So Clinton's affair was everyone else's fault

Oh, Mr ex-President, you've blown it again. You had your chance to win us over, a $12 million PR opportunity to tell the truth, and instead we get a load of psycho-babble and a dozen reasons why it wasn't your fault.

We're talking Monica Lewinsky, of course, the reason he got paid all that dosh for his autobiography, My Life, in the first place, and evidently the one thing he is reluctant to discuss. Funny that. Four paragraphs to cover an affair that almost cost him the presidency does no one any justice.

Not that Ms Lewinsky should be all that defines the presidency, far from it, but unless you lance the boil, it will define it.

And it was a missed opportunity, because many people would have judged him less harshly if he had come clean, so to speak. The majority of us have been cuckolded at some stage in our lives, we know the pain of betrayal and the torturous path to forgiveness, but there are universals.

There are ways and ways of explaining infidelity and they all begin with a lot of grovelling and the words: "I'm so sorry, it's all my fault."

Not the pathetic blame game he engages in. For this President, his affair is everyone's fault but his own. It's his political enemies who forced him into this error of judgment; it's the Republicans, Kenneth Starr, his alcoholic stepfather for destroying his self-esteem, McDonald's for destroying his waistline.

"I was involved in two great struggles," Clinton says, "a great public struggle and a private struggle with my old demons. I won the public one and lost the private one."

So it's the American people's fault, too, then. He was so busy saving the world he forgot to keep his trousers zipped.

Clinton got the highest advance ever for a non-fiction book because it was supposed to be the most honest self-analysis of any President. Instead we get a load of Venus and Mars psychobabble.

Clinton basked in the old pal's treatment when it came to his big American TV interview. He chose trusted friend and veteran broadcaster Dan Rather for the predictably supine interview on CBS. They hugged on camera.

But no such reverence was accorded him here. In his Panorama interview, David Dimbleby repeatedly pressed the ex-President on the contrition he claimed to feel over the Lewinsky affair. Clinton completely lost his composure, not to mention his temper.

He's so used to the adoration he gets in America, Clinton was shocked and appalled that Dimbleby would have the temerity to question his word. Well, he only said what we all think.

THE most dastardly point of Clinton's account of Zippergate comes when he reveals that Nelson Mandela helped him through the crisis. Talk about a name-dropper. At the height of the scandal, Mandela is supposed to have compared Clinton's struggle with his own, suggesting he follow his example and forgive his oppressors or they would destroy him.

Only a towering ego would compare Mandela's historic fight against apartheid with his own battle with his hormones. Only the shallowest of men would attempt to draw a parallel between testosterone and tyranny. But there you have it, My Life, vanity publishing at its finest.

Venus and Serena --all-round good sports

I'd never liked them, the tennis machines that are Venus and Serena Williams. That is, until I bumped into the women on the Richard and Judy Show.

There's a decency about them that shines through, a sisterly togetherness that's enviable, and a real sense that they have character beyond the court.

In the flesh, they are almost beautiful, perfectly mannered and so down to earth they would put a lot of stars to shame.

There comes a time in every woman's life, however fabulous her figure and however many years she has shaved off her age, when she can no longer show a G-string.

Nancy Dell'Olio demonstrated this truth in Lisbon at the weekend. The skin-tight black satin ruched hipster combat trousers - Nancy was never one to do things by halves - were accompanied by a matching black G-string on display and it was not a pretty sight.

Now this doesn't mean she can't wear one, or show it off in the privacy of her own home, but undies outside your clothes look very silly after 40, and even sillier when you are surrounded by twentysomething footballers' wives and look like their mum.

Gilchrist stays cool while the dispute hots up

Too sick to attend a vote threatening to plunge us into another round of crippling strikes, yet well enough to attend Euro 2004, that's Andy Gilchrist for you.

Dressed in a pair of rather unfortunate shorts that did not spare his plump legs, the leader of the Fire Brigades Union headed out to Portugal and some desperately needed intensive poolside therapy for his mystery illness.

Most of us end up in bed when we're sick, not in a pool. It's treatment, Mr Gilchrist, but not as we know it. If that's stress, bring on the sun lounger.

High spot of the schoolgirl curriculum

Head teacher George Thomas's decision to ban all skirts from Kesgrave high school, Suffolk, and make girls wear trousers, is a clear indication he has lost control, if not the plot. Rows over the lengths of skirts are as crucial a part of any girl's education as maths.

At my school, morning assembly was the place for the spot check. We kneeled while the teachers checked that our hems were the requisite one inch above the knee. By the time we were with the boys and on the buses home, they were pelmets. But it's all about having rules, breaking them, then realising why they're there.

You try getting a job in the City wearing a belt instead of a skirt. And any head teacher who seriously can't enforce a decency dress code in his school should take a good hard look at himself.

Blunkett talks the talk, villains walk the walk

David Blunkett said he would "nail" the English soccer hooligan who was jailed in Portugal then walked free in Britain, a nation sighed. Do you think we're stupid, Mr Blunkett, or have no memory? We've heard it all before - the crackdowns on asylum seekers, suspected terrorists, illegal immigrants, street criminals, drunken offenders.

All I know, from bitter experience, is the tougher Blunkett talks, the more they walk.

Bird watcher Bill Oddie has proved that we do not only wish to view people behaving badly and that a love of all things bright and beautiful still exists in the hearts of between three and four million of us.

His BBC2 series Britain Goes Wild spies on birds and animals in their natural habitats and drew as many viewers as Hell's Kitchen on some nights, proving that reality TV is not the only reality we're interested in.