… if you were thinking “oh I must but the Observer on the Weekend for its new “classy” women’s magazine, you’re probably going to be disappointed: the promotional front page consists of an apparently naked model with a strategically placed expensive handbag, with a body shape unlike that of any real woman you’ve ever seen. And the subject? Body hair.

And more depressing news from Australia, in the wholly political campaign against RU-486, the abortion-inducing drug. The religiously inspired campaigners are using the excuse of medical complications – of course these are possible, but then I believe there are the odd few with pregnancy too.

Miss Frances Williams Wynn is today writing mainly about General Alava, the Spanish ambassador and great friend of the Duke of Wellington, and of some undiplomatic activity by an English envoy at the court of Catherine the Great, but the line that I enjoyed was about the Prince de Ligne:

“Who for fourscore years had lived with every person of distinction in Europe, and who, to the last moment, preserved not only every useful faculty, but wit and gaiety besides. He preserved also to the last a singular facility of versification, and was particularly fond of writing epitaphs on himself. They say that he must have written above 500, generally impromptus, and of course worthless.”

Prince Charles Joseph de Ligne has got a rather neat website, which includes a bibliography, and describes him thus:

“He was a grand aristocrat, a talented military man, an entertaining writer, a brilliant conversationalist, a great garden fancier, a moralist and a memoirist. Anyone interested in the years of his long lifetime – from 1735 to 1814 – will find him “unavoidable.” The Prince de Ligne witnessed the fall of Napoleon, who fascinated him but whom he refused to meet. He died during the Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map of Europe to the accompaniment of balls and intrigues.”

Don’t forget, the deadline for submissions for Carnival No 7 on Feministe is Sunday. The theme is a broad one, women and popular culture … more

A story that deserves to be broadcast to the rooftops – and with it demands for action to prevent this religious abuse – the children who are being labelled “witches”, in the Congo and surrounding states. They face physical abuse, and even murder.

“The pastor of a London-based African church has been arrested on suspicion of child cruelty after claims that he had been branding children as witches and ordering that they be sent back to Africa where he would pray for them to die.
…The children of up to ten families are alleged to have been affected at the church, one of more than a hundred Congolese churches in and around the capital. In one example, the BBC reported, a father branded his nine-year-old son with a steam iron. A former church elder told Stickler that he was present when the boy was said to be possessed with evil spirits and alleged that Mr Tukala told the parents to beat him until he confessed to being a witch.”

Of course this is a symptom of a society in the Congo that is in severe distress – and that is an international disgrace – but in the meantime everything possible should be done to fight against these churches.

Ever since the first Homo sapiens emerged from her cave on an idle morning and wondered “Who am I?” the human race has been inventing and re-inventing answers to that question. The latest people to pick up on that have been the scientists, as they start to tackle the great question of consciousness.

Their interest has been caught by dramatists, with On Ego opening last month at the Soho Theatre and Imposters opening tonight at the Union Theatre in Southwark. This surely must be the first London season that two plays have appeared in which a major part is played by the rare and strange Capgras’ Syndrome – in which the victim of a brain injury believes their nearest and dearest have been replaced by near-identical imposters. (Meanwhile in New York there’s a whole theatre festival on the subject, in which this play is included.)

Yet, when you think about it, what better way to tackle issues of identity than this? Certainly the American playwright Justin Warner has used this as a fruitful way to approach what is a common tale – a family and a marriage under strain when the children have grown up and the holes at the heart of a long marriage are suddenly exposed. READ MORE

I’m no defender of Ruth Kelly as an individual – someone so closely associated with an extremist and secretive religious organisation (Opus Dei) in charge of education is hardly ideal – but it does worry me the way female ministers seem to get into trouble much more easily than male.

The David Blunkett saga went on forever,and yet listening to Five Live this morning (and Kelly just making a parliamentary statement) she seems to be in trouble over something that is far more nuanced and complex – certainly not a clearcut mistake.

The issue is over the employment of teachers who may be allowed to continue to work despite being put on the Sex Offenders’ Register. At first thought, that sounds horrific, but discussion suggests that people can end up on the register for quite minor, and possibly unclear-if-they-were-offences matters. (Such as someone who was a 16yo was convicted of statutory rape with a 14yo, or perhaps someone who accepted a police caution – which means the evidence is not tried in court – for viewing child porn, perhaps on bad advice, without understanding all of the implications.)

It seems reasonable that in the borderline cases, each should be examined on its merits. A blanket ban might well exclude occasional good teachers who are no risk to their pupils. And like the broader situation – that sees teachers frightened to comfort 5-year-olds who have grazed their knee – excessive regulation and caution can also be harmful to children.

The phone-in this morning asked is there hysteria about paedophiles? The answer is certainly yes. How much risk to children, comparatively, are paedophiles and road
crashes? I wondered how much campaiging on road safety those
complaining about what the government have done?

The fact that children are believed today when they complain about abuse – when 20 or 30 years ago they would have been ignored – is great. But we’re now in a period of overshoot, when fear of paedophilia has exploded out of all proportion to the danger.

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And the real concern? Iran seems to have a dangerously unbalanced leader. A conundrum for America – he was democratically elected; promoting democracy in the Middle East might have more complex effects than a simplistic Bush Administration take on it would have.