Last updated 15:19, Thursday, 03 April 2008

AT the risk of upsetting half the Courant readership, might I say that I don’t hold with this positive discrimination for women malarkey.

Now don’t run away with the idea that I’m anti-women; if a woman is the best person for the job, then let her have it with my full blessing.

Most of the best journalists I have worked with have been women, and it’s the same in many other fields.

What gets up my nose is giving someone a job BECAUSE she is a woman.

Imagine the furore if women were excluded from applying for a job purely because of their sex!

The Labour party seems to be on a suicide mission with its lunatic policy of purging successful male councillors, purely to parachute into largely unwelcoming communities candidates for the forthcoming elections based not on ability, but on the number of chromosomes they happen to have.

Were I ever unfortunate enough to be trapped on the roof of the Courant building with a fire raging below, forgive me if my heart were to drop a little when the figure at the top of the turntable ladder charged with heaving my 17 stone bulk over her shoulder in a fireman’s lift proved to be an eight stone wench.

It would be akin to waking from a road accident, and becoming aware that the air ambulance pilot come to pick you up was the Jonah of the skies Jim Martin from Hexham.

It’s not a question of thinking women are inferior; it’s a question of physical strength that concerns me. In these circumstances, brawn scores over brain every time.

There is only one area where a woman scores over a men every time; populate the CID department of every police force in Britain with women detectives, and all crime would be wiped out.

Mrs Hextol doesn’t even have to be in the same room to know when I am even thinking of doing something that does not meet with her approval.

The other day I was balanced precariously on a ladder, armed with a brush laden with emulsion, knees knocking as I attempted my least favourite decorating task, painting the stairwell.

I had it about three quarters done when I over stretched, and a blob of magnolia detached itself from the roller and described a perfect parabola on its way towards the only square millimetre of carpet not covered by dust sheets.

The blob was still in the air when Mrs Hextol shot out of the kitchen, and berated me for my clumsy ways, whilst expertly scooping up the globule out of the air with a piece of kitchen roll.

Without even looking at my handiwork, she’ll say: “That’s going to need another coat, because you’ve missed that bit in the top corner, and you’ve left roller marks on the other side.”

I look up and realise that it is indeed so.

When the decorating is done, and she’s popped out to see a friend, I decide to rinse out the brushes and rollers in the bath, rather than carrying them downstairs as instructed, and doing them in the sink.

I do the job meticulously, before mopping every square millimetre of the bathroom twice over.

Aggie would have been proud of my diligence, but Mrs Hextol has not been back in the house 30 seconds before she is bending my ear about the folly of cleaning painting implements in the wrong piece of porcelain.

“But how did you know?” I whimper through a mouthful of bristles, and cringe wordlessly as she points to a micron of magnolia clinging to the underside of the hot tap.

She can be dozing gently in the living room chair, dead to the world, yet should my hand as much as inch towards the remote control in the vain hope of catching the last few minutes of Match of the Day Two, a beady eye will snap open, and a querulous voice bark: “Oi – I’m watching that!”

She can be upstairs on the computer, while I am watching some obscure sporting channel downstairs, when I feel an urge to put the kettle on and have a brew.

My bottom has not left the armchair before a voice drifts downstairs saying: “Make me one as well – and I’ll have a chocolate digestive too please.”

I’m not sure whether all women have these psychic powers – but I’m sure they make better detectives than they do firewomen.