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Bridget has a lot to answer for

A weekly column reproduced from the Bristol Evening Post


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That Bridget Jones woman has a lot to answer for. All over the country, women are whining on about their weight, their meaningless lives and the state of their underwear.

I wandered into the master bedroom at Beelzebub Mansions last night to find Mrs Beelzebub hanging a new pair of curtains. At least I thought that’s what she was doing.

It turns out that she was sorting out her knicker drawer and the half an acre of sailcloth she was holding up were her “big” knickers. God knows why the textiles industry is in such a mess.

While filling up a skip she’d specially ordered with unsuitable items of underwear, Mrs B launched into a rambling monologue involving calories, water retention and some bloke called Colin Firth. I didn’t catch much of it because of the Mars Bar wedged in her mouth, but the gist of it was that a new dieting regime was about to be introduced.

Please, no! Local air quality is still recovering from the appalling side-effects of the Cabbage Soup diet. And the withering looks and muttered abuse I get from the other side of the dining table while I tuck into sausage and mash with onion gravy as Mrs B toys with three lettuce leaves and a banana redefine PMT as Post-Meal Trauma.

It’s a simple but compelling argument. If you marry a woman when she’s thin and attractive, you should be able to invoke the Trading Standards Act if she becomes fat and ugly.

Well why not? If you bought a car you’d get a warranty, if you bought a television you’d get a guarantee. If you enter into a contract with a member of the opposite sex, you should get some kind of assurance that she’s not going to turn into a bigger version of her mother. It only seems fair.

I might also argue that such a flagrant breach of contract should become a criminal offence. Taking money under false pretences springs to mind.

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