As a parent, you figure you will finish with the self-sacrifice once they achieve a certain age. It used to be when they reached 18. Then it was 25 and now I've stopped counting the birthdays. My son Alex is...
Commissioned by the Mail on Sunday July 2nd 1998 A year ago we had supermodel Elle McPherson bringing her five and a half month bump to the opening of her trendy Fashion Café clad in a skin-tight black gown. Not wearing a yurt, you notice, but...
The Independent – 25th September 1998 In our age of hyper PC awareness we rarely think beyond the Offsted inspections of the best nursery Hove, but things weren't always this way. In fact, last November, a young English boy protested to the highest court in the...
Published in The Guardian June 15th 1999 Is fining boys £5 a week when they impregnate a teenage girl going to become this country's most effective new contraceptive or not? Setting the Child Support Agency on older males has already proved somewhat of a mixed blessing. Now the...
Published by You Magazine, the Mail on Sunday June 13th 2000 MEN DIFFER When William Hague flew off on his recent honeymoon, there was one unspoken question. Would the leader of the Tories require hours of love on a bed of crushed violets? Every new bride is...
The New Statesman - 12th May 2003 I am a marriage counsellor who has never married. If this seems slightly redolent of a Catholic priest giving advice on G-spot technique, bear with me. I have also been "happily unwed" to the same woman for 27 years. We have...
Reply to Virginia Ironside: Published in The Times November 22nd 2003 I would concede that Virginia Ironside is an articulate critic of therapy who has never been helped by those she has consulted. Perhaps she could not be. But who ever suggested therapy was a branch of...
Published in The Independent 7th February 2005 I think that some element of restraint and discipline is a virtue. As the saying goes: “To feast you must fast and to fast, you must feast”. However, with Ramadan and Lent I think Muslims and Christians are having too much...
Published in The Times February 12th 2005 This year my partner and I will celebrate 30 years of living in sin. In fact we’ve been happily unmarried for so long that I am thinking of applying for heritage status with the Office of National Statistics. According to official figures...
Published in The Times 31st December 2005 1. According to Naomi Campbell, supermodels do not get out of bed for less than £10,000. What’s the minimum daily wage you’d accept to work as a hospital cleaner? [Tick one] a) £0-£50 a day b) £51-£1,000 a day c) £10,001-£100,000 a day 2. A famous...