Why we should all steer clear of road rage (and cyclists)

In the past two weeks six cyclists have been killed on London's roads. Right now their families are organising their funeral arrangements, packing their things away to be sold or stored in the attic, having difficult conversations with the banks and utility companies about winding up their financial affairs, and facing a future without their loved one.

Meanwhile, in the same timeframe, a girl called Emma Way (presumably short for Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted) was found guilty at Norwich Magistrates’ Court of two charges related to an incident in which she knocked a cyclist off his bike, carried on driving, and later tweeted a lol-ish tweet about it, saying "Definitely knocked a cyclist off his bike earlier. I have right of way - he doesn't even pay road tax! #Bloodycyclists." And last week Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted appeared on ITV's flagship breakfast TV programme Daterape to tell the world about how difficult it has been for her since the incident came to light.

It's hard to know where to start lampooning Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted. Like the cyclist she hit, she is an easy target. Her PR person must have been to the Miley Cyrus & Cat Bin Lady School of Public Relations. But as she explained on Daterape, she was only 22 at the time and let's face it who didn't mow down defenseless road users and then brag about it online when they were 22?

But seriously, although Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted clearly lives up to her name, she is sadly not nearly as bad as many drivers out there, and only indicative of a worryingly common attitude amongst drivers. The stupidity of her tweet is hopefully self-evident (even Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted rated it as 11 out of 10 on the stupidity scale - make of that what you will) but the idiocy of her argument isn't so obvious. So allow me to spell it out.

Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted is correct in her assertion that the cyclist she hit does not pay road tax. However, what Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted almost certainly doesn't realise (A. because it would undermine the implication that it was ok to knock the cyclist off his bike and drive on, and B. because she is clearly an idiot) is that she also doesn't pay road tax. This is because THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ROAD TAX!

Road tax was abolished by Winston Churchill in 1937 and replaced by Vehicle Excise Duty. The building and maintaining of roads is now funded entirely by general and local taxation, both of which are, of course, paid by cyclists. Vehicle Excise Duty (or 'car tax' as many sensible authorities now refer to it) is charged on the basis of engine size and CO2 emissions, and not paid at all by various types of vehicle, including electric cars and bicycles. It is spent by the government on anything from building hospitals to building duck islands for Peter Viggers.

But even if it were true that cyclists made no contribution to the cost of building roads, what alternative, exactly, do Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted and her fellow (fictional) road tax payers propose? That cyclists be banned from using the roads because they don’t pay for them? And drive instead? Would they like those thousands of former cyclists to be congesting the roads in petrol-guzzling vehicles? Or is it just that these #bloodycyclists should be taxed in the form of occasional deaths underneath the wheels of left-turning lorries? Should the cycling community, like the rebellious districts in The Hunger Games, be forever obliged to offer up human sacrifices, in return for their non-payment of (fictional) road tax?

In a quite flagrant example of victim-blaming, some astonishing vitriol has been poured on cyclists in response to the reporting of these deaths, from mainstream newspapers running articles asking why cyclists take unnecessary risks, to some Twitter users (or Twits, for short) even complaining that the drivers were victims in these situations too. I suppose in the same way that Syrian civilians have been wantonly inconveniencing President Assad’s chemical weapons.

But what really troubles me as a cyclist is the way the cycling community all too often hits back at drivers with equally simple-minded spleen and abusiveness - like the EDL hitting out at #bloodypakis because some extremist Muslims choose to puts bombs in their shoes and get on planes. The reality is that there are some arrogant, idiotic and downright dangerous people on bikes out there, just like there is Jeremy Clarkson in cars. But we shouldn't allow one idiot's behaviour to tarnish all those who choose to use the same type of vehicle. This kind of us-and-them mentality only perpetuates the notion that each side deserves the inconveniences the other can inflict on them, and this increases the likelihood of accidents happening.

What the roads need now is not more hatred and divisiveness but an understanding that we are all road users and all deserve to be treated with the kind of respect that stops these accidents from happening. Except Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted - she should be put in a hot air balloon and left to float into oblivion until she pays her air tax.

