Angelina Jolie should ignore these piercing attacks - Daily Telegraph

My mother would not allow me to have my ears pierced before I was 16, saying that it was common for young girls. On that silly basis alone I gave in to my own daughters pleading when she was nine.

And I suspect that snobbery, not genuine concern, lies behind the carping over Jolie. As it is, she can do no right, being too beautiful, too well adorned by her gilded partner and their crocodile of rainbow children. She broke neither the laws of taste or guardianship, only the celebrity commandment: thou shalt not get caught.

Forget Rihanna theres better flesh running wild in the fields

Whats that dangerous beast grunting in the field during the deer rutting season? Why, its the new scourge of farmers, Rihanna, in a gingham bikini. The country is crawling with over-sexed mammals, but the four-legged kind deserves our attention.

The population of deer is well over 1.5 million, at least one quarter of which must be culled each year to keep the herds healthy and prevent the deer from razing natural vegetation down to the soil.

Meanwhile, alarmed consumers watch the price of meat such as pork and lamb rise. Thankfully, there is a cheap and healthy alternative close to hand. Consumption of game (venison, rabbit, hare and birds) is rising (it is now widely available in supermarkets) but we still export a mountain, mainly to an appreciative Europe. Persuading shoppers to buy game remains uphill work.

Urbanites regard shot game with squeamishness, believing shooting deer is ''cruel yet are happy to eat industrially reared pork. Likewise, they criticise pheasant shooting as the sporting pursuit of Downton types, even when the shoots generously subsidise the price of this nutritious meat.

This week a woman in a London park was knocked over as she photographed a territorial stag.

Well, dont waste time taking its picture, love; buy a saddle or haunch, roast it and eat with red currant jelly. Its much safer.

Fat chance of tax working

The Danes are the first in the world to impose a ''Fat Tax, in a move to slim the population. Its a good move but unlikely to solve the problem. The tax is levied on the levels of saturated fat in foods, so there will be more to pay on a slab of butter than a packet of crisps.

This is wrong. We are more likely to eat several packets of crisps, which are also loaded with carbohydrate and salt, than pile through a pack of butter alone.

Branded convenience foods are the most addictive, because they are cleverly crafted to encourage us to eat more.

Under the Danish rule a Happy Meal will have less tax levied on it than butter. The fast food industry, one imagines, will be lovin it.

What women want (to eat)

From the flurry of cookery books published on Super Thursday this week, all of them vying for the Christmas bestseller list, I pick out Flash Cooking by Laura Santini. Highlighting fast, easy-to-prepare, nutritious and flavour-packed food, the recipes are carbohydrate-free but indulgently spiced and sauced. I love it.

Santini, a restaurateurs daughter, is a cookery writer who understands women and has written a book that addresses our tiredness and moods, changes and emotions.

This is more than can be said for Jamie Oliver, who this week moaned that his wife, Jools, does not get what he does.

After his petulant comments, Jools Oliver would probably prefer a copy of Santinis book to her husbands latest blockbuster. For dinner, give him the recipe on page 35: Tortured Sole.