STAND by your man. And tell the world you love him. Keep giving all the love you can...Why? Why should a woman stand by a man who is helpless and hopeless and keeps making the same mistakes and can't or won't change? He only needs a woman to stand by him and give him two arms to cling to because he's incapable of standing on his own two feet.

Yes, of course, loyalty is a wonderful thing. We forgive a lot in our partners, and they in us. Good times, bad times, bumpy bits along the road most of us take in our stride, forgive and are forgiven, and get on with life together.

But then most of us aren't publicly humiliated on the front pages of the world's media. Again and again and again.

Alex Best is the latest. After eight years of trying to cope with George and his drunken, womanising antics; nursing him through liver failure and then his transplant and yet more drunken exploits, she has finally had enough. When he picked up a girl in a bar in Malta, Alex flew home and left him to it. If she has any sense, this time she won't go back.

But an amazing number of women do.

Sometimes, there is a mystery to married life of which outsiders can have no inkling - why else would Mary Archer stay with Jeffrey? Other times, there are other reasons. Hillary Clinton said famously that she wasn't going to do a Tammy Wynette for Bill, but she did.

On the other hand, all that publicity about Monica actually got the great American public on Hillary's side for the first time ever. She was standing for the senate. There's talk of the presidency. She needs the public on her side, so her loyalty, however motivated, was actually a cunning career move.

Not so for many wives. Think of all those brave-faced politicians' wives standing by their weaselly cheating husbands for the sake of his career. "Ditch him!" we all yell when we see them smiling bravely on their doorsteps.

Jerry Hall had the right idea. No one messes with Texans, not even Mick Jagger, who cheated just once too often. Jerry has shown great generosity by cheerfully welcoming Mick's two-year-old son from his fling with a Brazilian model into the family "He's my children's brother," she says magnanimously. However, Mick himself is not so welcome and Jerry has made a new life for herself. Go for it girl.

For generations, women had no choice but loyalty. On their own, especially with children, life was impossible. But not now. There is a line between being loyal and forgiving and being a doormat. Or a punchbag. And once that line's crossed, it's time to get out. Otherwise your man might just bring you down with him. And if he can't stand on his own without your arms to cling to, then tough. Let him fall. It's his problem not yours. Step over him and get out. While you can.

I CAN shop in grammes, weigh myself in kilos, drive in kilometres and even drink in fractions of litres.

But it's no good. When I'm dripping in the heat, there is no way that 37.9 degrees Celsius sounds anywhere NEAR as hot as 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

HOORAY for lorry drivers. On Saturday morning, the A1 was solid with traffic and I was trying to get onto the carriageway. Scores of drivers went past - too rude, too idle or too timid to either pull over or slow down to let me in. Until an HGV came along and, of course, the driver pulled over.

It was the same at Scotch Corner roundabout - traffic all the way round and down the slip roads. It wasn't until a big wagon pulled up to let people through that the deadlock was broken.

The heat brings out all the weekend drivers onto crowded roads. It makes us all bad-tempered and irritable. When everyone is getting hot and bothered, it's wonderful to see the HGV lads who, unlike most Saturday motorists, actually know what they're doing, keep their cool and remember their manners.

Thank you.

WATCHING a trailer for that programme about taking children back to the 1950s school made me realise that mine was probably the last generation to know what an ablative absolute was. Not to mention a gerund, gerundive and a pluperfect passive subjunctive.

Has it enriched my life?

Er...

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