Ladettism was marvellous when it first started. It really highlighted the deficiencies of old feminism, which - give it credit - had made giant steps with suffrage and equal pay, but never really made that final leap from the saloon bar into the smoky area, where the drinks were of a decent size, and they always had a lock-in. The defining photo of the age was Zoe Ball holding a pint aloft, as if to say, "This is mine, I tell you, all mine! I shan't be leaving any! It contains no lime, or other girly agent! Hark, I drink it down!"
Sara Cox, best friend to Princess Lad, formed the brace of new femininity. Denise Van Outen scooted along in the outside lane; her lad qualities were not so much boozing, as making a hell of a lot of noise. She was the girl equivalent of the guy in the pub who stands on the table and moons, while the rest of the lads are trying to have a fight. I'd say she was important to the movement, but by no means crucial.
They were taboo-breakers of the highest order, these females, though it's worth remembering that the main taboo they broke was the pint one - you didn't see any of them burping, or scratching their crack in the middle of an awards ceremony. Maybe that's one for the next generation.
Anyway, Coxy is no more, at least not in the hotseat. Ball has already forsworn a lot of the fun in favour of the homestead (give or take the laddish dalliance), and Denise Van Outen can't large it anymore, on account of the fact that she's starring in a musical - and once you're on the stage, you have to abide by the laws of the ballerina (like those of a nun, only you have to eat bog- roll as well; don't ask me why, I just know).
There were actually plenty of good reasons to fire Cox and shunt her to her successor Chris Moyles's afternoon slot, which have no bearing on the cultural mood at all. One, she was a bit coarse. It might be said this is a good, solid laddish quality - that's what lads do, they swear, they make mean jokes, then they swear some more. Cox ticked the boxes. She said the Queen Mother "smelled of wee", and she observed, rather keenly, that three people looked like burns victims, on the anniversary of the Paddington rail crash. What she omitted to do was be genuinely funny. This is a failing, in cuss-world. We can all say cocksucker (see, I just did). Only some people can say it at amusing moments. Two, Cox wasn't doing so well in the ratings, which I guess was something to do with One. Three, Chris Moyles is better than her. Cox is foxier than Moyles, sure, but that doesn't play so well on radio. I don't say that with an evil misogynist agenda. He's just a funny guy.
But despite these good reasons, most people are taking this to be a reflection of new, new femininity and a sign of the decline of the ladette. We ladies no longer want to get hammered and sing "Alice, Alice, who the fuck is Alice?" We're worried about our complexions. We're worried about our reputations. We're worried about our Manolo Blahniks (highly perishable, on the feet of the drunk). A lot of us are actually called Alice.
We don't want to be the people who wake up thinking "what have I done?" anymore. We want to wake up thinking "Peachy, I have time for a facial before brunch." This is the theory, anyway - the Sex in the City girls are now our ego ideals (all that divides them really is libido, otherwise they're the same person), and we don't want anything in common at all with the very much less groomed booze-monsters of our own nation's devising.
The killer clause of the Sex in the City contract is that you're still allowed to be a slapper. This isn't some kind of old-school morality play, masquerading as modernity by wearing Prada and having gay characters. But its other values are almost 19th century - you never see any of these women drunk. It's bizarre - you see them drinking cocktails at cocktail hour. Then you see them drinking wine with dinner. Then you see them moving on to a smart bar. Yet you never hear any of them saying, "Let's go on to a subterranean hole and drink till we're sick, and get a kebab!"
In a way this is James-Bond masculinity, in the sense that no amount of drink has any effect on them. But really, this is just old-school feminine decorum. God alone knows why we should aspire to such a thing, but apparently we do.
Ladettes are decorative but not decorous - they also don't tend to go in for high fashion so much, since the defining feature of high fashion, apart from costing a lot and only looking good on thin people, is that it's got funny belts and straps and fastenings all over the place, and only a sober person would be able to get it on and off.
The question is, though, do these new aspirations properly reflect the behaviour of young women today, or do they simply reflect the fact that the people who chunter on about young female activities - me, for instance - are no longer all that young, and can't even look at a cocktail menu without thinking, "Rum and whisky? On a bed of three pints? With a B52 chaser? What am I actually planning for tomorrow? Suicide?"
In fact, young women are drinking more than ever. The number of women drinking above recommended guidelines has risen by half in the last 15 years. According to a Scottish study published in July, one in four binge-drinking women is under 24, professional, with a high disposable income and an insatiable lust - but no, not for an oaky chardonnay! For a pint!
Naturally, this is terrible, and they're storing up long-term health problems, blah, blah and furthermore blah, but it does underline a couple of things. First, booze is not like shoes or tops or pursebelts - it is fun in its own right, and we won't stop doing it just because a telly programme decides it's not cool anymore. Second, when one generation of women gets too pussy to take the hangover, it doesn't necessarily follow that their younger sisters are also going to give it up. And third, ladette culture, far from being over, is at its peak. All it's waiting for is a new raft of spokeswomen.
Although I place myself firmly in the generation that likes Sex in the City, I actually hate it. I hate the programme itself, and, furthermore, I hate the Bailey's sponsorship taglines that come before it: "Have you ever ... ordered two desserts ... just because ... you couldn't decide?" (Well, no, what a revolting, childish, wholly reprehensible idea! How are you supposed to get drunk properly with that amount of egg-based goo swilling around?) Plus, I wouldn't seriously contend that I drink less than I used to. I just complain about it more afterwards.
So, while, broadly, I blame women of my own age and profession for peddling the decline of ladettism when it isn't actually in decline, I would like to exonerate me personally.
