Walkin' tall, feelin' sassy. At least until the revolution

A couple of weeks ago - I know! I know! But I'm not about news! I never pretended to be Woodward and Bernstein! I'm more pud-pud and, erm, look, leave me alone - Debenhams conducted a poll. In it, the department store asked women what they considered to be the greatest clothing inventions of all time. The results make for an intriguing read. Well, made for an intriguing read. It was quite a long time ago.

The most notable thing was just how much discomfort and displacement is involved. The Wonderbra, the pull-in pant, the G-string. The chicken fillet, the stiletto, the support tight. That's a whole lot of body editing. With that lot, if you threw in some mascara as well, you could turn Minty from EastEnders into Julie Christie.

There are comfortable, sensible things on the list - trainers, hipster jeans, flip-flops - but, taken as an overall proportion of women's wardrobes, it is a poor result for both Mr Circulation and Mrs Let's Run For The bus.

Indeed, even some of the things that people would consider to be comfortable aren't, in actuality. For instance, a pair of trousers that reveals two thirds of your buttocks when you bend down - ie, hipsters - surely fails one of the most basic purposes of trousers: ie, concealing your anus. And while I appreciate the laid-back vibe of the flip-flop, in reality, the area of skin between the toes is barely one step up from the delicate tissue of an internal organ. Only a masochist would enjoy placing a thong there. The flip-flop cannot, in any way, be regarded as a “soft option”.

Now while I certainly would describe myself as a rabid, bra-burning feminist - no one else ever does, which is a pity. And, besides, I like setting fire to things - I am not wholly averse to experiencing a bit of discomfort in the name of beauty. If we are prepared to admit that looking good is worth the pain of exercise, then we should also, surely, admit that looking good is also worth the pain of, say, wearing a pair of Spanx. A tight pair of Spanx can quietly crush 20 years' worth of body dysmorphia into a size 12 gusset in less than a minute - leaving the formerly self-loathing to skip down the street in a slinky tea-dress, shouting: “I'm a pretty princess, and this is my special moment!” Essentially, I see no difference between the effort of hauling yourself into a minuscule, flesh-coloured sausage casing and 2,000 ab-crunches.

But of all the ideological tussles the modern woman is confused by, there is one more fraught than all others, the one whereby four mighty, conflicting forces - self-esteem, feminism, comfort and fashion - meet, and foment, wildly. It is the heel.

Really, I think the conversation about high heels is one of the big “must do” chats for the 21st-century woman. It is one of the unresolved issues of the past 60 years. For the modern lady, gigantic questions still hang over this totemic item. Are high heels the good guys, or the bad guys? And just who are we wearing them for? Having assessed all the data, I can only conclude that it can't be for men. A woman in heels makes the man standing next to her look shorter and fatter - and also more likely to have to heft the heeled woman all the way to a taxi rank, when her strap-chafing becomes too intense. On the whole, considering these facts, it's hard to believe that it's the men who are forcing us into heels.

Then who is? Someone must be, given that against the heel is an almost insurmountable number of practical considerations. First, should the revolution ever begin, it is, surely, the solemn duty of all footwear to enable you to outrun the angry mob. Rather than making you hobble for a dozen yards, then clutch at the wall wailing: “I've gone over on my ankle! Leave me here! Build the new republic without me, and my dandy shoe!”

Another, equally important, duty of footwear is not to give a loud aural signal that there is a woman, on her own, walking down a street late at night. Really, there is little point in learning jujitsu, loading your handbag with a rape alarm and then giving any have-a-go rapist a loud, clacking, four-minute head start to pick his favourite hidey-hedge. Footwear should always give a woman the element of surprise.

And, finally, we women must admit - NOW! - that, despite what we would like to believe, precious few of us can actually walk in the bloody things. The average wedding reception reveals the sad truth. In our minds we look like Marilyn Monroe, sashaying down the train platform in Some Like It Hot. In actuality, we look like Julie Walters as Mrs Overall, staggering off a waltzer.

And yet, and yet; heels light up some small corner of our lizard minds over which we women have no rational control. I cannot quash the notion that a good pair of heels makes me look smarter, and more “fierce” - even if I can only sit on a chair while wearing them, asking people to bring me things. They make me feel “sassy”, and cause me to say things such as “Me go, girlfriend!” to myself, in my head. In some indefinable way, it kind of feels as though there is no point being a woman if you don't occasionally wear a pair of heels. Wearing heels is one of our functionalities.

And ultimately, of course, it doesn't matter about the politics, or the practicalities, of heels, because they have the casting vote in the Geneva Convention of women's minds. They make us look thinner. And let's be honest: most women would wear two piranhas on their feet if it made them look thinner. I know I would - even if it meant that I looked like an idiot, and died in the first five seconds of the revolution.

And at least I would be a truly dandy corpse.

Wogan, maven of the British breakfast
I've never been one for radio breakfast shows. Before having children, I generally deigned to rise around lunchtime; since having children, I already have someone twottling on about inconsequential matters in a slightly hyperactive manner and scarcely need switch on the radio to gain an additional such service.

But grim news last week has made me rethink this attitude. Apparently Chris Moyles - described by himself as the “Saviour of Radio 1”; described by nearly everyone else as “that self-congratulatory, culturally centreless, pseudo white van man” - is marking up an ever-larger audience for his show. Indeed, he is now only 300,000 listeners short of overtaking the Sacred Maven of civilised post-dawn chat: Terry Wogan. Central to the emotional fabric of this country is that Wogan presents our most popular breakfast show. It is key. It will be a matter of national shame if official statistics - reproduced in tourist guides, etc! - begin to relate that, as of 2008, Britain's breakfasts had been taken over by this Moyles nano-character, so creating a new, and unwelcome, paradigm of Britishness. People! We must all tune in to Wogan! Even if it is with the sound turned down, as we fend off requests for new trainers, playdates, a rabbit, etc.

Spirit of the beehive
A religious beekeeper in Serbia is making beehives shaped like tiny monasteries and churches, “because bees have souls, too”. While this is a laudable enterprise, I worry that the beekeeper has opened a can of worms, not least in regard to worms. Where are they supposed to pray? Are moths simply presumed to be Jewish, say? And no one's thought to make spiritual provision for crane flies. I can't help but think that it might be the start of an unneccesary crisis. On top of mysterious viruses, regularly having all their honey stolen and being swatted at with a rolled-up copy of The Times, should bees have to deal with violent religious wars? Is it really the start of the Cruzzzzzzades?