There is an inherent tolerance and kindness in the state school teenagers I know.

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

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

With a diplomat father, for whom foreign postings were a fact of life, my siblings and I were expected to attend boarding schools in Britain.

There is an inherent tolerance and kindness in the state school teenagers I know.

If, however, you have richer pursuits in mind and know that no woman should be judged by how she looks - that everything she brings to the party is more important than the size of her arse - then refuse to be sucked into the never ending whirligig of self-doubting, self-hating madness that is stop-start dieting and crazy new exercise regimes.

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