Why Little Hufferingham may not be all bad

A little while ago I wrote a blog post about why you don't need to leave The Big Smoke to have a little sprog. I may have given the misleading impression that I think London living is all roses. And I may have been a little bit harsh to Little Hufferingham. So to redress the balance here's a list of 20 signs you've been in London too long...

1.    You think a shop assistant is flirting with you if they smile or make eye contact during your transaction.

2.    You know the rule about how you're only allowed one attempt at touching in with your Oyster card and if the red light comes on you have to rejoin the back of the queue, not just try again.

3.    You always flout this rule because you're in a hurry.

4.    You think 9 to 5 is part time.

5.    You couldn't identify your neighbours in an ID parade.

6.    You roll your eyes at people who think the OPEN button on the tube actually opens the doors.

7.    You think a window box constitutes reasonable 'outside space'.

8.    You have had to physically restrain yourself from punching a tourist for standing on the left on an escalator.

9.    You can't understand why other cities don't have escalator rules.

10. You think Birmingham is The North. You can't be certain but you think Peterborough is probably The North.

11. You have figured out what the pink Oyster touch points are for.

12. You have never been to Madame Tussauds.

13. You wouldn't dream of taking the tube from Leicester Square to Covent Garden. Not least because Covent Garden is for tourists.

14. You don't flinch when asked to pay 89p for a bag of crisps.

15. You understand how to find out which bus stop you need.

16. You know that Sir John Soane’s Museum is not a 'hidden gem'.

17. You think Eternity is waiting 4 minutes for a tube.

18. You know there are 100 seconds in a TFL minute.

19. You think it's fair game if someone nicks your bike when it was only single locked to a lamppost.

20. You know Camden is an abomination.

Why you shouldn't forget the snooze button on your biological clock

A few months ago my brother and his girlfriend did everyone a favour and boosted the world supply of Joneses by one. Naturally Baby Jones is an adorable bundle of gurgling loveliness and I'm rather chuffed to have finally made guncle status. Naturally they are also chuffed and seem to have taken to parenthood like Mariella Frostrup to presenting Sex Box - nobody would have predicted it but they seem astonishingly comfortable with it all.

As a result people keep asking me "hasn't it made you think you'd want one of your own?" It's a reasonable question. Wesley and Lindsey are having a wail of a time (ba bum) raising Baby Jones and he has clearly already added such immeasurable joy and fulfillment to their lives that no one could doubt they've made the right choice. But does that make me want one? Honestly? Abso-bleedin-lutely not.

The best thing about being gay used to be that you could avoid these heteronormative questions about what you want to do with your life (yesss, I finally got to use the word heteronormative in a sentence!) And I would have got away with it too if it weren't for those pesky gay rights campaigners. But now it's all "ooh are you two going to get married now?" and "ooh when are you going to have a baby"? The answer: no time soon, thank you very much. And stop saying "ooh", you sound like Deidre Rachid.

Don't get me wrong, I love kids. I love spending time with them, I love the way they laugh at my fart jokes and understand that Top Gear is boring. But I love a lot of things in life. Like sleep. And not having to change nappies. I love giving the still adorable little sprogs back to their parents and going home to watch X Factor before they start crying and demanding to be allowed to set up a squirrel trap in the garden.

Let me put it another way: I love mayonnaise but if you were to suggest to me that I should carry around a growing ball of mayonnaise inside me for nine months and then, just as it was reaching the size of a small dog, spend 24 hours pushing it out of my vagina, have it live off me like a parasite for six months waking up at unpredictable hours to demand it be allowed to suck on my breasts, then let it financially ruin me for the best part of the next two decades only to have it resent me for not letting it go on the car insurance, I would have you sectioned. I mean surely nobody likes mayonnaise that much.

But when it comes to children, people everywhere - no matter what their interests, class, belief system, financial situation, or aversion levels to Peppa Pig - seem to have this quiet mania for... well... having them. I've apparently hit that age where my female friends' biological clocks are now turning into alarm clocks and all my couple-friends seem to be on the verge of panic reproducing like there's about to be a major midwife shortage or the French are going to put on a massive sperm blockade.

This troubles me. I mean they can't all coincidentally really want children right now can they? An iPhone 5C maybe, but a child? They can't all have simultaneously realised that what they really need right now is to spend the next few years not getting enough sleep or holidays or eating in proper restaurants. Can they?

