Julie Burchill

One Christmas build-up tradition, however, has totally bypassed me - that of going up to town and 'doing a show.'

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

No one knows 'men' as such, any more than anyone knows 'women, ' and if they do generalise they're probably trying to hide their own ignorance. You might know one 'man, ' yes, or even lots of individual 'men'.

Make no mistake, most women are well aware that they've never had it so good when they enter a spa or salon, it is purely a hair/nails thing, a prelude to an evening of guilt-free fun.

'Stress' was the catch-all every pamper-pedlar I spoke to used to explain why healthy women feel the need to be regularly patted, petted and preened into a state of babyish beatification.

Most women are wise to the fact that lots of men love a cat-fight, and thus go out of their way not to give them one.

As a kid, I grew to define what I didn't want my life to be like by sitting behind moaning women on the bus, hearing them bang on about their aches and pains, both real and imagined.

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

I don't really care what people tell children - when you believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, one more fib won't hurt. But I am infuriated by the growing notion, posited in some touchy-feely quarters, that all women are, or can be, beautiful.

Can I just say here how much I hate the word 'pamper'? While pretending to celebrate and indulge women, it actually implies that their bodies are so revolting that even their 'me time' must be dedicated to turning them into living dolls if potential suitors are to be prevented from running screaming in horror.

Lots of women love to accuse men of being immature when the fellow in question displays a reluctance to 'commit.'

Big women do themselves a disservice when they attempt to become the Righteous Fat (the Righteous Thin are bad enough, all that running around and sweating, somehow believing it means anything).

Women, more often than not, do things which aren't remotely relaxing but are all about preening, which is just another sort of work.

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.

Show me a frigid women and, nine times out of ten, I'll show you a little man.

It's received wisdom that the English are uniquely child-unfriendly.

There's something brave and touching about game girls of all ages keeping themselves smart in hard times - one thinks of those wonderful women during World War II drawing stocking seams in eyebrow pencil up the back of legs stained with gravy browning because nylons were so hard to get hold of.

As I get older I think, contrary to modern assumption but in line with the old Lerner and Lowe song, that it would actually benefit both them and society if - to quote Professor Higgins - a woman could be more like a man.

It's very hard to imagine the phrase 'consumer society' used so cheerfully, and interpreted so enthusiastically, in England.

No matter how old and glorious the models, sad indeed is the woman who sees fashion as a means of self-expression rather than an agent of social control.