· So, the verdict on the Bridget Jones sequel: she looks a bit fatter, especially around the chops, than in the first one, but there are fewer close-ups on wobbly bits jangling around as she chases after men in the rain. She must be at least a size 12. Oh, and we haven't the slightest idea what Kate Winslet's new film, Finding Neverland, is about, but we do know she turned up to the London premiere in a size-8 dress. She might claim she's simply returned to "normal" after having a baby, but we're sure the newspapers that proudly boasted of her new single-digit sizing (at last, proof that constant harping can pay off!) were there with tape measures to check she had the required 18-in waist. Keep 'em handy - you'll be needing them to make sure Renée's managed to shed those cumbersome breasts and hips when she makes it down the red carpet for Bridget: the Return.
· Another contender in the pointless measurements of the week competition: a new book, Numbers, by David Boyle and Anita Roddick, informs us that the "average woman" spends 40 minutes every day shopping. Presumably that includes buying lunch, paying for your bus ticket and picking up a pint of semi-skimmed on the way home from the job that doesn't actually allow for 40 minutes' swanning down the high street every day. And probably doesn't pay enough, either: this week's less pointless statistic is the news that the pay gap between men and women is wider than previously thought. According to UK pay analysts Incomes Data Services, women working full time are earning 19.5% less than men, not 18% as earlier surveys had indicated. If only we spent less time shopping, we might start earning a bit more, eh?
· Reader Janet Lees emails with a suggestion to help the women of Saudi Arabia, who, you might remember from last week's column, are not to be allowed to vote or stand in next year's elections because of a lack of women to staff the polling stations (which must be women-only). "You hear lots about international electoral persons overseeing elections in countries where the international community has an interest in the outcome," she says. "So what about women of the world volunteering to 'man' women-only voting stations in Saudi Arabia?" Excellent plan, we think, and one that presents the Saudis with an easy way around what would seem to be their purely practical difficulties in this little matter.