Obviously I'm not saying no one should have children. That would clearly be problematic for the human race. Nor am I implying that there is anything wrong with having a baby if you want one. I just feel very strongly that nobody should feel under any pressure to do it just because, like leaving London when you reach a certain age, or reading Fifty Shades of Grey, everyone else is doing it. Everyone else likes Jeremy Clarkson but he's still a twat.

If you really want a child in your life, get your kegs off and go for it. But if you just don't want to risk regretting not having done it later in life, can I suggest you take a chill pill with your next birth control pill and maybe just wait a while. It's on the basis of that kind of decision-making principle that Cheryl Cole got that flowery bum tattoo. If you still feel like you want one in a few years but your eggs have passed their use-by date, there's always adoption or god parenting. And by then kids TV producers might have come up with a less offensive version of Peppa Pig.

I recognise that it's difficult to resist these societal pressures. And obviously it's even harder for heteros (my heart bleeds, really). People are sort of suspicious of people who don't want children, like they don't like people, or the furtherance of the human race. Like they're sortofabitsad. But a simple glance at a statistic or two will make it plain that the world doesn't need any more babies. And in my view there's nothing sad about having freedom and free time (unless you spend it watching X Factor of course, as I obviously will). But resist you must. Because if you don't, before you know it you'll have no money, no friends, a giant ball of mayonnaise screaming at you to put Peppa Pig on, and a flowery bum tattoo. And since you'll all be busy doing all that I'll be even lonelier than I already am and there'll only be one thing for it: I'll have to start watching The Xtra Factor. I beg you, don't take any chances... use a condom.

Why Easyjet suddenly looks quite classy

Millions of years ago deep in the deepest bowels of Hell, a single drop of sweat fell from Satan's scrotum and landed on the ground. A small dying maggot lapped at the tiny bead of sweat and found sustenance in it. He grew and grew, living off the scum that lived on the scum that fed on the groins of the demons, and eventually he became more powerful and more evil than even the most powerful in Hell. Seeing this, Satan said unto his minions,

"Let us send this foul creature forth onto the earth to take human form, for he giveth us a bad name and maketh us look, like, well evil innit."

And so it was done. The creature was planted in the womb of a woman in rural Ireland. He was carried forth into the world and christened... Michael O'Leary.

Michael led an inconspicuous childhood, biding his time in order to find favour amongst the people of the world before raining down evil upon them. He did well at school and university and set his mind to devising a plan for the ruination of mankind.

"Perhaps I should go into politics," he thought to himself. But he realised no one would ever vote for him.

"Perhaps I could become a celebrity". But no, for he was too ugly for that.

"I must go into business," he concluded, "and there I shall find a way to inflict misery upon MILLIONS!"

Michael knew that he would need to choose an industry which was used by the masses, and not an exclusive market. To have the maximum impact he should choose a multinational company, not just consigning himself to the British Isles. And if he were to have a really malign influence, he realised, he should choose something people relied on for both business and leisure, preferably something where he could ruin their holidays and add stress to what could otherwise be an enjoyable experience. And so it was that Michael Satanuscrotum O'Leary became the Chief Executive Officer of budget airline Ryanair.

He immediately set to work making things as unpleasant as possible for the unsuspecting customers of the airline.

"We shall lure them in with cheap fares," he told his executive board, "and then, when they've booked, we shall hit them with exorbitant fees for ridiculous things like not printing their own boarding passes three years in advance on aardvark skin. Or wanting to take a suitcase."

"But Mr O'Leary," one of the board members offered tremulously, "when the customers notice they're being swindled, won't they just... go elsewhere?"

"HOW DARE YOU CHALLENGE MY AUTHORITY?!," boomed Michael, menacingly, and then he did that ejector chair thing Dr Evil does in Austin Powers, tipping him into a pit of fire.

"IGNORANT FOOL!" he spat, addressing the rest of the board. "Doesn't he realise there will be no competition, for we shall fly to places no other airlines would ever serve, like Perugia and Malmö. Places where there would be no tourists if it weren't for our planes."

"Like Stansted?" asked another member of the board.

"Exactly," said O'Leary, "But we shall call it ‘London Stansted’ so people think it's in London."

