WHAT are we doing to our daughters? The pressures on teenage girls are immense and growing all the time, especially, ironically, among the brightest and the best.

Once upon a time, young girls aspired to be pretty or clever and it didn't matter which. If you were pretty, you had a jolly time and if you were clever and found the party scene all too much effort, you could retreat happily to your books and nothing more was expected from you. Such a relief. Think Mary in Pride and Prejudice and you get the idea.

No one expected blondes to have brains and intellectuals were almost expected to be frumpy.

Every now and then, Press photographers would find an Oxford student who looked stunning and would take her picture, simply because of her rarity value. But now, according to researchers, teenage girls have to have it all. They are under constant pressure to clock up great strings of GCSEs while looking like superbabes. No wonder TV cameras are keen to be there on results day. MPs have to look like models. Businesswomen have makeovers. Classical musicians are indistinguishable from raunchy popstars. Girls know it's not going to get any easier.

Not surprisingly, levels of eating disorders are soaring. And now Lady Archer has had a facelift.

Once upon a time facelifts were just for film stars whose faces, after all, were their fortune. Then they were just for those with more money than sense. But now we have a Cambridge scientist who, apart from her husband's notoriety, is respected in her own right as a high-flying intellectual. Even she feels that is not enough to justify her existence. Good luck to Lady Archer, I say. It's her face and her money.

But somewhere down the line, the message that you must have brains and beauty is made a little clearer to teenage girls. And the pressure on them increases just a bit more.

CONGRATULATIONS to friends and neighbours in Middleton Tyas.

A few months ago, our village shop and post office closed but, thanks to great efforts from a small group, a new part-time post office will be reborn in the village hall from tomorrow, which will save me a six-mile round trip for a stamp.

It's a great achievement and there's more. They've already organised newspapers and there are plans for a shop.

Meanwhile, in Stillington, near Easingwold, villagers raised £135,000 to rescue their village post office, which proves brilliantly how a community can rally round when needs be.

But for those of you who still have a village post office and shop, here's a tip. Use it while you can. In the long run, it's easier than mounting a rescue package.

AN Urdu-speaking asylum seeker has been elected onto Manchester City Council and needs an interpreter to help him make sense of meetings.

Believe me, you don't need to be a non-English speaker to find that an awful lot of council meetings are incomprehensible goobledygook.

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Published: ??/??/2003