Sharon Griffiths writes

But new research has shown that from their very first words, girls are programmed to communicate. More teenage girls have mobile phones too. So as soon as they've said goodbye to the friends they've talked to all day, they can ring them up and talk some more. And when it's too late to talk, they send text messages instead.

Presumably, in the Stone Age days, men had to learn to be quiet when they were out hunting. All you need is a grunt meaning "over there" and another one to say "Let's bash this creature's brains out with a club" and the job was done.

Meanwhile, back in the cave, the women were bringing up the children, discovering ways of growing food, preserving it, cooking with it, dealing with birth and death, illnesses and cures, learning what worked and what didn't - and sharing the information.

Now men mostly talk about football, cars and computer games. And women sort out everything else. But women - despite the talking - also listen better, pay more attention and pick up what's going on between lines.

So a man can spend an evening in a pub and come out knowing only his companion's opinion of the 1998 Cup Final. But a woman will know everything about everyone, who's heading for divorce, who's got money worries, who's fed up with their job/man/life.

This is all useful information to making life easier, keeping up with what's going on, knowing what people are feeling, thinking and worried about, what's important to them.

Just the sort of information that governments wanting to stay in power, should find very useful.

Tony Blair apparently feels he has lost contact with how people feel. William Hague, however, is hitting the spot increasingly often.

Tony Blair's chief PR adviser is man. William Hague's is a woman.

Just a thought, just a thought....

HONOR Blackman still looks stunning at nearly 74. Tina Turner at 60 has only just decided to stop strutting her stuff in five inch stilettos and raunchy little outfits.

For those of us struggling along a decade or so behind such vibrant examples of old age, I'm not sure if this is wonderfully encouraging or absolutely exhausting.

WELL OK, teacher Marjorie Evans - now facing a possible prison sentence for assault - shouldn't have lost her temper and slapped a ten-year-old pupil.

On the other hand, even his own mother calls him "a little monster" and he'd already been cautioned by police for kicking in a door. So we can probably guess that Mrs Evans' actions, while regrettable, are probably all too understandable.

Somewhere in the last 30 years, we have gone from one extreme to another and seem to have lost the plot.

They still caned girls when I was at school. In chemistry and physics, where we had male teachers, we would have to duck flying board rubbers (very hard, very heavy), if we so much as whispered in the back. Imagine the outcry if that happened now.

Now we expect far more patience and restraint from our teachers. Which would be fair enough - if only we expected the same from our children.

It should work both ways.

If we demand that teachers never hit our children, then we should keep our side of the bargain too, and train our children so that they should never drive their teachers to such desperation.

I'm not sure I succeeded there, but at least I tried. Many parents don't even do that much. Until we teach our children to behave themselves, the surprising thing is not that the Mrs Evanses of this world occasionally snap, but that, faced with rude, aggressive and impossible behaviour, many thousand harassed and frustrated teachers manage not to.

GEORGE Best's doctor has pleaded with barmen not to serve the former footballer with booze after he was apparently found asleep on a park bench after turning to the drink following a row with his wife.

George Best is 54 now.

Yes, it's awfully sad that he's got himself into this sate, but no matter what his doctor says, or the barmen say, or his wife, the only person who can help George Best is himself.

And if a night on the park bench makes him realise that, maybe it was a night well spent.

PRINCE Charles has said he will not be marrying Camilla Parker Bowles.

So it's alright to keep her as his mistress, but not to give her security and recognition after all these years?

If any other man treated his lover like that, we'd call him a philandering rat.

Why should the Prince of Wales be considered differently?

THE really creepy thing about Big Brother TV - the new Channel 4 show where contestants are locked away and their every move filmed, even in the loo - is not the people taking part.

The world is full of daft show offs. But what about the people watching them?

What sort of people watch television in the hope of seeing a stranger having sex or going for a wee? Probably the sort your mother always warned you against, the sort who lurk around the public loos in parks. Still, I suppose, it keeps them occupied in front of the television. And makes the rest of us a little bit safer.

A NEW contraceptive pill for men is said to be 100% reliable.

Ah yes, but would you trust it? The pill might be reliable - but what about the men?