What I find most upsetting about this new all-consuming beauty culture is that the obsession with good looks, and how you can supposedly attain them, is almost entirely female-driven.

I know that Brighton is famously a mixture of the seedy and the elegant, but in the summer of 2001 seediness swamped elegance hands down.

And call me a pig, but isn't it brilliantly refreshing how early the Dutch eat dinner? When they're still laying out the cutlery in achingly hip Barcelona, they're hanging the Closed sign on the restaurant doors of old Amsterdam.

Fame is no sanctuary from the passing of youth... suicide is much easier and more acceptable in Hollywood than growing old gracefully.

Show me a frigid woman and, nine times out of ten, I'll show you a little man.

The terrorist attacks were a tragedy for the people who died or were injured, and for their families and friends. For the rest of us, they were a wake-up call as to what type of lunatics we are dealing with. And sleepwalking our way back into ill-sorted, dewy-eyed people personal politics is the last thing we need to set us up for the fight ahead. Come on you liberals, don't give me the morbid pleasure of saying, 'I told you so' again.

To believe that one, or even three, mates can supply all the things one needs from one's friends is as stupid as believing married couples must do everything together.