Count me out

When it comes to wild partying, I was always old before my time. I never quite saw the attraction, even as a rebellious teenager who was pretty wild in other ways.

I had a friend who would drag me along to these all-night parties in trendy Notting Hill. We would be there till the small hours, he enjoying himself immensely, me getting more and more bored and longing for my warm, cosy bed.

Everyone else would be getting sky-high on drugs or booze and raving about the latest fashionable gurus (R D Laing, Tim Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Huey Newton, Germaine Greer, Valerie Solanas). I wasn't keen on either mind-bending substances or personality cults so I felt a bit out of the loop. I would have preferred a searching one-to-one conversation to a roomful of lazy name-droppers so I was forever frustrated. I felt like a 70-year-old grandad who'd somehow stumbled into a kids' party.

Funny, because the rest of the time I was an instinctive rebel, disputing anything and everything from news values and dress codes at the local newspaper I worked for, to prejudice about gays, women, socialists and modern art, to parking restrictions and speed limits. There was virtually nothing I would happily accept, nothing I wouldn't promptly question and challenge and argue with. I drove my parents crazy with my endless scepticism and disagreement.

So you'd think wild parties would be right up my alley. But I suppose the truth is I found them distinctly unrebellious and predictable. Getting stoned? Getting drunk? Idolising a few alternative celebs? It was pretty tame stuff as far as boundary-breaking and tradition-smashing went. Hangovers never changed the world. Drugged stupors never put an end to poverty. Celebs get attention but seldom change the world either.

So if you fondly imagined I spent my teenage years in an addled stupor of non-stop partying - then think again.

R D Laing: radical psychiatrist who questioned definitions of madness
Tim Leary: psychologist and advocate of psychedelic drugs
Abbie Hoffman: one of the founders of the libertarian Yippies movement
Huey Newton: one of the founders of the Black Panthers
Germaine Greer: author of The Female Eunuch
Valerie Solanas: author of the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto

Boarding blues

As someone who spent five years at boarding school, I applaud the campaign by Boarding Concern to keep younger children out of such schools to avoid lasting mental and emotional damage.

Many psychologists are now convinced that children who are suddenly wrenched out of their customary family environment and left to fend for themselves among strangers with only a passing interest in them suffer emotional injury that hampers their entire adult life.

They can suffer a host of negative emotions that are never properly dealt with. They can feel abandoned, betrayed, neglected, demoralised, bewildered, shocked, angry, sad, vulnerable and distressed. But nobody takes any notice. They're just expected to bury their misery, toughen up and pretend everything's fine.

The family members who would normally validate their feelings and give them the support they need aren't around, and the school staff are unwilling or unable to step into their shoes.

The result is that many boarders leave school emotionally repressed, and permanently distrustful and insecure. All that leads to serious problems with relationships and personal growth. Over and over again, the spouses of such ex-boarders (usually wives) comment on their inadequate personalities and emotional illiteracy.

Personally I can vouch for that. Although I'm much more in touch with my own, and other people's, feelings than I used to be, I'm still far from emotionally fluent and I still have a lot of trouble expressing what's going on inside me.

The staff at my school never showed any interest in my emotional well-being and left me to sink or swim in an atmosphere of rugged masculinity.

I'm glad the psychological pain of boarding is finally being recognised and I hope fewer children will be exposed to it. But it's depressing to learn that right now boarding schools are as popular as ever and just as many thoughtless parents are dumping their children into these destructive institutions (around 74,000 at the last count). They seem to be wilfully blind to the emotional harm that's being done to innocent hearts and minds.

Ever been nagged?

How odd that it's always a woman who nags and never a man. A woman is always an unreasonable, over-persistent, pain in the arse while a man is merely mentioning something that needs attention.

A woman who has to keep pestering her man to get off his butt and do some necessary domestic chores is seen as a nag, while a man who pesters a woman to look sexier or be stricter with the kids is just the voice of common sense.

