Big women do themselves a disservice when they attempt to become the Righteous Fat (the Righteous Thin are bad enough, all that running around and sweating, somehow believing it means anything).

I have experienced jealousy, possessiveness, verbal abuse and violence from men, but I have also experienced jealousy, possessiveness, verbal abuse and violence from women, usually when I failed to respond to their advances.

There's something brave and touching about game girls of all ages keeping themselves smart in hard times - one thinks of those wonderful women during World War II drawing stocking seams in eyebrow pencil up the back of legs stained with gravy browning because nylons were so hard to get hold of.

Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, or just completely, the correct response to death's perfect punctuation mark is a smile.

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.

Make no mistake, most women are well aware that they've never had it so good; when they enter a spa or salon, it is purely a hair/nails thing, a prelude to an evening of guilt-free fun.

It may be a cliché, but it's true - the build-up to Christmas is so much more pleasurable than the actual day itself.