Has equality gone too far?

And right now she’s probably revolving in her grave.

In a desperate last stand against the Swinging Sixties and all that it represented, my grammar school once tried to introduce lessons in something called “social development”.

Basically, it was a poor girls’ feeble imitation of finishing school.

It encouraged such vital skills as speaking in a low voice, sitting with one’s legs neatly together, never going out without gloves and letting the man choose your restaurant meal for you, while you fluttered your eyelashes and waited demurely.

It was, of course, doomed to disappointment as our sixth form ended up less than finished and more like St Trinian’s, waiting to rampage onto an unsuspecting world. We wanted equality, our own lives and the right to choose our own dinners and pay for them too. And when we campaigned triumphantly against pubs that refused to serve women drinks in pints – we were doomed to halves in pretty shaped glasses – or even to serve women at all, we didn’t know where it would lead.

Well, we know where’s led to – halfnaked girls, drunk as skunks, staggering round city centre streets.

None of them wearing gloves, or much else really.

There’s a huge rise in women binge-drinking, a rise in hospital admissions, unwanted pregnancies and girls involved in fights and attacks.

“Ladettes! Thugettes!” scream the headlines, deploring the fact that young women no longer behave like young ladies. And yes, it’s depressing.

And no, it’s not what we wanted. But then we never wanted the rise in work and stress-related illnesses that go with demanding careers.

And women are getting those too.

There is always a price to pay.

Progress never goes in straight lines. There are always little backward, sideways waves and ripples.

Drunken behaviour has soared among women, but so it has by the men. It is not a problem of gender, although women are still nowhere near as drunk or as violent as men. It’s a problem of a generation, and no doubt there will eventually be another backlash and another change in behaviour.

In the meantime, there’s not much point in calling on young women to behave like ladies, until we also call on the drunken lads to behave like gentlemen. Then we might get somewhere.

With or without gloves.

Other people's customs

WASN’T it wonderful to see the British tourists arriving in a Greek court looking spectacularly foolish with their hangovers and still wearing the remains of their nuns’ outfits and women’s lingerie? They had been charged with rowdy behaviour, drunkenness and disrespect. And although all charges were dropped, those pictures will haunt them forever.

Good. It’s a great reminder that sometimes you just have to respect other people’s ideas, conventions and customs. It’s called good manners.

It’s a pity it has to taken Greek police to remind us.

Wouldn't you be tempted?

WELL, yes, I’d like to take the moral high ground here and say, yes, of course, if I found a mysterious £4m suddenly appearing in my bank account, I would dutifully tell the bank and hand it all back.

A New Zealand couple didn’t.

Young and broke, they asked for a modest overdraft and got the jackpot instead. So they took the money and ran. And who can blame them? They were last heard of heading for China (China?) for the holiday of a lifetime.

And, frankly, I find it hard not to cheer. When you think of what the banks have been getting away with for years, it’s great to think someone’s having some fun at their expense.

And if they get homesick and spend only half a million or so pounds, they can come back, pay what they’ve got left and offer to repay the rest at a tenner a week.

If nothing else, they will have had a terrific adventure and be no worse off than they were before. Wouldn’t you be tempted?

Thinking small

PENSIONS are such rubbish that we are all going to have to work until we’re 70. Graduates are being encouraged to take a job, any job, however over-qualified they are.

The numbers of young people out of work has soared. Companies are cutting jobs to the bone. There are just not enough jobs to go round and the Government is desperately looking at huge job creation schemes.

Yet, if every small firm was encouraged and helped to take on just one extra employee, or every charity shop was given money to pay a teenager, it would end up costing less then keeping people on benefits while encouraging small enterprises, benefiting the community and giving youngsters transferable skills.

It’s great to think big. Sometimes it’s more effective to think small.

Mariah Carey

MARIAH Carey arrived in Cannes accompanied by 15 staff. As well as the usual – hairdresser, stylist, masseuse, dietician, chauffeur etc – she also has some more esoteric employees.

One is employed to follow her with wet wipes so she can clean her hands the moment she’s touched anything.

Another follows her with tepid water and a straw, so she can always have a drink. The job of yet another is, apparently, to monitor her cleavage.

Now there’s one for What’s My Line... But it makes you think once you had gone through the usual entourage, what odd jobs would be left for someone to do to ease those painful irritations of everyday life.

Handbag sorter would be good, I thought. You know, someone who would always fish out your credit card, find your hanky, lipstick, diary, pen, peppermint or loose change for the parking meter. That would solve some of life’s minor hassles.

Still, I suppose if you’re as rich as Mariah Carey, you don’t have those hassles in the first place.

Funny, snappy and devoted

IT’S sad to learn that the Queen is apparently giving up on keeping corgis. When I was a child my family always had corgis – Pembrokeshire corgis, of course.

They were snappy, funny and devoted.

When my eight-month-old nephew rolled off a picnic rug, one of our corgis carefully grabbed his bulky nappy in her teeth and dragged him safely back onto the rug, where she knew he belonged. Then growled at anyone who tried to praise her. Typical.

Corgis were originally cow dogs and given the chance, ours would have a field full of cows rounded up and trembling in one tiny corner in seconds. The trouble was, they also did the same to anyone in uniform – meter readers, soldiers, postmen, policemen. So, if the corgis are going, I bet all the footmen and guardsmen are rejoicing.

Grannies rule...

FIRST of all it was Joanna Lumley, 62, leaping into action on behalf of the Ghurkas. Then Gloria Hunniford, 69, was campaigning on behalf of grandparents and now Esther Rantzen, 68, is threatening to stand as an MP in protest at the expenses scandal. Fantastic. It’s just like when your gran came storming out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her pinnie, to sort out the big kids who were bullying you. You just know everything’s going to be all right.

In public life, ladies of a certain age used to be easy to ignore. Not any more. Those with a guilty conscience just need remember their grandmothers – and be afraid, be very afraid...