Well, that's the popular stereotype anyway. But have you ever heard of a nagging husband? A husband who's demanding maybe, or fussy or pedantic. But not one who's a "nag", with all the insulting overtones that implies.

It struck me that one reason Jenny and I still get along so well is that neither of us nags. If there's something about the other person that bugs us, we'll mention it but we won't bang on about it. Either the other person responds or they don't, and that's that. Or we don't mention it at all because it's not that important, or it's purely a question of personal taste.

Nagging is usually counter-productive anyway. The more you nag someone about something, the more you get their back up and the less likely you are to achieve anything.

To my mind, if a woman "nags", there's often a very good reason for it. Like a man who always "forgets" to do the food shopping, or is forever "running late" for everything, or "doesn't have the time" to get the leaky tap fixed. But he has plenty of time to update Facebook or read the sports news. She's not "nagging", she just wants him to pull his weight and not keep taking the piss.

Not so much nagging as getting a grip.

Going unheard

It's a tired old cliché that not only was Britain the cradle of democracy but it's still a highly democratic country where everyone has a chance to influence the government and their policies. The people running the country, we're told, fall over themselves to heed popular opinion and act accordingly.

As the latest election campaigns get under way, with all the usual grinning politicians vying for our precious votes, it's worth asking if the old cliché is actually true.

Well, it isn't, is it? It's a load of 24-carat bollocks. It's the biggest urban myth ever. If you believe we live in a democracy, you've been sadly duped.

The chances of an individual like myself having any real influence on what the government* are doing are frankly, zilch. Despite the well-trodden claims, unless you have some serious clout - you're a generous party donor, a millionaire, a big employer, a celebrity, a high-profile campaigner - the government will ignore you completely.

I can go through all the familiar democratic motions. I can cast my vote, visit my MP, sign a petition, attend a rally. But the truth is I'm highly unlikely to budge the government from their chosen path.

Can I stop the government from cutting welfare benefits, making life harder for the disabled, privatising the NHS, bashing the unions, charging for education or stigmatising the unemployed? Not a hope. They go their own sweet way and tell their critics to get stuffed. They're convinced they know best and that any dissenting views are the ramblings of idiots.

I've more chance of persuading the local supermarket to stock Vegemite than I have of influencing the government.

I will of course cast my vote. Given all those people eager to flock to the polling station and vote happily for extremists, lunatics and religious nuts of assorted hues, it's my public duty to cast at least one vote for someone sensible.

But do I really imagine I'll be furthering the great democratic tradition? Don't make me laugh.

* Local councils are a little easier to influence, but they can still be pretty blind to public opinion when they choose to be.

A tight rein

I'm not controlling with other people. I'm happy to let them be just what they want to be. That way they're a lot more interesting. Unexpected quirks and foibles come to the surface.

But I'm very controlling with myself. I tend to keep a tight rein on whatever I'm saying or doing so as to give the right impression, the right image, the right idea.

I have a certain picture of myself which is positive and attractive. I see myself as open-minded, considerate, sensitive, intelligent, amusing. I don't want to reveal anything that spoils that picture, that makes me look nasty or callous or stupid.

(At the same time though, I have this huge urge to show myself exactly as I am, warts and all, to display the whole me and not just the bits that fit the shiny image. I want to spill out all my insecurities, inadequacies, weaknesses, idiocies. I want people to know I have all the same hang-ups they have, that I'm a very long way from perfect. So there's a big inner tug-of-war going on).

I also tend to keep a tight rein on my emotions. I'm still a bit afraid of my emotions, I'm scared that if I let them rip they'll be so intense, so strong, so wild, they'll overwhelm me and drown me. So I minimise what I'm feeling and tell myself I'm not really that sad, that upset, that angry, that hostile.

So other people probably see me as a bit emotionless and over-cool, because they don't see the swirling currents of emotion churning away under the surface. The fact is that any number of things can hurt me and shock me intensely, I'm just not good at showing it.

