Why are men now so despised? I blame Hugh Grant

I’ve always wondered about the strike-rate of men who, in that fine media phrase, ‘aren’t safe in taxis’.

I’ve always wondered about the strike-rate of men who, in that fine media phrase, ‘aren’t safe in taxis’. It must be pretty high, you’d have thought, otherwise we’d tend to hear about them before they, for example, got accused of rugby-tackling chambermaids in New York hotels. Only, if it is, that would suggest that large numbers of women are actually quite aroused at the thought of a mauling from a lusty old codger in the back of a black cab, and I’m just not sure this can be true. You know that little switch that sets the fan off? You’d keep hitting it, wouldn’t you? Probably with your knee.

It’s been a bad few weeks for the reputation of men. Dominique Strauss-Kahn doing whatever he did. Arnold Schwarzenegger, now dubbed ‘The Inseminator’. Even Hugh Grant who, in rebutting the suggestion that his bad behaviour deserved a place in newspapers, blithely declared on Newsnight that men are ‘naughty by nature’.