I suppose it's because I take it as given that as women, we all know that it's women and children who suffer the most in war. You can't protect yourself, you can't protect your children. The threat of sexual violence only adds insult to injury, and it is women, worldwide, and in all times, who have borne the brunt of it.

Most of us are lucky to have grown up in nations at peace. But I still know many women who've been raped. Raped by fathers, brothers, boyfriends, strangers.

Rape exists in every nation even in peacetime, but its use as a weapon of war should be no surprise to anyone who's read Susan Brownmiller's book Against Our Will. I have always remembered (though I paraphrase) General Patton's order concerning his own men: "In spite of my most diligent efforts, there will undoubtedly be some raping...and I want the offenders brought to me so that I can see them properly hanged." He was as good as his word, too - expeditiously trying and executing four American troops in Sicily who had raped Italian women.

Patton knew his history, and he knew that the story of conquest is indivisible from rape. But it was Brownmiller who made it clear that rape is not committed by retreating armies (too busy saving their skins) nor, generally, by front-line troops (too busy winning the battle). It is those who follow that cut a swathe through defenceless womanhood worldwide - the second-line Russians marching into Berlin, frustrated grunts in the Vietcong-infested jungle, irregular troops, militias, marauders and skirmishers of every description, in every war, everywhere, at every time.

In my lifetime, Americans have raped the Vietnamese wholesale, Pakistanis have raped Bengalis, Serbians have raped Bosnians, Israelis have raped Palestinians, and on it goes. The current world focus is on the Janjawiid militias, who are terrorising the women of Darfur, but in the most recent wars, militias raped virtually ALL the women in Liberia, while to this day, the women of the Congo are fair game for every soldier on every side, even those in the uniforms of peacekeepers.

As far as rape in warfare goes, the younger the victims the better (little girls are the best), and the more public the crime, the more effective it is - preferably gang-based, preferably in front of the men, preferably resulting in children of another colour, so that the entire fabric of society is shattered. There is no more certain way to plunge a nation into chaos than to pollute its women. So wholesale was the rape of Bengali women in the Bangladesh war that the government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared all such victims 'heroines of the state' to prevent them being ostracised or killed by their own families.

The adoption of resolution 1820 in the Hague will do nothing to stop rape in war, but it is at least a step in the right direction and let us hope that it leads to the crime being seen for what it is - a political strategy used by the unscrupulous to create conflict and disorder for generations to come.

Congratulations to them.

In a very sweet move, they both wore white and had a traditional cake, but with two brides on it. The ceremony was a traditional Jewish one conducted under a huppah - 'traditional' obviously being a fairly flexible word here.

The couple have repeatedly tried to get married in their 15 years together. For eight years they showed up at the courthouse each Valentine's Day and were repeatedly denied a marriage licence. Eventually they undertook a high-profile lawsuit to have California's ban on same-sex marriage ruled as unconstitutional.

For this, the couple were chosen to receive the county's first licence "in recognition of their unique role in the court's decision," said acting LA County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan.

Hundreds of guests and three television networks were on hand to greet the couple but of course, the nutjobs were also out in force with their placards complaining about how this will all be the end of civilisation as we know it.

What IS their problem? Do they seriously feel threatened by the level of personal commitment shown by these law-abiding, tax-paying adults? Are they equally threatened by Del Martin, 87, and Phyllis Lyon, 83, who married each other in San Francisco on the same day, the culmination of their 55-year relationship? In a world as fucked-up as this one, you'd think people would be happy to celebrate two human beings' obvious love for one another.

Nevertheless, whatever the right-wingers think, in the long run what might count for more is the pink pound (or gay greenback, in this case). There are about 80,000 resident gay couples in California and doubtless many of them will want to marry (there are said to be 650 lined up in San Francisco alone). With each couple spending a shedload on flowers, cakes, clothes and venues, any business connected with weddings stands to make a serious buck in the next six months.

So I hereby make a prediction - the world will not stop spinning on its axis because gay people get married. Let's see if I'm right....

As of yet, the hospital has released no other information and has declined to comment on rumours that the girl has been reunited with her mother, grandmother and surviving siblings.

Josef Fritzl remains in custody.

For more on this story, visit the BBC website.

For those who don't know, a gastric band is the update to the old stomach-stapling routine. You have a plastic band fitted over the greater part of your stomach, or a blow-up sac and silicon loop inserted, leaving you with a small portion of stomach above and the majority below. It doesn't block the passage of food into your lower stomach, but it slows it down and you fill up faster, so the theory is, you're satiated sooner and that helps to stop you eating.

In the UK, the operation is available on the NHS for people who are clinically obese (a body mass index of 35 or above) or have other health issues such as diabetes, heart disease or high blood pressure, and whose lives may be at risk if they don't lose weight. People also have to undergo psychological counselling about their reasons for overeating - after all, this is a lot of money to come out of the public purse for people who just can't lay off cream cakes.

But many people who have the op choose to go private, at a cost of about £7,000. And I must admit that that worries me. If you don't qualify for it on the NHS, should you be having this done privately? As with any operation, there are some risks involved, including anaesthesia and leakage, which can entail a second operation to correct the first, and having this kind of intervention means you don't have to deal with the underlying issues that made you overeat in the first place.

