Has anything changed?

No surprise there. These days, if you want to stay at home with your children you’re usually very rich, very poor or very determined. For the rest, life is one long balancing act.

But wasn’t it always?

There seems to have grown up a rosy cosy vision of what life used to be like when mothers stayed at home – mothers and children in a constant round of activities together. Helping in the kitchen, reading in front of the fire, playing in the garden, listening with mother. (Are you sitting comfortably?) A real-life Ladybird book.

Really?

Back in the Fifties, for instance, it was surely housework more than children that kept mothers busy. All that washing, cleaning, sweeping and scrubbing before machines did it all. All those nappies to be boiled. All that shopping to do every day, before there were fridges. All that cooking, baking, all those heaps of soil-covered vegetables to be cleaned and trimmed and chopped. And that was before the knitting, darning, sewing, mending…

And where were the children in all this? That's why Fifties children roamed the countryside with a freedom that seems almost reckless today – their mothers wanted them out of the way so they could get on with their housework in peace. Older children took babies and toddlers with them too. Health and safety?

Children ran errands and did much of the family shopping, looked after younger brothers and sisters and other peoples’ babies.

Parks and playing fields would be overflowing with children, prams, pushchairs and rarely an adult in sight. Meanwhile, mothers could get on with their work in peace.

True, there was the occasional mother who supervised piano practice and had time to entertain their children and keep a close eye on what they got up to.

But they were a rarity. Even in those idyllic days, most mothers had other things to do than look after children.

Nothing new there then.

Having fled from France ahead of the Nazis, the Duchess of Windsor, the former Mrs Wallis Simpson, realised she’d left her favourite bathing costume behind at the villa.

And with the great gratitude at getting away and with the fine spirit of self-sacrifice prevalent at the time, she demanded that men were sent back into occupied France to retrieve it.

What breath-taking arrogance.

Aren’t we so lucky that she never became queen? And as her husband the Duke of Windsor, briefly Edward VIII, allowed all this to happen, aren’t we even luckier that he abdicated?

A glass of wine makes you more attractive, says new scientific research.

Of course.

But only if the person looking at you has drunk it…

At last it’s official. Scientists have measured 15,000 men and discovered the exact measurement of the average manhood – 3.6ins when relaxed and 5.16ins otherwise.

If you have men in the house, this news will also explain why your tape measure’s disappeared from the sewing basket.

We once went to a wedding held in a private chapel, unusual in that the pews didn’t look towards the altar but faced each other across the aisle, so when we weren’t craning sideways to look at the bride and groom, we were gazing across at the other side – great for checking out all the outfits while singing Love Divine.

It was a great occasion but all the chaps on our side were doing a lot of jokey pretend facing up to lot on the other side of the aisle. All in good fun, but…

Two groups of people facing each other like that almost invites a fight. You’re facing up to each other, with all that implies.

Just like the House of Commons… In most modern legislatures, representatives sit in a horseshoe formation. However clear the divisions, there are no obvious distinctions within the debating chamber.

Everyone faces the same way – as if emphasising their common purpose rather than their differences. Meanwhile, Westminster’s opposing benches almost invite confrontational, yah-boo, bear-garden bad behaviour. It doesn’t do much to make the rest of us think that our representatives are sensible, serious grown ups with the interest of the nation at heart.

The building at Westminster is in desperate need of repair. Speaker John Bercow said this week that in its present state it won’t last another twenty years and needs £3bn worth of rescue and modernisation.

Excellent. What a perfect opportunity to rip out those opposing benches and install a nice big horseshoe.

Horseshoes always did bring good luck to a marriage.

So farewell then East Coast now Virgin and Stagecoach have taken over the line, even though publicly-owned East Coast actually made lots of money for us all.

Virgin are promising more frequent, better trains. I hope they’re good to their staff. Even when things went wrong, East Coast staff were generally among the best in the business – friendly and helpful.

Best of all, East Coast had a brilliant Rewards scheme which meant it was fairly easy to rack up enough points to go whizzing up and down to London first class and free.

Now we’re going to have to make do with mingy Nectar points. What a swizz.

Let’s hope Virgin proves my pessimism to be misfounded.