But hiding myself, muting myself, isn't just personally damaging, it's an insult to other people. I'm saying, I don't trust you with my real self, you'll laugh at it or trample on it. Which sometimes happens, but most people are kinder and gentler than I imagine.

The jury's out

Am I alone in thinking that if a jury takes over seven days to reach its verdicts, and then only by a majority decision, those verdicts are more than a little dubious?

Because that's what happened in the trial of Max Clifford, who was found guilty yesterday of eight indecent assaults on women as young as 15.

He may very well be guilty - certainly the women concerned say he is - but surely if the facts were clear-cut it shouldn't take that long to decide? There must have been some pretty heated debate in the jury room between those who thought he was innocent and those who didn't.

Yet everyone from the media to the woman in the street is treating the verdicts as totally reliable, with no doubts of any kind. All that matters is that verdicts were reached, and how they were reached is irrelevant.

Unfortunately the law bans jurors from explaining their deliberations, so we have no idea to what extent they thought he might be innocent.

But it seems to me there should be a time limit on how long the jury can consider a case, and once that limit is met either there should be a new trial or the case should be abandoned. Some juries have taken over three weeks to reach verdicts, but still the verdicts were accepted.

You would think such lengthy ruminations would be grounds for an appeal against the decision, but I've never heard of that happening.

Of course you could also argue that if the jury come to a conclusion too quickly, that verdict is equally unreliable, but what's more likely is that the evidence was so overwhelming there was simply no room for argument.

But for many people a verdict is a verdict, and they don't really think about how it was arrived at. Especially if they were sure of Max Clifford's guilt to begin with.

Pic: Max Clifford

Why compete?

I've never liked competing. I've always thought it was a vastly over-rated concept. I much prefer to set my own standards and try to reach them. Competing so often becomes a mindless desire to "win" and to defeat other people, frequently in the name of some dubious goal like making a fat profit or being famous or exciting envy.

And does competition drive up standards, as it's generally said to do? Look at all those jobs where competition is rife and tell me how high the standards are. Politicians? Estate agents? Journalists? Car salesmen? It's more like a race to the bottom, with principles thrown out the window in favour of being top dog and trouncing your rivals.

All too often the frantic desire to win leads to widespread cheating and fiddling - drug-taking by sportspeople, plastic surgery by models, gazumping by estate agents. Publicly it's condemned, but in private the attitude is, anything goes in order to reach the top.

I've always thought that the people who achieve the most, be it happiness, job satisfaction, a purpose in life or creative innovation, tend to be motivated not by competition but by personal standards they've set for themselves and tried to live up to or exceed. Rather than endlessly looking over their shoulder at what other people are doing, they're ploughing their own furrow and following their own impulses.

They may be aware of what others are doing, they be influenced and inspired by them, but they're not competing with them, they're simply using them as grist to the mill, as a shot in the arm.

The people who impress me most are not Oscar winners and gold medallists so much as the determined individuals who make a name for themselves solely by pursuing their own high-minded goals and meeting them. Camila Batmanghelidgh, say, or Paris Lees or Shami Chakrabarti. I take my hat off to them.

Over to you

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Bedroom secrets

A lot of people don't like to talk about their negative bedroom habits. Or their partner's. And I don't just mean sexual, I mean all those other little things that can drive the other person nuts.

Like snoring. Or hogging the duvet. Or being overheated. Or smoking in bed. Or eating pungent food in bed. Or sleeping with the dog.

I think most of us couples like to give the impression that everything in the bedroom is just fine. We get into bed, we snuggle up together, we make love, we read for a while, we fall soundly asleep. All very cosy and comfortable.

It's not really the done thing to admit to all the petty irritations and annoyances, the things our partner detests, the things that keep us awake, the things we're ashamed of. What happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom, right?

Which is why people don't like to admit they sleep separately. That can trigger all sorts of false assumptions about sexual problems, marital difficulties, incompatibility, other personal failings. There are good reasons for sleeping apart, but they're not the ones other people think of.

