In Barcelona, things seem so different. For example, I know that it's traditionally the least Spanish city, but you'd never know they had a monarchy, coming here as a tourist - as opposed to the UK, where the Queen is probably the best-known animal, vegetable and/or mineral going when it comes to overseas visitors.

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

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.

Knowing that the 'Sex and the City' chicks now rack up almost two centuries between them, why do some of us fuss and hiss about a bit of retouching on their forthcoming film poster?

Mind you, I've always been a very off-message type of fat broad; one who gladly admits she reached the size she is now solely through lack of discipline and love of pleasure, and who rather despises people (except those with proven medical conditions) who pretend that it is generally otherwise.

In my third husband I had discovered a blissfully laid-back type who thought it nothing less than hilarious when I misread the map on the way to Wales, so it took us an extra three hours, or when I was sick in a plastic carrier bag during much of the drive back from Devon - a bag that turned out to have a hole in it.

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.