Virginia Blackburn

Virginia Blackburn is a journalist, columnist and author. She has written two novels and more than 20 celebrity biographies including David Beckham: The Great Betrayal, Kylie: Story of a Survivor, and Robbie's Secrets.

Little girls should be allowed to roam free, says VIRGINIA BLACKBURN

THE utterly admirable Esther McVey has been talking common sense again: little girls should be encouraged to run around and climb trees, as it will give them confidence later in life, she said.

Esther McVey GETTY

Esther McVey thinks that playing outside will instill confidence in young girls

The utterly admirable Esther McVey has been talking common sense again: little girls should be encouraged to run around and climb trees, as it will give them confidence later in life, she said.

Girls sitting quietly with their parents may be less willing to put themselves forward in later years the Employment Minister continued, because they are "looking for acceptance," she said.

Miss McVey could not be more right.

We seem to be producing a generation of youngsters who are over protected on the one hand and yet exposed to a sexualised world before they are barely into their teens, neither of which were the case with my generation.

I was never sporty nor a tomboy, but it was taken for granted that my sister Caroline and I would play outside, explore the local neighbourhood, dig enormous craters in the garden and generally behave like young children with a certain degree of freedom.

We used to go to the local pond and collect frog spawn, which we brought home in a bucket, to watch it turn first to tadpoles and then to little froglets.

Do little girls do anything like that today?

We also played with dolls, I might add, and had toy kitchens and the rest of the paraphernalia surrounding the pre-pubescent female of the species.

But the point was that we and our friends were never told to stay at home and act like a prim little girl.

It seems to have gone backwards since then.

My generation of women grew up thinking we could have it all: we were wrong, as it happens, not least because a number of my contemporaries have subsequently found it impossible to manage both a high flying career and a family.

But the point was that we were brought up to think that our gender was no impediment to getting ahead.

Now little girls (and little boys) are guarded over by anxious parents who seem to think that a peadophile will leap out of the nearest bush if they don't exert constant vigilance, despite the fact that statistically the chance of that happening was small then and it's just as small now.

And then, paradoxically, really young children are entered into beauty contests and given make-up at an early age.

Somehow we're managing to destroy childhood and it's bound to have an effect in later life.

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Respect to all those who are putting themselves forward for a one-way trip to Mars, but I can't help feeling we're missing a trick here.

Wouldn't it be better to let us, the public, nominate the lucky quartet?

Red Ed on the Red Planet.

Has quite a ring to it, does it not?

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There's nothing limp about a limpet 

The limpet's teeth has just been revealed to be the most tenacious substance on the planet, able to form an unshakeable grip.

Well, limpet's teeth and Kate Middleton, pre the wedding to William, that is.

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Jon’s dopey way to talk about dope...

If there is anything that causes the toes to curl with embarrassment, it is the sight of someone old enough to know better, trying to get down wiv da kidz.

Step forward Jon Snow, who has just tried "skunk", an eye wateringly strong form of cannabis as part of a televised experiment and it was worse than any warzone, he said.

"By the time I was completely stoned, I felt utterly bereft," he continued.

"I felt as if my soul had been wrenched from my body."

Please stop it, Jon.

It's not big and it's not clever.

No one is listening to you.

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Victoria BeckhamGETTY

Fashionable Victoria Beckham visiting her boutique in Selfridges

Victoria Beckham has said that she no longer feels scared to dress down: she shouldn't.

She looks so much classier than she did in her WAG heyday.

Less really is more when it comes to looking elegant: she finally really is worthy of the name Posh Spice.

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Apparently the younger generation is increasingly eschewing alcohol.

This is put down to clean living, but has no one noticed there is a much bigger Muslim population in this country than there used to be?

I suspect they might be linked.

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