"I'm not dead," cried the man from the pit, "I'm just very badly burned."

Meanwhile a hapless innocent young man - let us call him Jamuel Sones - was booking a holiday to Italy. Since there were few options he booked a flight with Ryanair.

"At least it's cheap," he thought.

Jamuel was an intelligent boy (not to mention witty and extremely handsome) so he knew how to avoid the pitfalls of booking (he was, after all, a regular listener to Radio 4's daytime consumer programme You and Yours, and he sat next to someone at work who used to work on Don't Get Done, Get Dom). He was clever enough to remember to pay with a debit card, check in online, and add a cabin bag to his booking so as to be able to carry his many stripy T-shirts. The entire process took little more than six hours on the Ryanair website.

Weeks later Jamuel was at the airport in Perugia checking in for his return flight after a delightful holiday consisting almost entirely of eating things with cheese on. But unbeknown to him Michael O'Leary had been remotely logged in to Jamuel's account when he booked and had slyly unticked the 'add checked baggage' box on his form at some point during the booking ordeal (a common tactic of O'Leary's). And so it fell to a woman at the check in desk who looked like an Italian Kathy Burke to tell Jamuel that, despite his best efforts, he had in fact not booked his luggage for the return journey at all and that he must pay a fine of €100 for his error.

"But Kathio Burkio," Jamuel pleaded, "that's more than the cost of the original flight. Surely there must be some way you can override this fee, for surely you can see that I intended to book the luggage in for my return journey - otherwise I would have had to dump my many stripy T-shirts and bottles of John Frieda Frizz Ease Shampoo (which you must know costs more per millilitre than liquid gold) here in Perugia."

But Kathio Burkio only stared him down. "Do you know what Michael O'Leary does to employees who give his customers the benefit of the doubt and treat them like valued patrons?"

And Jamuel saw the fear in her eyes and relented.

And so Michael O'Leary grew richer and richer and eventually took over the entire world. He turned it into a great blue and yellow fuselage with no legroom and gaudy adverts for nasty white bread sandwiches. He made all the women wear blue nylon jackets and too much make up and all the men had to act really camp and offer people duty free every ten minutes. It was a cruel and horrible world and everybody in it hated the evil Michael O'Leary. But they couldn’t overthrow him because they’d disposed of all their sharp implements at security and they were slowly dying of thirst. And the poor penniless prophet Jamuel was distantly remembered – mainly through the wisdom in the writings of his celebrated blog – as the true, heroic martyr he was. And the man who had dared to challenge Michael O'Leary remained in the fiery pit, not dead, but very badly burned.

Why you should stay in London

The other day I was at a party in Notlondon and a woman I barely know – let’s call her Carol – came up to me to inflict some of her opinions on me: “Are you still living in London?” she began innocently, like any normal, decent person making small talk about where you live. “Oh I don’t know how you can live there,” she said, “I can’t stand it. Chris and I went there for an exhibition in July, it was hell – so many people.” I get this a lot. Why, I ask you, do people feel they have the right to slag off the place I live like in such a brazen fashion? How would she have felt if I’d said “Are you still growing that monobrow? Oh I don’t know how you can live with such an awful monobrow. I can’t stand monobrows. I had to look at a person with a monobrow like yours once, it was hell – so much eyebrow.” I didn’t say that. I also didn’t say that obviously the reason she went to London to see that exhibition is because there are no exhibitions in Little Hufferingham, or wherever the frig she lives. Because there’s nothing in the countryside except walks and pubs. Literally all you can do is walk and get pissed. And anyway, you can do both of those things in London. I know because I do them all the time.

Still, I understand that London is not for everyone. Some people like to lead boring lives; that’s fine. But what really worries me is the number of my friends who, now we’re all reaching A Certain Age, tell me ominously, “Yeah, I love living in London for now but I wouldn’t want to bring kids up here.” This is normally accepted as a given. Yes, they lived in London, they had a life, but then they had kids. Obviously you can’t raise kids in London. I mean if by some miracle they evade the armies of paedophiles lurking round every corner and don’t get run over by all the traffic they’ll inevitably turn out like Superhands from Peepshow, they’ll be wild-eyed crack addicts with no morals and they won’t know what flowers look like. There seems to be a widespread unspoken acceptance that having children in London is, if not immoral, somehow sort of irresponsible. Respectfully, I would like to argue that this is rhubarb. And in order to prevent all of my friends from leaving London and having babies in Little Hufferingham, I would like to explain why.

