When did women whose looks are not their living start conducting themselves like the simpering inmates of an Ottoman empire seraglio?

I'll declare my own interest right here at the start and admit that, like the vast majority of people, I find youthful looks appealing.

Blakes Hotel in South Kensington was a particular favourite of mine during what I affectionately think of as my Restless Years.

Monarchists frequently declare that without the royal family, Britain would be 'nothing.' What a woeful lack of love for one's country such statements express.

Sex, on the whole, was meant to be short, nasty and brutish. If what you want is cuddling, you should buy a puppy.

These women whose antics we smirk at good-naturedly in the pap-traps put themselves out there at least partly on their beauty; they are in showbiz, and showing what they've got is part of their business as much as it is for male show-ponies from the Chippendales to George Clooney.

As with most liberal sexual ideas, what makes the world a better place for men invariably makes it a duller and more dangerous place for women.