LIZ JONES: The answer to groping? It's in the hands of flirty women who are desperate for the approval of their bosses
Oh dear, Jeremy Irons. In an interview for the Radio Times in 2011, he was quoted as saying: ‘If a man puts his hand on a woman’s bottom, any woman worth her salt can deal with it. It’s communication.’
Last week, while claiming he was misquoted by the Radio Times, he said: ‘I love touching people.’
There has been much debate about whether or not ‘party hands’ are acceptable in the workplace. Or indeed at parties.
'I love touching people': Jeremy Irons is developing a reputation as a hands-on gentlemanThe discussion has been further fuelled by the continuing saga of our man in Belize who was sent home for allegedly groping a woman at a charity event.
I had thought groping had gone out of fashion, like snow-washed denim blousons. But no, it seems it’s not just old luvvies who think they can place a paw on our posteriors, but younger men apparently still do it, too.
I asked 15 women in their 20s whether they have ever been touched by a man at work and they all looked at me as if I were mad. ‘Of course!’ OK, how? ‘Well, after drinks in the pub, we all kiss each other goodnight. You know, a mwah. Hugs.’
What else? ‘A man who isn’t my boss, more an equal really, calls the women in his department “ladies” [I started to gag at this point] and, to be honest, if I bent over to pick something up and my bottom wasn’t at least remarked upon by the men around me, I’d think I’d lost my touch!’
Another young woman – a pretty graduate – told me that if she didn’t go to the pub with her male colleagues, she felt she would be passed over for promotion. How does she behave in those situations?
‘Oh, I giggle, I drink. It always works. You mustn’t let men forget you, you need to be uppermost in their minds or you won’t get the great jobs.’
Plain? Two young interns were overheard criticising the ambitious graduate Cait ReillyI told her I have never, ever gone for a drink after work with my office colleagues. I’m deaf, so in pubs and bars people tend to lean towards me, to whisper in my ear – an invasion of my personal space that means I’m tempted to punch them. ‘Yeah, well,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to wait as long as you for success.’ I’m speechless, frankly.
It seems both sexes are as bad as each other: young women mew and stick out their chests, while men respond by leering and touching. I doubt the latter happens without the former, which is why I have never been goosed in the workplace. It’s all about having an aura (I interviewed Jeremy Irons over lunch once, and he didn’t even dare look me in the eye).
I can’t stand women who flirt far more than I dislike gropers: I want to rip off their push-up bras so their breasts sag to their waists and shove a dipstick in their ears (behind which they are always twirling their hair in a manner they have read is seductive) to discern whether or not they actually have a brain.
At a reception to launch London Fashion Week last week, two young interns were discussing the graduate Cait Reilly, who won a battle with the Government over her enforced unpaid work at Poundland.
‘No wonder she can’t get a job,’ one honked. ‘She’s so plain.’
These women probably sign off every ungrammatical email to their male bosses with an XOXO. An ethereal form of groping, but a sexual pinch nonetheless.
'Lovely woman': But Clare Balding's industry is a horrible one which leads to the death of horsesPS I received an irate letter from a reader last week. ‘I used to find your writings witty and amusing,’ the man wrote, ‘but I cannot understand why you were so nasty about Clare Balding. You obviously have not read her wonderful book, and I suggest you stop picking on such a lovely woman.’
I wasn’t nasty about Ms Balding. I was nasty about the industry she promotes and makes a living from, namely, horse racing. Given an abattoir that disposes of horses felled in the Grand National was last week linked to the horsemeat scandal, I feel justified.
We should not be sending horses to abattoirs. When I lost an old mare, she was put to sleep at home, in her favourite spot, while eating carrots, eye shielded from the needle by a gentle hand, and I was given her ashes.
Horse owners choose slaughterhouses because they are cheap: to call out a vet is expensive, as is calling on the services of a horse ambulance to collect the body.
I’ve just seen the footage on Mail Online of a grey pony being shot in the head in a Somerset slaughterhouse, just one of the 60-odd murdered there each week.
Watch it, and then give money, please, to Equine Market Watch, the charity of which I’m patron. It rescues discarded horses and ponies – of which this country has far, far too many – from a similar sorry end .
