Tiger the 'sex addict'

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Oh, apart from that one, and that one. And, oh darn it, ok, hands up, I'm a sex addict. Yeah that must be it.

"I'm not a man who simply doesn't think the rules apply to me (although I've admitted that I don't think they do). Nor that I didn't think my wife would ever seriously leave me (taking my kids whom I don't deserve with her). Nor that I thought I was such a massive star my sponsors wouldn't forgive me screwing hookers behind my wife's back left right and centre. I also think that by regurgitating a PR speech I've practised a thousand times in front of the mirror will pretty much get things back on track."

Seriously Tiger, there's nothing more you can say. We get it, you're sorry. You're sorry you were caught and your bubble burst.

People make mistakes - it's human nature- but mistakes on 'Tiger scale'? There are men who think it's ok to cheat - who get off on the secrecy, the excitement of being with someone but their partner - and there are men who don't. I've got to say I think that changing the fabric of your morals in your 30s is akin to the ease of changing your skin or eye colour.

Call me a skeptic but I've heard that speech before from an ex who couldn't keep his dick in his pants. That lasted 15 minutes too. I mean his fidelity. There's no such thing as sex addiction. Just dickheadism.

And yes, women cheat too.

Getting jiggy in the new age

It all starts pretty innocently - an email here, a text there. Before you know it your spectacles are steaming up and your messages are filling with asterisks (if you believe The Sun).
We're talking about getting jiggy the new-age way.
A recent poll questioned nearly 1,500 men and women folk and found that morality on this form of 'cheating' divides nowhere near the middle.
57% of guys claimed having sexy time with another person on text did NOT constitute as cheating, while 86% of women said they thought that shit was unacceptable in a caring, sharing, respectful etc. etc. relationship.
1 in 3 women said they'd consider dumping their partners ass if he par-took in such cheatery, whilst the men claimed they'd be far more relaxed about it all - with only 1 in 6 men saying it would end in breakup if they caught their other-half out.
Funny isn't it - I wonder if these stats reflect what would really happen. What's for sure is that women see the 'emotional' cheat just as important as the physical. That if a man could engage in sexy texts with someone else, the trust and connection between them would break.
The fact the guys mostly claimed they'd forgive and forget in such a situation is interesting - perhaps I've always just been with guys who would give me a good deal of a hard time for looking sideways at another guy (present company excluded). Or perhaps they're giving it Billy big nuts, secretly knowing sexy texting just ain't that good an idea.
What staggered me is only 59% of all of those asked said they thought that actually PHYSICALLY kissing someone else would constitute as cheating. I hope none of them are my boyfriend.
Happy Valentine's xxx

Lent - it's all about sex and social networking

So, those clever people who dream up polls went and asked nearly 1,000 men and women folk what Lent means to them.

You see after 14 years on the tabs I gave up smoking last October. I now toe the party line that this renders me pretty much divine in terms of abstinence so I didn’t make any New Year's resolutions, nor will I be giving up anything (else) I love for Lent.
However, a whopping 45% of you said that are actually abstaining from something for 40 days and 40 nights.

Here's the top 10:

1.Chocolate - 43%
2.Sex – 36%
3.Cigarettes – 34%
4.Caffeine – 29%
5.Social networking – 20%
6.Alcohol - 20%
7.Fake tan – 16%
8.Texting – 12%
9.Sugar – 10%
10.Swearing – 6%

Will you look at that? I already did number 3 (I know - so smug).
First things first - chocolate's probably top of the pops every year for just about every female pounding the earth's surface.
Number 10's never going to happen - ask any of my friends or family. I'm not a big caffeine drinker anyway. Social networking and sex? Crumbs, people are really going full throttle this year. Anyway, aren't you supposed to give up something culinary, as per J.C.? Does anyone know 'the rules'?
Giddy with the heroic efforts lots of you are putting in, it's reassuring to know that only 18% of you will stick to it - 11% after only one week. Basically, when you get to work on Monday morning, miserable because you haven't had sex, only to turn on your computer and watch in horror as it connects to your Facebook homepage, you'll hook yourself back up to your intravenous drip of coffee and tell yourself that if J.C. was living in this day and age, he would need all of these little vices too.
More fantastically, 15% of people (and I quote) are "not aware of Lent".
So. What did you give up?

Our Mo - tumour and all

Utterly absorbing, powerful, emotional and all-consuming - the two-hour-topping drama of Mo Mowlam’s life from Labour’s first winning election until her death had me in fits of giggles, uncomfortable silences and pouring tears.

I was torn by how aghast I was at a clearly testosterone fuelled Government, and how inspired I was to change the world no matter what challenges lie in front of one – be them living and thriving in a man’s world, or battling cancer.

I suppose I can boast living in these shoes to some small extent, being both a Digital Editor (not a whole lot of women there) and having survived a far less threatening cervical cancer in my early 20s. My ‘change the world’ goal has, I’m afraid to report, yet to materialise.

Julie Walters, whom I already knew to be at her worst thoroughly watchable, blew me away with an unapologetic portrayal of a woman who both embodied the female in politics at her thunderous best, and one who was so masculine as to all at once join and threaten her alpha male colleagues – pissing with the cubicle door open, sitting with her legs wide apart, and swearing like a builder after 5 pints of larger. It appalled and excited me all at once.

I was devastated at Mowlam’s fury as she nearer her death that the ‘larger than life Mo that everyone loved’ might not have been ‘her’ at all, but the work of the tumour which was already pressing into her frontal lobe and altering her behaviour.

Mo was still our Mo – tumour and all. She was a woman of courage, passion and confidence. I can only hope that by the time I turn my toes up, I could have achieved even half of what she managed.