And we like to give the impression that even if we do have the odd infuriating bedroom habit (which of course is highly unlikely), our partner is infinitely tolerant and understanding and would never see it as an insurmountable problem, more an endearing and amusing foible that only makes them love us all the more.

So true to form, I'm not going to reveal any of my iffy bedroom habits, or any of Jenny's. Suffice it to say that we don't sleep separately (that's the honest truth, guv) and that we enjoy snuggling up together.

And that's all you're going to get out of me, whatever blandishments you offer. My lips are now firmly sealed.

(Thanks to Ramana for the inspiration)

Forgiveness

I'm a forgiving person. I don't hold grudges. I don't look for revenge. I don't persecute people for their shortcomings. I don't think of people with bitterness and resentment.

But that doesn't mean that I overlook their faults, that I don't care if they've done something nasty or harmful. It doesn't mean I just turn the other cheek or pretend it never happened.

Of course I feel angry or disappointed or shocked or disillusioned. I might want them to make up for what they've done. I might want them to see the error of their ways. But I don't harbour any vicious or hateful feelings towards them. To my mind, that would damage me more than it damages them.

I certainly don't believe in an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. That doesn't solve anything, it usually only escalates the bad feeling as it turns into a tit-for-tat cycle of violence.

On the other hand, I don't much believe in the sentimental idea that forgiveness is only real forgiveness if you not only shun revenge but feel affection and compassion for the person who's wronged you. I think that's possible only if it's someone you love deeply in the first place, like a spouse or a child. With anyone else, it's asking an awful lot, especially if the person has done something quite brutally and coldly abusive.

Plenty of people have treated me badly, starting with my father, but if I'd nursed grudges against them, plotted revenge against them, I would have become a horribly sour and twisted individual. It would have driven all the happiness and buoyancy out of me and utterly contaminated my life. And why give such people the satisfaction of knowing I'm busy obsessing about them, fixating on them, when they're simply not worth thinking about?

But forgiveness seems to be a very under-rated practice right now, in the age of relentless smear campaigns and character assassination. It's about time it came back into favour.

Give me glamour

How do you define glamour? What do you find glamorous? It definitely means something but it's hard to pin down. Probably everyone has their own idea of what it is.

Of course at my age a lot of things I used to find glamorous are now quite mundane, as I'm more aware of the artifice behind the public image - like all the Oscars palaver and all those photo-shopped supermodels - but there are still plenty of things I find glamorous.

So what does glamorous mean? I would say especially exciting or attractive or stylish. Having an almost magical or enchanted quality, something so special it seems almost unreal.

For me, certain places have that quality - Sydney or Vancouver or Venice. Certain people, like George Clooney or Claudia Schiffer. Certain things, like beautiful scarves or pottery or paintings or jewellery. Even little things like nail varnish or passport visa stamps or signed copies of books.

Some things just aren't glamorous, like food or restaurants. We all know the behind-the-scenes drudgery and anxiety that goes into the finished product, so glamour disappears. A plate of risotto may be delicious, or nutritious, or satisfying, but glamorous it ain't.

I would hate it if I got to a point where nothing seemed glamorous any more. The world would be so depressingly humdrum, squalid, dreary. What I like about glamour is its instantly uplifting quality. It makes me feel life is worth living, the world is full of unexpected treasures and delights, there are things so wonderful they make me gasp and go weak at the knees.

Whatever your definition of glamour, life would be sadly lacking without it. Like a face that never smiled.

Niggling doubts

However much we try to hide them, I think the most basic human emotions are insecurity and vulner-ability. That's how we feel when we come out of the womb, that's how we feel when we're old and fragile, and that's how we feel in between, despite the veneer of confidence we have to assume for the sake of our jobs, our families, our 101 responsibilities.

How often does some apparently poised, decisive, suave public figure confess that actually they don't feel that poised inside, they often feel nervous and stupid, or they feel like an undeserving impostor?

