Why the wives can never win

But if men are baffled, there are some feminists who are in an even bigger muddle.

Woman's Hour presenter Jenni Murray (I think) once said that being a wife is just legalised prostitution. Germaine Greer fanned the embers of that debate again last week by claiming that Cherie Blair behaves like Tony Blair's concubine.

Concubine? Really?

Well, for a start, my dictionary describes a concubine as "a kept mistress", so, as Cherie Booth QC earns about twice as much as her husband, you could ask who is keeping whom. Concubine also implies a submissiveness which, although I don't know Cherie Blair, I find a little unlikely...

But being the wife of public figure is notoriously tricky and getting trickier. Once upon a time, wives of famous men were expected to do little more than wear posh hats, accept bouquets and maybe do a little light charity work. The last thing they were expected to do was to be people in their own right.

Now we expect them to be everything - dutiful wives, independent career women, Mother Teresa and a fashion plate.

Hillary Clinton took a long time to get it right. American women didn't like the way she refused at first to take Bill's name or bake cookies. Then when the Lewinsky scandal broke, she suddenly found herself awash on a wave of sympathy in the role of Wronged Wife. It's always so much easier to feel sorry for people than to admire them.

The irony would be if - and it's possible - Hillary became the US's first female president. What would Bill find to do then? Not bake cookies that's for sure.

The fact that you just can't win is proved by new president's wife, Laura Bush. She's a much more traditional, home and family type wife, but American commentators, by now eventually accustomed to Hillary, are apparently not entirely happy with that any more either. What's a wife to do?

Cherie Blair has a very fine line to tread and she's done well dividing her life between Cherie Blair - a largely non-speaking role of wife, mother and wearer of posh hats - and Cherie Booth QC, a very different creature.

Her version of the cookie-baking fiasco was to "edit" an edition of a woman's magazine. Oh yeah, we could just imagine her coming home from a hard day at court and settling down to knitting patterns and new ways with leftovers. And there was also the cringe-making way she would gawp in open adoration at her husband. Wonderful for Tony, no doubt, but seriously embarrassing for the rest of us.

And then there was all that silly over-reaction about Leo, not to mention the Holy Family Christmas card. But, by and large, she has got it splendidly right - kept her career going, put the family first and been supportive of her husband. Yes, she's missed out on some of her own life and work to be there for him. There must be times - when she has to make polite chit-chat to foreign wives - when she must be bored out of her skull, but she does it.

It's not being a concubine, Dr Greer, it's called being a wife.

And when Tony's stopped being Prime Minister, and the children are mostly grown, it will be Cherie's turn again and he can make Leo's tea while writing his memoirs.

In general, the wives of famous men have not deliberately pushed themselves into the spotlight but have found themselves there by love, loyalty and accident. The least we can do is to remember that.

And as for the famous wives themselves, all they have to remember is that A Woman's Place is in the Wrong - especially where Germaine Greer is concerned.

A WOMAN of 56 who already has a grown up family is, thanks to IVF, pregnant with twins. Twins at 56 is bad enough, but what would really terrify me is the thought of having to cope with teenagers when I'm 70.

A BUSINESSMAN has been given the right to sue his former lover because the son she said was his, wasn't. He brought the lad up for eight years and now wants back all the money he spent on him. It is, as one of the lawyers in the case said "distasteful and morally offensive".

Worse than that, it could only be the start of things... the son could then sue for the emotional distress of the case... the mother could sue for the cost of providing companionship during their years together.. and so the bandwagon could roll merrily on. In a few years time we won't provide our newborns with god parents - but make sure that before they've got their first teeth they've also got their own lawyer.

Unfair, I know, but all the time I was watching George W. Bush making his inauguration speech, I couldn't help thinking that he'd practised it over and over again with his mum. To the Americans he's their new president, to his father he's his political heir. But to the formidable Barbara Bush, he's probably still the dyslexic little boy who struggled with reading

I bet she's never been that nervous since he got his first part in the kindergarten concert.

ELIZABETH Taylor: made a complete pig's ear of the Golden Globe award presentations - probably the weight of her eye make-up was all too much for her We all know what you have to do at these presentations - read the list, open the envelope, announce the winner. It's not exactly rocket science or takes three years at RADA to train for.

But what was intriguing was that these famous actors have an autocue to help them through this very complicated task. It even flashes "envelope" to tell them when to open the thing.

On a film set it can take a whole day to film two minutes of screen time. Now we understand why.

L ET'S get this clear - the Internet was not responsible for what happened to the American twins. They were brought and sold and sold again to the highest bidders - who seem more and more unsuitable parents with every passing day. This is the aspect of it that stinks.

The Internet just made it easier. The same way telephones make it easier for criminals. The Internet is just a tool - and it's the sick people behind it we should be worried about.