I just have a real problem with people who seek to portray fatness or thinness as moral concepts.

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.

It shouldn't come as any surprise that those who choose acting as a profession are phonies who live in a fantasy world. What is surprising is how many of them are blissfully unaware of it.

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

When I moved to Brighton from London in 1995, I was struck by what I thought of as its townliness. A town, it seemed to me, was that perfect place to live, neither city nor country, both of which like to think they are light years apart but actually have a great deal in common.

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

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.