The other day I was cycling home, minding my own business, when, I shit you not, three hyenas came out of nowhere and started yelping at me. Or whatever it is hyenas do. Laughing maybe. Anyway, they were hyenas. Frigging hyenas! In London. I realise you must be wondering how the presence of dangerous wild animals is supposed to support my argument that London is a good place to raise children. Stay with me here. I was of course cycling along Regents Canal, and was passing London Zoo at the time. The aforementioned hyenas were behind the fence so this was not perhaps as surreal or as dangerous as I may have initially implied. But it was still pretty surreal from where I was pedalling. On closer investigation it became apparent that the handlers had just sent half a carcass down a zip line and the hyenas were jumping up to snatch chunks off it. What really surprised me was how little attention everyone else passing by paid to this extraordinary spectacle. I suppose this is probably something you can see every day if you walk past the wild dogs enclosure at London Zoo. But for me it was a pretty surprising experience. (Naturally I quickly updated my Facebook status). And that’s the thing about London: there’s always something going on.

People accuse the BBC and other broadcasters of being Londoncentric, but there’s good reason for that: because everything interesting happens in London! Want to see a film premiere? Come to London. Want to watch Parliament in session? Come to London. Want to see the latest Andrew Lloyd Webber musical? Get a new personality.

Now children, famously, need constant stimulation. They get bored very easily. The countryside is patently unsuitable for this purpose. They don’t even have 3G. Every now and then a survey will come out by the Countryside United National Trustkeepers or whoever about how 1 in 3 children think steaks grow on trees. Obviously it’s a shame that children don’t know steaks grow in supermarkets, but living somewhere really dull seems to me a high price to pay in order to teach a child what a cow looks like. Anyway, there’s always Hackney City Farm – and they do nice quiches. What children need, if you ask me, is hyenas, and museums and galleries and theatres and cinemas and Primarks the size of Disneyland. This is how they will really learn about the world and all the confusing, wonderful, bizarre things that make it so interesting. Not by sitting in a field with no ethnic minorities and some cows.

And it’s not just interesting things that will nurture their soft little minds, but interesting people. It's not an original sentiment to say that London attracts all manner of interesting folk. Disraeli said “London is a roost for every type of bird” (they didn’t have hyenas in themdays or he might have updated his metaphor) and everyone knows that Samuel Johnson quote… quotation… whatevs… about all of life being here (though not a lot of people know the sentence that preceded it: “You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London.” Well said, Johnson). The problem with the countryside is that it’s crammed full of people like Carol. That’s fine for people like Carol; they like people like Carol, but what if you want to meet interesting people?

Ok, I’m being a bit facetious (facetious, moi?!) Obviously there are a few interesting people outside London. A few. And if you like it wherever you live, good for you. It helps stop London getting overcrowded. But if you like London but feel that for some reason you probably ought to move before having kids, I ask you to think very carefully. You’ll be leaving behind museums, and Primark, and hyenas… and most importantly you’ll be leaving behind ME! And then my life will be almost as boring as if I’d gone to live in the countryside, with Carol. Spare me this fate! Stay in London! Or just don’t have children. But that, friends, is a whole other blog post…

Why it's not about being good

Each summer as the Autumnal Equinox approaches and the nights start drawing in there's one thing that, for me, holds Seasonal Affective Disorder at bay. No, it’s not the charming autumn colours or the prospect of festive cheer on the horizon; it is of course the start of another season of The X Factor. On Saturday evening it began again in earnest. And I mean earnest. Like a self-promoting pretitles sequence about SEVEN MINUTES long kind of earnest. It was mostly the standard helicopter shots of enormous hysterical queues of losers but this year it was interspersed with a lot of hype about Sharon Osborne being back – they didn’t say back from the dead but she does look like a revivified corpse. Albeit a fabulous one. And if she hasn’t died already the amount of botox in her face will surely kill her soon… Anyway, it’s back. As the man with the ridiculously deep voice would say, IT'S TIME! TO FACE!! THE MUSAC!!! And the fact that Louis Walsh is never going to retire.

