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

Amsterdam has more than 150 canals and 1,250 bridges, but it never seems crowded, nor bent and bitter from fleecing the tourist.

It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it's not, it's a visa, and it runs out fast.

What sort of sap doesn't know by now that picture-perfect beauty is all done with smoke and mirrors anyway?

Families, generally, suck. And I say that as someone who, like my husband, had parents who proved the proverbial exception to the rule.

The freedom that women were supposed to have found in the Sixties largely boiled down to easy contraception and abortion; things to make life easier for men, in fact.

Here in Barcelona, it's the architects who built the buildings that made the city iconic who are the objects of admiration - not a bunch of half-witted monarchs.

The latest twist on the pampering concept is spa parties, where a group of friends take over an entire spa.

Gluttony and idleness are two of life's great joys, but they are not honourable.

My second husband believed I had such a fickle attitude to friendship that each Friday he would update the list of my 'Top Ten' friends in the manner of a Top Of The Pops chart countdown.

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.

When you have discovered your significance, your life will now begin to move towards making a difference.

Play the game of life, without any fear.

Religion is the way we honour our ancestors' errors.

Let me not forget the use of my own hands, that of a craftsman with eyes... that reflect the technology around me.

The race that does not value trained intelligence is doomed.

Wear perfume wherever you want to be kissed!

One day we wake up and we are broken. We taste it in our morning kiss. Our mirror tells us the same stories in separate hours: things will never be the same.

Lucky is where skill meets persistence.

It's time to lie down and be counted.

But beauty vanishes; beauty passes; However rare rare it be; And when I crumble, who will remember This lady of the West Country?