Deep down, however successful and happy people seem to be, I think there are always niggling doubts and fears - that our supposedly solid lives aren't as solid as they look, that our good fortune might not last, that an unlucky turn of events could unravel it all.

Deep down we crave reassurance, comforting words, signs that everything will continue, signs that we're truly loved and cherished, signs that the intricate scaffolding of our lives isn't about to collapse.

Of course we have to act confident to get things done, to keep other people's respect, to get what we want in life. But this air of confidence is something we learn, a cultivated show of strength that hides the vulnerability we don't want to display.

And we don't want to display it in case it's abused; in case we're seen as weak and submissive and ready to bow to someone else's will. So it's only sensible to keep it out of sight. But the vulnerability's still there, even if you can't see it. It doesn't magically disappear as we grow up. It hovers inside us like a chilly breeze, curtailing the sunshine.

Beware the seamless show of confidence. It might just be a confidence trick.

Under the influence

People are fond of saying "you must put the past behind you", but it's not as easy as you think. You can push away the past as much as you like, but it has a nasty habit of coming back to bite you.

I have a natural tendency to forget about experiences that were unpleasant, or at least to remember the experience but forget the negative emotions that went with it. If someone suggests I might have been very upset, I reflect for a second or two and think maybe I was. Maybe.

All those feelings of embarrassment or rage or shame or betrayal that stick in other people's minds evaporate from my own mind very quickly, as if they never occurred in the first place. It's a sort of mental de-cluttering mechanism that clears away stuff that's no use to me.

But whatever I remember or don't remember, those experiences are still a part of me and still affect me in all sorts of ways. For example, things people have said and done to undermine my confidence, perhaps way back in my childhood, can still dent my confidence even now.

However much I talk myself up and tell myself I'm an intelligent, experienced person who should be effortlessly confident in most situations, still there's this undercurrent of past experience that can lead to nagging self-doubt.

Saying you must put the past behind you is a bit like saying you must forget your gender. It's so embedded in your mind that it continues to have repercussions whether you like it or not.

The best thing you can do is stop the past being too much of a nuisance, like an over-energetic dog that keeps leaping all over you. If you can get it to lie quietly in a corner, not bothering you, you're doing well.

Risk assessment

My attitude to risk is very contradictory. Some highly risky things don't bother me at all. Others bother me a lot, probably more than they ought to.

I have no qualms about flying, even right across the world. I know there's always a risk of crashes, of fires, of hijacks. But statistically it's the safest form of travel and I have every confidence my next flight will be disaster-free.

I'm okay with driving too. I know that's a very dangerous form of travel, and that serious, possibly fatal, accidents occur all the time. But I'm confident that as long as I'm always alert and attentive, catastrophe is unlikely.

On the other hand, I'm very nervous about hospitals and operations. I'm aware that most operations are routine and successful, but I'm rather too aware of the small percentage that go horribly wrong and leave you in a worse state than before - or even dead. I mean, just suppose I'm one of that small percentage?

I'm also wary of financial risk. I keep my money in the bank and that's it. I'm suspicious of investments and fancy money-making schemes that may go suddenly pear-shaped, swallow up all my money and leave me penniless.

I can be very timid about making big changes in my life, be it a new job, a new home, even a new political allegiance. It might seem like a positive move, it might enhance my life, but what are the unforeseen consequences? Could I be making a reckless mistake, one I live to regret?

Oddly enough though, I was quite sure that moving from London to Belfast was the right thing to do, even though I had no job to go to, I had no relatives living there, and the peace process was only in its early stages. I somehow had confidence it would all work out, and it did.

Why am I quite nonchalant about some risks and over-anxious about others? Why am I so inconsistent? The vagaries of the human mind are a constant puzzle.

Pretentious, moi?

Am I pretent-ious? Do I try to impress people with all sorts of phoney tricks and gambits? Do I think the real me is too dull and too ordinary to interest people?

