Fat is a social disease, and fat is a feminist issue.

We know that ever woman wants to be thin. Our images of womanhood are almost synonymous with thinness.

Today, 'fat' has become not a description of size but a moral category tainted with criticism and contempt.

Consumer society tantalises us. We then try within ourselves to control the needs that are being constantly stimulated.

I thought of the analyst Winnicott's observation: 'It is a joy to be hidden but disaster not to be found'.

Being able to provoke a different point of view to the standard current ideological or political perspective as played out in conventional newspaper or radio reportage is what a public intellectual does. But it's not merely about being oppositional, because that's too negative.

No one leaves a long-term relationship scot-free or without conflict.