People who know me and how effortlessly cool I am always assume that my fondness for The X Factor is somehow ironic. Let me be very clear about this: it is not ironic. I genuinely love The X Factor. Not in a cool, Guardian X Factor Live Blog pisstake kinduva way. I actually love it. I love Dermot O'Leary, I loved Paije Richardson (I know, scandal right?) and I love Nicole Scherzinger. In fact sometimes I go a bit straight over Scherzinger. Come on, she is Shamazing.

When I see that giant X-shaped meteor careering towards the earth I get the kind of warm glow inside that for normal people can only come from watching a puppy ice skating or from receiving a prolonged session of oral sex. There’s nothing else quite like it. Well there is, obviously. But they’re not the same. There’s The Voice but that’s like talent contest methodone – enough to hold off the headaches and keep me going through the rest of the year but ultimately unsatisfying.

Admittedly the auditions rounds are a bit rubbish. And a bit disgustingly exploitative. Personally I don't really like The Crap Ones. There's something about watching the borderline mentally ill being publicly humiliated that makes me feel a bit... well... Victorian. I suppose viewers who do enjoy these bits find watching them gives them the same shameful thrill as, say, watching pornography or putting a cheese twist through as a bread roll at the self checkouts in Tesco.

But the live shows are awesome. Or as Scherzinger would probably say shawsome. The euphoria climaxes with the arrival of the judges to the absurdly serious O Fortuna (that classical one with monks singing). Sometimes Dermot does a little dance and I actually ejaculate and have to go and change my pants. Steve usually takes this opportunity to flick around the channels and see what else is on, as if I'm gonna come back in and go "Oh is there a David Attenborough on? Oh well let's leave X Factor, it's all the same anyway". (Naturally I snatch the remote off him and rebuke him for demonstrating independent thought. Where would The X Factor be if everyone started having independent thoughts? The acts would have to start making good music in order to sell. Simon Cowell would lose all his money and have to live in a two-up two-down in Tenby. And nobody wants that.)

But there is one thing that troubles me about it all. And that is the question of why I actually like it. I mean obviously it's awful. More awful than Miley Cyrus. It is formulaic, predictable and banal. It's slowly destroying the music industry. It regularly contains large doses of Gary Borelow for god's sake. Why does my brain allow me to like it? I can only conclude that they replace one frame in 25 with the words KEEP WATCHING OR YOUR MUM WILL GET CANCER or that ITV have done a back room deal with the water companies to pump crack into the water around 8pm on Saturday nights.

I’ve been presented with a similar conundrum by another television phenomenon recently: Lost. Yes, I know I'm about 85 million years behind the curve on this one but a friend of mine recently gave me the DVD box set of series 1 of Lost (thanks Gillian, for RUINING MY SUMMER!). Ermagherd, it's, like, dangerously addictive. More addictive than Ritz crackers with peanut butter. It's also completely ridiculous (POLAR BEARS CANNOT SURVIVE ON DESERT ISLANDS!!!) but I can't help myself. I am beyond help. A piece of my brain actually rotted off and fell out of my ear the other day while I was watching it and I just carried on. And I ACTUALLY CARE about the characters. SPOILER ALERT I cried like an actual baby when Boone died. I mean I wailed, and I wet myself and then I sucked my thumb for an hour. Although that was mainly because he is the most beautiful man in the entire world and I will no longer be able to look at him regularly. Anyway...

It troubles me. What is the point of having critical faculties at all if your eyes can just override them and go “Yeah but look, Marcus Collins is wearing a SHINY JACKET with SEQUINS on - don't change the channel”? But more worrying still, for anyone hoping to produce anything of any artistic merit, what really is the point of being good? Why not just produce some drivel with shiny jackets or a mysterious hatch in the jungle that should have been opened in episode 2 but which the character stumbling upon has some inexplicable motivation for not telling anyone about until episode 23? I have no answer to this question. I was going to think about it and write a conclusion but series 2 of Lost has just finished downloading and I need to know what's in that ruddy hatch. Maybe it’s Joe McElderry.