The Fern Britton story also raises another matter. Like Anne Diamond (another TV presenter - maybe it's a fat job), Britton chose to keep her operation a secret and, on top, made a nice packet on the side out of advertising diet foods. Both women claimed to have lost weight by diet and exercise. I'm all for being private over medical issues, but in my view, what they have done is fundamentally dishonest. They could quite easily have told their agents 'No'.

My personal attitude towards diet and exercise is hard line, as it happens. Women (and we know it's women, don't we?) are so bone idle when it comes to health and fitness. I've been fat and I've been thin and I don't believe a word of this cobblers about 'having tried everything' and having been unable to lose weight. Barring a tiny minority of people, if you diet and exercise, you lose weight - it's as simple as that. As my old driving instructor said one day as we stopped to let an enormous woman inch her way across the road: "They can't ALL have gland trouble..."

"I'm of the opinion that no-one should need that drastic an intervention," says Dr Dr Funke Baffour, who specialises in the psychology of weight management, on the issue of gastric banding. "I have had patients who are thinking about it, tell me they have done everything they can to lose weight, but, after discussing it, they haven't."

In an article by Anne Diamond, I was struck by these words: "Now I can do what I never thought I'd be able to - eat half a pizza and happily watch the waiter take the rest away." Now what, exactly, is so very difficult about that? For that matter, what is so difficult about saying no to pizza altogether? I eat maybe four a year, dear reader. And no, I don't find it easy. I LOVE pizza. I love bread and biscuits and cakes and chocolate. That's why there aren't any in the house.

Yeah, yeah, I know we all have 'issues'. Who doesn't? Who doesn't wish their parents had been kind instead of control freaks? Who wouldn't rather have a great job with more money? But doh - who wouldn't rather lie in bed than go jogging? Who wouldn't like to eat chocolate every day? Issues with food - and comfort eating - have to be dealt with the same way you deal with issues with drugs and alcohol and sex. See a shrink, not a surgeon.

Lifestyle, I feel, remains the main factor and it's no surprise that fat parents raise fat kids. I grew up in a lardy Celtic family with a thick line of obesity running through it - my paternal grandmother and aunt, my mother and my sister were all clinically obese and we ate chips with everything, along with huge mounds of bread and butter. But you don't have to accept your fat destiny any more than become an alky just because your parents were. In her 20s my sister lost over seven stone with diet and exercise - that's 98 pounds - and she struggles with her weight every single day. Her overweight son in his turn has now lost about five stone (70 pounds). This has entailed huge changes in their lifestyle, and iron-willed discipline.

This may not be the easy option, but it is by far the longest-lasting. In my view, gastric banding shouldn't be a lifestyle choice - it's just another example of whining adults wanting someone else to step in and sort out their problems for them.

My sister Carole underwent one of these a few weeks ago - a kind of 60th birthday present to herself. She'd developed the hooded eyes that our mother had, and the eyelid skin was actually beginning to drop onto her eyelashes.

To tell the truth, this might be one op that I also face in the future, because it's happening already on my right eye (the left eye was damaged in an accident and isn't drooping). Currently, I do eye exercises to bring the lid back up, but I feel this is only a holding pattern and won't last forever.

After she'd already booked the op privately, Carole found that in fact she would have been entitled to the operation on the NHS because it was actually beginning to impede her vision.

She opted for a local anaesthetic, partly for cost reasons (it was £1300 as opposed to £2500 for a general) and partly because she felt that general anaesthetics are something that should be avoided. Therefore she was awake for the procedure - not something she was looking forward to. Each eye took about 30 minutes, with pressure, but no pain.

After post-op recovery (she was discharged the same day), she was sent home with instructions to keep the stitches dry, which entailed having a messy face for a few days. But it all looks a great deal worse than it felt, she tells me - despite all this bruising, there was no pain to speak of. The picture left shows her at day one, with nice purple eyelids and the stitching very visible.

These pictures show her at about days three and five, as the bruising was beginning to spread. Her left eye swelled dramatically even during the operation, while the right eye showed much less trauma.

The third picture, with the yellow bruising (ultimately, it reached her top lip), is about a week after the op - the first day she felt able to leave the house, suitably masked with makeup. However, she still noticed she got some second glances in the street.

After only five days Carole went back to have her stitches removed. This was an inexpressible agony, as each eye had one long stitch, so they cut at one side and pulled at the other, at which point, she says, it was the worst pain she's ever endured in her life - like having 'hot barbed wire dragged out of my eyelids'. Fortunately, it was over quickly.

Afterwards, of course, she was itching and desperate to rub her eyes, which can't be done, and her right eye swelled up. After the op, this was the eye that had swollen least, so she was a tad surprised. Three weeks after the op, she is still having trouble with this eye because she can't blink fully. The surgeon says that this is because everything is tightening after the operation and the problem should ease within two months. In the meantime, she has a cream for night-time to prevent dry eye during the night, as well as a cream for the scars. In a month's time, she will go back for her 12-week checkup.

As you can see in these before and after shots, the op does indeed take years off you, making you look happier and more alert. Whether it is worth the pain and the money, however, has to be a personal decision. I balk at the idea, but my sister is certainly glad that she's done it.