yet more sexism in the workplace ....

I'm not at all surprised that football pundit Andy Gray was sacked for inviting a female colleague, Charlotte Jackson, to stick her hand down his trousers to adjust his microphone. My sympathy for him is limited. So is my sympathy for Ms Jackson. Did she get the job because she knew lots about football? Or could it have been because she was blonde and sexy?

No-one deserves to be spoken to like Andy Gray spoke to Charlotte Jackson; but perhaps she has less right to complain than she would have if she hadn't accepted substantial sums of money for appearing thus to readers of Loaded magazine:

Actually Ms Jackson hasn't complained at all, which is greatly to her credit. Perhaps she senses the weakness of her position.

But what about Richard Keys? All of his published utterances make him sound like a very unattractive personality. And yet. Being sexist is one of life's opinion options. It certainly isn't confined to Mr Keys, and it isn't confined to men either - has anyone watched Loose Women recently? And just as I am appalled at Gray and Keys's sexism, I have absolutely no doubt that I have opinions which a lot of other people find offensive. Should I lose my job for uttering them?

Being a grown up means being willing to mix with other people you don't agree with and don't like. That's true for anyone whose work and leisure activities bring them into contact with others. Seeing the self-righteous monstering inflicted on Mr Keys by the media generally and by Jane Martinson and Tanya Gold in particular in this morning's Guardian, the faintest stirrings of sympathy for Keys and dislike for those standing over him administering the kicking begin to arise.

Here's Jane Martinson -

If these remarks go some way towards changing behind-closed-doors behaviour, we can all claim a victory.

And here's Gold -

It will no longer be possible to casually spout your prejudice at work and feel secure.

Yes, Gold thinks that's a good thing. And Martinson wants your behind-closed-doors behaviour to change. If she doesn't like what she thinks you're doing.

The line between doing what Gray did and doing what Keys did is a fine one; but it's there, just. One person's prejudice is another person's opinion. And the day when having the "wrong" opinions gets you the sack is a bad day, not a good one.

lucky Miriam O'Reilly

So Miriam O'Reilly won her case against the BBC for age discrimination. Good for her. Obviously it's wrong for people in her sort of job to be sacked for being too old.

But was that really why she was sacked? I found myself thinking this morning about good old Robin Day. The bow-tied curmudgeon got into a lot of hot water once for suggesting that Anna Ford, pulchritudinous 70s newsreader, had only got her job because men wanted to sleep with her. The spirit of the age was against Day, and he was duly shouted down, but I suspect that he was right.

That's not to say that Ms Ford was incompetent; far from it. But perhaps she got the job because, of all the outstanding candidates for it, she was the sexiest. And this is TV after all. Perish the thought, it might even be the case that one of the other applicants - someone else a bit less heavenly looking - could have done it better.

What's this got to do with Miriam O'Reilly? I have never watched Countryfile (although my wife, an insomniac, tells me that she was a dreary and hectoring presenter on Farming Today), but judging from the pictures in the paper this morning, she must once have been a bit of a looker. And the thought did cross my mind that perhaps a few years ago Ms O'Reilly got the job rather than anyone else because she was nice-looking; and that complaining about losing it when she was no longer quite so nice-looking might be a bit rich.

This morning Ms O'Reilly will be coasting downhill with the wind of bien-pensant opinion in her sails and a few extra quid in the bank; but I think she lived by the sword and died by it. Lucky Ms O'Reilly.