Sometimes I decide, yes, I'm totally pretentious, I'm trying to wow everyone with my superior education or my clever arguments or my worldliness or my political right-on-ness. I want them to think I'm a bit special, a bit remarkable, someone they'll remember when they've forgotten a hundred other people.

Then I think, no, that's utter crap, I'm not the slightest bit pretentious, I know my education was mediocre and most of my clever arguments are bullshit and I'm about as worldly as a dormouse and politically right-on as the weather forecast.

I know perfectly well I'm probably as dull and ordinary as the next person and there's no point in pretending otherwise. I might think I'm special but that's just my inflated opinion of all the personal clichés and platitudes that I fondle and caress in the privacy of my own ego.

At the end of the day, pretending to be more sophisticated than I am isn't going to fool anyone. People aren't that stupid, they can tell the difference between meaningless bollocks and emotional and psychological truth. They want to see the real me, however dull and ordinary and messy, they don't want some showy performance.

So no, I don't think I'm pretentious, but I may just want to think that, I may just want to convince myself I'm a regular guy with no airs and graces. Other people may be laughing like drains, ready to point out all my pompous pronouncements and vacuous statements and puncture my balloon of self-satisfaction.

Please do. Honest opinions are always welcome. You're not likely to dent my ego, which is about the size of a garden pea and has probably already slipped down the back of the sofa. Go on, tell me the truth. Pretentious, moi?

Flight into oblivion

I'm fascinated by the disapp-earance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. Five days on, not a single trace of the plane has been found, despite a massive search operation. What the hell happened to it?

Theories proliferate by the hour. Was it a terrorist attack? Did the pilot commit suicide? Did a structural fault cause the plane to decompress and break up? Was the co-pilot distracted by female passengers he invited into the cockpit? Was the plane sabotaged? Was it hijacked? Did one of the pilots have a mental breakdown? Was there a total electrical failure? Right now it's anyone's guess.

And I think of the 239 passengers and crew, assuming they were on a routine flight to Beijing, maybe looking forward to a holiday, or visiting families, or just getting back home. Relaxing, joking, watching movies, snoozing. Then all of a sudden, apparently with no warning whatever, thrown into oblivion.

Distraught relatives and friends clustered at the two airports, waiting frantically for news, hoping for a miracle but facing up to the grim reality. Wishing their loved ones had been on any flight except that one. Their lives abruptly shattered, all their expectations for the future thrown into disarray.

So what the hell went wrong? As one aviation expert said, "It's pretty baffling. Whatever happened on that flight deck, the pilots did not do what pilots do. They aviate, they navigate and they communicate. If something happens at altitude, the first thing they want to do is squawk emergency."

And the search for the remains of flight MH370 continues.

Pic: the long, long wait for news

Callous neglect

A new survey says the average British household owns 138 books, but less than half of them have been read. The others are poor lonely things that have been callously neglected.

Our own bookshelves have a lot more than 138 books - more like a thousand, I would say. But the unread portion is probably about right - something like half. So why are they unread, I hear you asking?

1) We know they're excellent books and we fully intend to read them when the time is ripe. When we're both retired maybe.
2) We read a few pages of the book, couldn't really get into it, but kept it in case we were more attuned at some later date.
3) We didn't know we even had the book. We must have bought it some time. Or maybe somebody gave it to us. We must read it.

One journalist* suggested "It would be a slightly scary household where every single book had been read." Indeed it would. It would suggest powers of concentration, determination and enthusiasm bordering on the miraculous.

It would be almost as scary if none of the books had been read, and the whole collection was merely an attempt to impress any well-read visitors. It would be awkward though if the visitor suddenly asked you what you thought of Jonathan Franzen's views on family dynamics.

The same journalist guessed that the volumes in the lavatory were most likely to be read, though probably not if you were busy vomiting at the time.

But there's something very cosy and reassuring about bookshelves, whether the books are read or unread. The mere fact that many of the books were written decades or even centuries ago gives a sense of continuity and permanence that soothes all those hovering anxieties.

