What a stupid woman

Janet Street-Porter on this week's Question Time said she was turned off by the prime ministerial debates on TV. Because all three candidates were men, she said, she found it all irrelevant and couldn't relate to it. "Hello", she added, "more than half the electorate are women!"

What a stupid attitude! It was noticeable that her remarks gained no sympathy at all from the studio audience of both sexes, who just looked bemused.

It causes me to wonder once again why it is that so many (not all) women in public life so often come across as just irredeemably silly. One thinks also of Anne Widdecombe, Melanie Phillips, Caroline Flint, Margaret Hodge, Tessa Jowell, Germaine Greer, Hazel Blears, Jan Moir and several others.

Of course, there are also quite a few sensible women. And there are some silly men (John Redwood, Peter Hitchens, Sir Stuart Bell, George Galloway, Christopher Booker), but proportionately a lot fewer. I'm not talking merely about people whose opinions I disagree with -- that would be a very much longer list -- but about those who lack common sense and say things that are simply idiotic.

Sloppy language

I wish people would stop saying "in terms of" when they just mean "as regards" or "concerning".

And I wish people would stop using the word "incredibly" as a mere intensifier. David Cameron is now doing it in almost every other sentence.

You've NO messages

How I love it when I dial 1571 and the bimbo at the other end says "WELCOME to BT Answer. You've NO messages." Thank goodness for that, I say.

Let them eat cake

I popped into Waitrose yesterday to get a few odds and sods, not including booze as we had enough of that for now.

Looking at my half-full trolley, I guessed I had probably spent about 40 quid, or 50 at the outside.

Here is the bill: £92.95. I thought the lady at the checkout must have made a mistake, but no, it all adds up.

Happily, the boyf and I are on reasonably good pensions. How the poor are supposed to manage, I have no idea.

Things I dearly wish we didn't have

cardigans
motorcars
fast "food"
the fashion industry
guns and bombs
celebrities
aeroplanes
long baggy shorts
rap "music"
endless "lifestyle" bollocks in every newspaper
"reality" tv
racism
designer brands
the abuse industry (prop. Enid Rancid)
fundamentalism
spandex
neoconservatism
shoes worn with no socks
tuneless musicals, mostly by the talentless A. Lloyd Webber
people shaving all their hair off
tongue piercing

Irritating men

To fend off any accusations of mysogyny as a result of my post Irritating women, I list below some extremely irritating men:

1. Jeremy Clarkson.
2. John Humphrys.
3. Richard Littlejohn.
4. That fat populist slob on talk radio whose name escapes me. (Update: John Gaunt)
5. Chris Moyles.
6. Norman Tebbit.
7. Kelvin Mackenzie.
8. Piers Morgan.
9. Peter Mandelson.
10. Charles Moore.
11. Christopher Booker.
12. John Redwood.
13. Dennis Skinner.
14. Alan Titchmarsh.
15. Andrew Gilligan.

Irritating women

Iain Dale says on Twitter: "Mariella Frostrup is perhaps the most irritating woman on the planet".

Nonsense! Without a doubt, the top 15 most irritating women on the planet are, in descending order:

1. Esther Rantzen.
2. Margaret Thatcher.
3. Anne Coulter.
4. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.
5. Melanie Phillips.
6. Caroline Flint.
7. Hazel Blears.
8. Janet Street-Porter.
9. Harriet Harman.
10. Patricia Hewitt.
11. Hillary Clinton.
12. Germaine Greer.
13. Tessa Jowell.
14. Anne Robinson.
15. Anne Widdecombe.

Things I am sick of hearing/reading about

(1) House prices. House prices are whatever they are. I propose to live in this house until I drop dead, so I don't want to know about any other houses.

(2) The McCanns. A tragedy for them, but why is it of any interest to anyone else?

(3) So-called "celebrities", most of whom I have never heard of. TheLondonPaper is a particularly egregious offender here, but even the proper press seems to be obsessed.

(3) Motorcars. Completely unnecessary if you live in a city; indeed, a positive liability. I have enjoyed not having a car for 28 years now.

(4) Cookery. Food is nice, but does every other TV programme have to be about it? Do any real people actually do all this cooking?

(5) Crime. About 70% of cinema and TV fiction seems to be about criminals and detectives. This gives a wildly false impression of life, as also does the gutter press every time it makes a big splash about actual crimes. People end up thinking crime is much worse than it is.