English people are famous for never speaking out but only saying what they really feel about you behind your back. Americans believe the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I like exploring those, er, differences in national snippiness.

I'm worried about looking like a bad person when, in fact, I try to be a good person. I don't like the public image that I've been dressed with and it worries me.

Don't worry about never having time to write. Just write what you can in the time you do have and give yourself a big clap on the back, followed by a double latte and a blueberry muffin.

With so many forty- and fifty something mums and dads in Converse stalking the streets, I can see why there's a slew of books about the menopause and middle age, the most recent addition being David Bainbridge's plucky, glass-half-full meditation or, as he calls it, 'natural history.'

The reason we all need a mutton alert, which needs constant testing, like smoke alarms, is because there is really no such thing as age-appropriate dressing any longer, as I know because my wardrobe is interchangeable with my daughter's.