We older women in Europe are lucky not to be shoved away in a drawer.

It isn't fate but fecklessness that has shoved Sarah Palin to the sidelines of national politics. The real tragedy is that she's taken a lot of other serious Republican women with her.

Our imaginations are strong as children. Sometimes they get shoved aside these imaginations. They get dusty and mildewed with age. The imagination is a muscle that has to be put to use or it shrivels.

No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high idealistic motives and idealism in our time has been shoved aside and we are paying the penalty for it.

In the 20 long hungry years between my late teens and late 30s I bought in to virtually every new diet and/or exercise regime that hoved into view particularly at this most vulnerable time for those of us prone to poor body image - a new year.