Why Miley Cyrus is not The Problem

It seems that due to an unfortunate turn of events it has become incumbent upon me to have an opinion about Miley Cyrus. This is a shame. For the six years or so since Wikipedia tells me she “rose to prominence” I have managed to get through my life blissfully unopinionated about Miley Cyrus.

Until Monday of this week I knew only three things about Miley Cyrus:

1)    That she is or was an actress of sorts who played or plays the fictional character Hannnah Montana (though I’m afraid all I know about Hannah Montana is that she is a fictional character played by Miley Cyrus)

2)    That she is the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus but produces pop music so offensively vacuous that it makes Achy Breaky Heart sound like Milton (and let’s not forget that Achy Breaky Heart contains the lyrics “Myself already knows that I’m ok”)

3)    That my ridiculous friend Kim likes her (which, as anyone who knows Kim will attest, means she must be awful)

This, as far as I was concerned, was all and more than anyone needed to know about Miley Cyrus. But as you will be aware unless you have spent the last week living in a paper bag Miley Cyrus has made headlines this week by ‘twerking’ with Robin Thicke at the MTV Video Music Awards. I realise there is scarcely a word in that sentence my parents would understand, but it’s happened, and it’s become the biggest news of the week. Yep, bigger than Syria. It has also, apparently, become the most tweeted about event in history. When the history books are written (presumably in 140 characters) unbelievably, Miley Cyrus’s name will be in them. So it seems that if I am going to be able to pass the time at the water cooler this week I am going to need to have something to say about all of this. Here, then, is my tuppence worth on Miley’s tuppence.

Obviously Miley Cyrus and everything about her is awful. Embarrassingly, ostentatiously awful. If it weren’t, my ridiculous friend Kim wouldn’t like her. She is of course the personification of everything that makes The World These Days a terrible place, in which the brains of our children are slowly rotting and we will one day all end up staring at large screens projecting Top Gear and eating slime. But it would be unfair I think to blame Miley Cyrus entirely for this. Slightly unfair anyway. Because Miley Cyrus, and all her concomitant abominableness, is of course the product of something bigger and more problematic here.

For at least the last couple of decades the music industry has more and more deliberately waged a war of attrition on women’s clothing. The objectification of women’s bodies in music videos has become so blatant, so much like self-parody, that it’s hard to know what’s tongue-in-cheek and what’s just jaw-droppingly offensive. So blurred have the lines become that I’m sure most music video directors don’t even know whether they’re being ironic any more.

And on the subject of blurred lines, it is surely to Robin Thicke (who clearly lives up to his cockney rhyming slang nickname, as well as the homophone of his surname) that we must point the finger of blame, if a finger is to be pointed, for the horror show that was Sunday night’s MTV Music Video Awards performance. Because it is of course HIS SONG, Blurred Lines, and its atrocious music video that the two of them recreated on stage that night. To read the coverage of the incident this week you might easily forget there were two of them involved in the performance: one twerker and one twerkee.

The Oxford English Dictionary now defines the verb to twerk (yes, I know) as follows: “dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance.” They might have added, “usually performed by a woman against the crotch of a man”. Miley’s twerking was in fact an apt visual metaphor for everything Woman is figuratively allowing Man to do to her in performing such a move. Shame on her for allowing it; but shame on him for standing there, probably with an erection and a shit eating grin on his face, and letting her demean herself in this way.

Enough has already been said about Thicke’s music video, some of it far too po-faced and hysterical – it is after all a bit of fun involving consenting adults, and probably more knowing than it’s been given credit for. But it is, I’m afraid, videos like that which are telling young women this is what men want from them. And that, really, is the fundamental problem here. That is the reason a presumably fairly intelligent woman, probably a multimillionaire, with little to gain except some dubious publicity, would get up on stage in a flesh coloured two piece and dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance: because that’s what everything in popular culture is telling her we want to see.

It’s just a shame that Blurred Lines is such a good pop tune. Otherwise more of us might have voted with our ears and not listened to it on Spotify, or watched it on MTV. But unfortunately it is catchier than an Aerobie with the bubonic plague. That, coupled with the fact that even the most enlightened heterosexual men invariably enjoy watching impossibly attractive young women walking around with too much lipstick and no bra on, is what kept it at number one for so long. You can’t deny it: in Thicke’s own inane words: you know you wannit.