People often yearn back to more innocent times, but more and more, as I get older, I find myself hankering after more jaded days.
— Julie Burchill
It's very hard to imagine the phrase 'consumer society' used so cheerfully, and interpreted so enthusiastically, in England.
I've never been nostalgic, personally or politically - if the past was so great, how come it's history?
The Feminist Me says that a woman's right to her own body should be inviolate at all times, free from fear of peeping paps.
I almost choke on my popcorn when I hear film stars, who walk on red carpets as much as the rest of us do on zebra crossings, criticising youngsters who crave fame.
The truth of the matter is, beauty is a specific thing, rare and fleeting. Some of us have it in our teens, 20s and 30s and then lose it; most of us have it not at all. And that's perfectly okay. But lying to yourself that you have it when you don't seems to me simple-minded at best and psychotic at worst.
There's something brave and touching about game girls of all ages keeping themselves smart in hard times - one thinks of those wonderful women during World War II drawing stocking seams in eyebrow pencil up the back of legs stained with gravy browning because nylons were so hard to get hold of.
As I have got older, I have found myself making friends with the ease and swiftness that other people pick up fuzzballs on their jumpers. And I believe it is probably my lack of longing for 'The One' that makes me so popular.
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.
I am firmly of the opinion that women who make a lot of effort to hang onto their looks in middle age (unless they are beauties, entertainers or prostitutes) are rather sad, as one should surely have something more substantial to recommend one by this time, such as kindness or cleverness.
When a man wants to relax, he will slob out and really relax. Or he will pursue a hobby - anything from building models to watching sport.
Big women do themselves a disservice when they attempt to become the Righteous Fat (the Righteous Thin are bad enough, all that running around and sweating, somehow believing it means anything).
As a child, I wanted only two things - to be left alone to read my library books, and to get away from my provincial hometown and go to London to be a writer. And I always knew that when I got there, I wanted to make loads of money.
From paying off friends' tax bills to rescuing stray dogs and stuffing £20 notes into the hands of homeless people, I can't get rid of my money fast enough.
As with most liberal sexual ideas, what makes the world a better place for men invariably makes it a duller and more dangerous place for women.
Show me a frigid women and, nine times out of ten, I'll show you a little man.
Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, or just completely, the correct response to death's perfect punctuation mark is a smile.
I'll declare my own interest right here at the start and admit that, like the vast majority of people, I find youthful looks appealing.
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.
Shame, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder.
But just think what a boring, bread-and-milk world this would be without the boastful.
It shouldn't come as any surprise that those who choose acting as a profession are phonies who live in a fantasy world. What is surprising is how many of them are blissfully unaware of it.
I don't really care what people tell children - when you believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, one more fib won't hurt. But I am infuriated by the growing notion, posited in some touchy-feely quarters, that all women are, or can be, beautiful.
Can I just say here how much I hate the word 'pamper'? While pretending to celebrate and indulge women, it actually implies that their bodies are so revolting that even their 'me time' must be dedicated to turning them into living dolls if potential suitors are to be prevented from running screaming in horror.
To believe that one, or even three, mates can supply all the things one needs from one's friends is as stupid as believing married couples must do everything together.
Gluttony and idleness are two of life's great joys, but they are not honourable.
Lots of women love to accuse men of being immature when the fellow in question displays a reluctance to 'commit.'
As a militant troublemaker, I once wrote that it was the duty of every woman worthy of the description to upset men at least three times a day, on principle.
I just have a real problem with people who seek to portray fatness or thinness as moral concepts.
A therapist might suggest my generosity is a way of buying affection. But buying people's love has never been an issue for me. Generally speaking, I don't want their love.
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.
A woman who looks like a girl and thinks like a man is the best sort, the most enjoyable to be and the most pleasurable to have and to hold.
It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it's not, it's a visa, and it runs out fast.
I am not one of those fat birds who feels miserable because models are thin. Frankly, I feel more insulted by the idea that unless I see other fat birds in fashion magazines, I will be reduced to a sniveling wreck of a human being.
In Barcelona, things seem so different. For example, I know that it's traditionally the least Spanish city, but you'd never know they had a monarchy, coming here as a tourist - as opposed to the U.K., where the Queen is probably the best-known animal, vegetable and/or mineral going when it comes to overseas visitors.
Covering up, so far as I can see, is often the accompaniment to far more truly shameful behaviour than stripping off.
Fact is, famous people say fame stinks because they love it so - like a secret restaurant or holiday island they don't want the hoi polloi to get their grubby paws on.
What I find most upsetting about this new all-consuming beauty culture is that the obsession with good looks, and how you can supposedly attain them, is almost entirely female-driven.
Grooming oneself with all the crazed compulsion of an under-exercised lab rat in order to hook a rich man and obtain a lush lifestyle makes a certain (albeit seedy) sense.
The latest twist on the pampering concept is spa parties, where a group of friends take over an entire spa.
Having 'best friends' is - at least for me - as outdated and small-minded a concept as the idea of 'Sunday best clothes.'
Mind you, I've always been a very off-message type of fat broad; one who gladly admits she reached the size she is now solely through lack of discipline and love of pleasure, and who rather despises people (except those with proven medical conditions) who pretend that it is generally otherwise.
Women, more often than not, do things which aren't remotely relaxing but are all about preening, which is just another sort of work.
There are exciting, intelligent, fat people - and exciting, intelligent, thin people.
People - and I include myself - get fat because they choose pleasure over self-denial.
Because I was an only, I had more things, and I remember early on the kick I got from giving stuff away. Despite all the myths about only children not being able to share, actually I've never knowingly met a stingy one.
Fame is no sanctuary from the passing of youth... suicide is much easier and more acceptable in Hollywood than growing old gracefully.
A good part - and definitely the most fun part - of being a feminist is about frightening men.
Whenever I am sent a new book on the lively arts, the first thing I do is look for myself in the index.
