Bloody Tristrams

The front page of this week's Closer reads 'Why I left my toddler for a 16 year old boy.' Which I think, bluntly, tells you most of what you need to know about Britain in the middle of the Noughties.

This leads me in a vague way on to The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, which I watched last night and has subsequently been ripped to shreds by every critic in the land. I will say I actually quite enjoyed it on a funny level (funny ha-ha) but its faults were truly manifold and whilst an enjoyable hour's romp, I will add that it was also supremely patronising. It seriously asked the audience to accept that a hard-nosed Thatcher-worshipping flaming Tory harridan who was clearly modelled on Justine Greening would defect to Jane Horrocks' maverick Purple Alliance just because she loaned her a fucking tampon.

And with all due respect to feminists everywhere, how come every drama that portrays strong women in a positive light has to by default portray men as feeble-minded, penis-lead little boys? there is such a thing as balance and this show lacked it in buckets. It's disrespectful to everyone.

This could have been such a good little drama about a maverick, unsung, inexperienced female politician coming up through the ranks to form a credible new party and enjoying moderate success at an election, but instead the Tristrams in charge had to go all out and blow the budget on a landslide New Labour defeat that was accomplished in an hour's screen time, with no back-story, disjointed scenes, grossly over-accelerated passage of time and precious little plot. It would have been funny, it would have been watchable.

Never mind, I like Jane Horrocks and next week they appear to have Jan Ravens playing the Queen, so I may watch it again.

This morning, I am told that www.purplealliance.org is redirecting to UKIP...