It's been a good week for -
Alan Titchmarsh
The housewives' favourite emerged as an unlikely knight in armour, when a fellow TV gardener revealed that Titchmarsh had helped save him from an over-zealous fan's attentions. Diarmuid Gavin talked for the first time about becoming the object of unwanted affection of a female fan who followed him on-set and tried to break into his home, telling his wife: "I'm in love with your husband."
In a situation involving unbridled female passion, there was only one man for the job. Step forward ol' Greenfingers Titchmarsh: a man who knows what women want, as evidenced by the steamy scenes in his debut novel, Mr MacGregor. Even the Queen, normally a paragon of cool restraint, uttered the words "You've given a lot of ladies a lot of pleasure", as she coyly handed him an MBE.
Anyway, Titchmarsh was enlisted to help mount a sting operation to catch Gavin's stalker during a broadcast the pair were doing together. Details are sketchy, but one can imagine Titchmarsh emerging from between two rhododendrons and, to any onlooking female, Diarmuid Gavin instantly losing his allure. Problem solved.
You have to hand it to the Yorkshire smoothie - he always comes up smelling of roses.
It's been a bad week for - physical education
Surely some mistake? Research published last week claims that girls are put off sport for life by the experience of physical education classes at school. What's not to love about shoe-horning yourself into shiny nylon gym pants of a cold January morning and heading out to the hockey pitch to have your shins hacked to pieces? One never forgets the heady buzz created by an unforgiving basketball as it is slammed off your face or the sweet, sharp pain of rope burn to make you feel truly alive. And, of course, the teachers, those whistle-brandishing, tracksuited sadists, are nothing if not inspiring. However, according to a survey carried out for the Women's Sport And Fitness Foundation, 51% of schoolgirls say the whole experience puts them off ever darkening a gym door ever again. The youth of today! Have they no backbone?
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