AT a fund raiser in aid of a domestic abuse charity, in between performances from Alison Moyet, Tracy Thorn and Caitlin Moran, it was interesting to hear the experiences of a transgender woman who had used the services of the charity while fleeing not just the horrors of violence in the home, but violence against her from wider society – from catcalls to punches to ridicule, her transition had not been smooth.

IN order to write another book without the aid of an advance, and to raise expensive children without the aid of a co-parent, my household is stuffed with paying guests, and is starting to resemble a United Colours of Benetton advert. Except scruffier.

IT has always struck me as a bit unseemly when people in the same profession go for each other in print or online. So I never have.

I’m thinking of starting a blog called the Fat Vegan, except being a journalist, I can’t bear to write anything for free.

BEING a writer is a great way to live, but not such a great way of making a living. Unless you’re Jeffrey Archer or JK Rowling, forget it — you won’t ever be in the limited edition queue for a five-grand handbag.

I don't know what it’s like where you are, but it seems to be getting worse where I am. You can’t even put it down to April Fool, because it’s been going on for ages now, and growing all the time.

REGULAR readers may have noticed that last week’s column, which fell on March 17, contained no mention of the day in question.

I’M loving this Fourth Wave of Feminism. All those years when we were told that swinging around a pole as exercise was both ironic and empowering always felt like a massive joke – on us. Raunch culture felt like a big fat lie. How could the galloping pornification of women and girls ever be empowering?

THERE is a line, invisible as electricity but just as shocking, that your kids will one day step over, when they move from being children to something far, far worse. Teenagers. It can happen in an instant, when a single sentence crystallises the transition, a lone throwaway remark telescopes the whole of childhood from the present to the past in the blink of an eye. Or in this case, the shake of a lamb’s tail. And that single, electrocuting sentence? “Lambs are crap.”

THE term has been around since 1970, but I’ve only recently learned how to spell it. S-p-e-c-i-e-s-i-s-m. You know, assigning different values to different creatures depending on what species they belong to.