Despotism isn't nearly as bad as it's cracked up to be.

If I'm hunting down gifts, I like to buy locally.

I'm the co-chair of the PTA at my kids' school, Ashmount Primary, in north Islington, London.

Society prizes a girl for being thin more than anything else she might bring to the table.

I dont understand boys - just ask my husband.

My parents both had Oxford degrees, they read important books, spoke foreign languages, drank real coffee and went to museums for pleasure. People like that don't have fat kids: they were cut out to be winners and winners don't have children who are overweight.

As I was growing up, it was made clear that the fat me wasn't welcome, that a thin person was expected and awaited, and impatiently so.