
13) There is no mouse-flavoured cat food because the test subjects (cats!) didn't like it.
14) Milk is bad for cats. It gives them upset stomachs, cramps and diarrhoea. Diarrhoea can be fatal to kittens because it dehydrates them. All cats need is fresh water.

(?) Can this really be true?

Hidden depths

How much can we ever understand someone else? Even if we've known a person for decades, can we ever compre-hend more than a fraction of their complex personality? How much can we ever glimpse behind all the public masks and role-playing and social diplomacy?

By the time we're adults we're amazingly skilled at faking it - in displaying not our real selves but the selves we want other people to see. The competent mum or dad, the chatty socialite, the reassuring friend, the diligent employee. Some pretty astute detective skills are needed to cut through all the pretence and dig out the real person hiding underneath.

We don't want other people to see the secret reservoirs of malice, jealousy, violence, greed, sloth, contempt and all the other 101 varieties of untamed nastiness. And worse than that, the fleeting desire for sheer unmitigated madness - the wish to strangle our argumentative spouse, drown our impossible children, burn down the stingy bank, bomb that hideous new office block.

If we know someone really well, we'll have seen a few of these squalid impulses in unguarded moments. But it's unlikely we've seen them all, or seen them in their full naked ferocity. And the really shocking traits may be concealed so rigorously that we never discover them at all.

How many times have we read of a woman whose husband of twenty years suddenly turns out to be a serial killer, a multi-million pound fraudster, a polygamist, or a drug trafficker? They swear they had no idea what was going on, that he was an affectionate, charming husband who aroused no suspicions whatever.

Extreme emotions and beliefs are especially hard to fathom. Strange obsessions and passions and hatreds that make no sense. What fuels such vicious hostility towards a former lover? What fires such devotion to an obscure religious sect? There's something going on there we just aren't privy to.

At the end of the day there's only so much you can learn about another person. Only they can know the whole story. Only they can know exactly how they think and feel and react. Only they can know their every sordid nook and cranny. They'll always leave us guessing more often than not.

PS: Next post - three adorable little kittens called Fluffy, Taffy and Tiddles.

Tucked away

By the time you're my age, you've been through a lot of pain and hurt of one kind or another. If I gave it all free rein, it would be overwhelming. I would be an emotional wreck.

Childhood bullying, a vile-tempered father, failed friendships, failed romances, tyrannical bosses, nasty betrayals and rejections. Painful at the time and still painful many years later.

Those glib phrases "Get over it", "Deal with it", "Put it all behind you" are easy enough to say, not so easy to practise. Hurt isn't something you can just put in a rubbish bag and throw in the trash. It lingers, it loiters, it refuses to die.

You can come to terms with it. You can suppress it. You can take it to a therapist. You can pretend it's nothing much. You can take it out on other people. But at the end of the day it's still there, it's something you actually felt in all its raw intensity, and that has to leave a scar of some kind, a psychic wound. It happened and it's not going to unhappen. Somehow it has to be dealt with.

I have a bad memory. I'll forget the vicious words that someone used, the brutal look on their face, the clinical phrases in a redundancy letter. But I don't forget the cold way I was treated, the unkindness, the harshness.

I'm a forgiving person. But even when I can put myself in the other person's shoes, even when I can half-understand why they did what they did, what their motives were, what the catalyst was, it doesn't take away the pain.

Pain can cut you to the quick. It can break your heart. It can tear you to pieces. If I let it all out in its sheer extremity, I would be a jibbering lunatic. Like everyone else, I find ways of subduing it, of damping it down, of keeping it safely tucked away somewhere deep in my being.

Pain is the hidden shadow in everyone's identity. They may smile and chirp for other people's benefit, but who knows what they're keeping under wraps?

Not for me, thanks

Things I don't do:

1) Wear red trousers
2) Wear lacy knickers
3) Eat meat
4) Chew gum
5) Drink Coca-Cola
6) Own a pet
7) Sleep with a teddy bear
8) Buy porn mags
9) Ring the Samaritans
10) Cry my eyes out
11) Giggle uncontrollably
12) Blush
13) Go to the gym
14) Ride a bike
15) Look for trouble
16) Look for excuses
17) Recite poetry
18) Read the Bible
19) Sunbathe
20) Keep a diary
21) Jump for joy
22) Jump queues
23) Bite my nails
24) Dye my hair
25) Go clubbing
26) Collect shells
27) Talk in my sleep
28) Sing in the bath
29) Shoplift
30) Hug trees

Good mothers

Journalist Bronwen Clune moans that from the day she produced the first of her four children everyone expected her to be a "good mother" and assessed her every action against this impossible ideal. Any careless lapse was instantly jumped on.

But can this really be true? Surely in this day and age everyone - including non-parents like myself - knows that parents are not perfect, children are not perfect, and obviously you have to make allowances for normal, fumbling human behaviour.

Not so, says Bronwen. She's expected to make gourmet school lunches, supply everyone's favourite breakfast cereals, be a maths wizard and always have matching socks on hand. She's meant to be forever smiling and free of foibles and oddities.

I don't believe people are so censorious. Doesn't every other parent know full well how hard it is to bring up children? How demanding and awkward they are, how exhausting and infuriating, how unpredictable and startling. Do parents who know all too well the non-stop craziness of parenting and their own constant inability to measure up really expect other parents to reach some exalted standard they couldn't possibly reach themselves? Are they truly such mean hypocrites?

Even those of us who've never had children and may know little of the day-to-day turmoil and weariness of looking after them can surely imagine what it's like and sympathise with those mums and dads who're temporarily losing it or collapsing in a defeated heap while their offspring happily misbehave?

Who are all these people who expect Bronwen to be so saintly? If they're friends and relatives, then shouldn't she either keep well away from them or tell them to go screw themselves? If they're complete strangers, why take any notice of them at all? Or are these elevated standards ones she's actually setting herself, some kind of internal perfectionist streak?

This "good mother" hang-up seems especially odd for someone who's had four children. Hasn't she realised by now that there's no perfect way to bring up a child and you just have to take things as they come and do the best you can? Isn't the best response to other people's sniffy disdain a gale of raucous laughter and another glass of pinot noir?

The secret's out

Over the 66 years of my life, I've confided some very intimate, very personal thoughts and feelings to other people. Mainly to Jenny but also to other close and trusted friends.

Have I ever regretted such confessions? Strangely enough, I haven't. I can't recall anything that had damaging consequences or made me feel a reckless idiot.

Other people seem to do it all the time. Those familiar phrases - "Me and my big mouth", "I open my mouth and put my foot in it", "Did I say that out loud?"

Well, I don't use them myself. Have I, for example, ever been unfair to someone, shocked or horrified someone, diminished myself, exposed my weaknesses and frailties? Yes, I've done the last. But I'm happy to do that with people I trust.

Have I revealed things that are simply too private and personal to be shared? I don't think so. Someone can only get to know me properly if I tell them everything that goes on inside me. And that means everything.

There are people I haven't seen for decades who know quite mind-boggling things about me, but I'm not bothered. I doubt they've abused my trust in them, and even if they have, even if they've gossiped shamelessly, it'll be to people I don't know who can't do me any harm.

Then again, I don't need to have confessed to anything. There are glaring shortcomings I've revealed simply in the course of everyday life - sexual hang-ups, social ineptness, nasty habits, chronic self-doubts. But so what? Why be embarrassed that people have stumbled on awkward faults? They have just as many themselves.

I've got nothing to hide. My only worry is what others will do with the information. But by and large my trust hasn't been misplaced.