That is, until one of your oldest paperbacks simply disintegrates as you're lovingly dusting it, and turns into a useless heap of confetti.

* Ben Milne of the BBC

Muck averse

I'm not good with muck. Filth. Unpleasant substances in general. I don't want to get anywhere near them if I can help it.

I'm too fastidious. A typical white-collar worker, bourgeois neat-freak, afraid of disturbing the pristine features of my sanitised existence.

The thought of working on a farm, say, sloshing through mud and manure and bog every day, fills me with horror. Likewise working on a hospital ward, mopping up all the messy excretions of the human body. Or cleaning out sewers or dealing with oil spills.

Mucky domestic chores are okay. That's muck on a manageable scale, something I can handle without too much cringing. But serious, everywhere-you-look levels of muck - I avoid it at all costs.

Friends and loved ones are exempt of course. Whether it's hangover vomit or the effects of serious illness, dealing with mess goes without saying, be it psychological, emotional or physical.

Country dwellers must laugh at dainty townies like myself, as they routinely splatter themselves with muck and slime and think nothing of it. The sight of besuited government ministers delicately wading through the floods in their brand-new wellies must have amused them greatly.

At boarding school I played rugby and by the end of a game I was often plastered with mud from head to toe. Which wasn't too bad as I looked forward to a hot shower and leaving all my filthy clothes with the laundry service (no, we didn't even wash our own clothes - spoilt brats or what?). But if I could find a good excuse not to play, I jumped at it.

So - no muck please, I'm far too squeamish.

Shocked

When I was younger, I used to say that nothing shocked me any more, that I'd seen and read so many horrifying things that nothing had the same impact as it used to.

But somewhere along the line something changed and now I find that an increasing number of things shock me profoundly. I don't know if it's because people's behaviour is genuinely becoming more extreme and outrageous, or because I've become more sensitive, or because I recoil from the sheer brutality and heartlessness of what's going on. But whatever it is, these are just some of the things that shock me:

1) Abusive social media campaigns. Like the one directed at Northern Ireland MLA* Anna Lo recently, thick with racism and sexism.

2) Extreme drunkenness in public, often requiring emergency hospital treatment and sometimes fatal.

3) Systematic bullying in workplaces, causing widespread stress and sickness.

4) Routine lying by politicians, leading to general disillusion with politics.

5) Withdrawal of welfare benefits to the poor and disabled, causing severe distress and hardship.

6) Mass shootings at schools, traumatising pupils and their families for years afterwards.

7) Female genital mutilation, on a huge scale in numerous countries.

8) Wholesale rape by soldiers as a military tactic and a display of power.

I'm getting used to being shocked. But I'm not getting used to the things I'm shocked by. And there seem to be more and more of them.

*MLA: Member of the Legislative Assembly. Our equivalent of an MP

Pink peeve

Mr Pinkie (for it is he) is a little exasp-erated that he's seen as some sort of spokesbear for pink bears in general.*

"All pink bears are different. I'm not speaking for anyone but myself" he says. "Just because I'm a celebrity hairdresser doesn't mean every pink bear wants to fiddle with people's hair. Other pink bears may find the whole idea repulsive. Some pink bears may prefer to do nothing more than sprawl on the sofa all day munching sweet-potato brownies.

"But every goddam journalist asks me these dumb-ass questions like, So what do pink bears think about cycling helmets? What do pink bears think about vitamin supplements? I mean, how the hell do I know what other pink bears think? Am I supposed to be some kind of mind-reader? Is there supposed to be some mysterious essence of pink bear I'm somehow secreting about my person? What total arseholes they are.

"I'm Mr Pinkie and that's my sole area of expertise,okay? Just do me a favour and stop seeing me as the Voice of Pinkness.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm way behind with Julie's highlights. And if you want a haircut, you'll have to wait six months like everyone else. I don't care how many banknotes you wave at me, I shall ignore them. Just get out of my hair."

* or even for soft, pink, fluffiness

More about Mr Pinkie here