A weekly column reproduced from the Bristol Evening Post

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Say what you like about the Taliban, but their sensible attitude to women can’t be faulted.

I wonder how many Afghan blokes are secretly regretting the sudden departure of the Men in Beards, now their wives are swanning around the streets with their kit off, swopping make-up tips with that daffy bird off GMTV?

Those burqas may have looked like the thing you put over the parrot’s cage at night, but they must have made life so much easier for Alf the Afghan and his mates down at the old Missile and Mosque.

Think about it. No more expensive clothes shopping for a start. No more hanging around the changing rooms at the Kabul branch of Marks and Sparks. No more getting dirty looks from the shop girls because you’ve been lingering by the lingerie for over an hour.

The burqa. This year’s big thing. One size fits all, and there’s only one colour to choose from. Light blue. I bet you can even buy them in bulk, saving a few more shekels.

And what about getting ready to go out at night? The concept of popping down the pub at two minutes notice is alien to most women. It takes at least an hour for them to decide that the outfit they first thought of wearing is the one that they’ll actually wear. And then they change it twice more. By then you’re never going to get through your six pints and still be back for Match of the Day.

And that’s before the make-up goes on, painstakingly slowly. Then there’s all the fannying about complaining that their hair isn’t 100 per cent perfect. With the burqa, you can just toss it over the old dear and be propping up the bar with a glass of Mullah’s Mild within seconds.

I do, however, see one possible drawback. Picking up women in nightclubs must be a like a sexual version of Russian Roulette. How do you know what’s under that all-enveloping cloth? You could invite a bird back to your rubble only to find out that you’ve pulled an Afghan version of Janice Battersby.

Put it back on, love. You’re scaring the camels.

And were the Taliban really so wrong about banning music and shaving, either?

There’s more…