Feeling Guilty? Click here..

Well - that put paid to half the population... Now, all you women out there, as I was saying - what is it about guilt that gets to us like no other emotion? We feel guilty because we work, guilty because we don't, guilty because we're too fat, too thin, too pretty, too ugly, not clever or adventurous enough,well, let's be honest, we're just Jerusalem-jam-packed full of the stuff!

Listen to a man, any man, found guilty of 'mal-administration' such as fiddling his expenses, claiming invalidity benefit after winning the local marathon, or 'forgetting' he had another wife and child in the next village. He will never say that it's his fault.  The most likely excuse goes something like, 'I thought everyone else was doing it?'

When I was at school I had a tendency to say 'It's my fault,' when anything bad happened, just in case it actually was.  I remember, aged about eight, finding out that someone had broken the large glass thermometer (on display in the entrance hall)  that was a gift from one of the Governors.  The whole school was kept in the hall that morning until the culprit owned up. Strangely, I don't remember the outcome, just me racking my brains to see if I had got up in the middle of the night and  committed the awful crime whilst asleep in my pyjamas.   I still shiver at the thought.

Meanwhile, the latest study by the US Carnegie Mellon  University tells us that guilty women make better friends. Clearly they rush around doing everything they can for you in the hope that you'll be pleased with them, approve of them and love them forever.   I have to say that I can't think of anyone I know who is remotely like that. But I can't stop any longer to discuss it now because I promised to  take my best friend's dogs out for a walk half an hour ago.  And they'll no doubt be waiting for me. And, well, you know just how fickle animals can be...