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the loss of her attraction for them. She seems convinced that old age begins at 50... Why is she so negative, so determined to be old? Dr. Greer, at 53, writes of being "mocked" and "pushed aside" by men and the dismissive young who, she claims, see her as an old bag, bat, crone or hag. A1l post menopausal women are swept into this dismal category as she elaborates on the injustice with mounting aggression. She shows no awareness of the many women, who, even in their sixties, can accept a few wrinkles and sags and enjoy a more relaxed and rewarding life than in the traumas of early youth. For her "the death of the womb" is final. One must ask, is this because she has never borne and brought up children?, has never used her reproductive organs as intended and knows it is too late? Western women [are] hypochondriachal because of their inward, self-oriented natures. It is a relief when Dr. Greer turns to Eastern and Third World women who, walking great distances with heavy loads and working from dawn to dusk, sleep like babies and pass the traumatic time of life too tired to care.... Once one has toughened up for Dr. Greer's clinical data there is much to enjoy. She has a nice line in sly humour, the face-lift and tummy-tuck brigade are sitting ducks - "a gallery of grotesques whose pathetic attempts to start all over again are the staple of our gossip magazines".... She is divertingly catty; a tiny dig at Elizabeth Taylor, but that's too easy and several whacking digs at Joan Collins who asks for it. "It has been said that If you are to fight age you have to decide between the face and the body. A cruder version says, 'It's either your bum or your face'. Jane Fonda (born 1937) has concentrated on her bum, with rather dire results for her face". Dr. Greer has crammed just about everything into this study with the skill to hold one's attention throughout. She can be witty and maddening especially when riding her feminist hobby-horse. And, though I'm an intellectual babe-in-arms by comparison, I think she's up the wall in her perception of old age, of dismissive men, of the "thoughtless, graceless young" and of much else. Dr. Greer cannot write badly and she is never dull. Her exceptional selection of prose and poetry is both moving and exhilarating I had never before heard of HRT. Hormone Replacement Therapy - it seems they're all on it from Thatcher to Collins. And that Great Old Girl, our author? Well, who knows? (Sunday Telegraph, September 29, 1991). I should add in her favour, that Germaine Greer is using her "formidable vitality" to transform three and a half acres of garden at her English home in the country northeast of London, "creating the landscape of her dreams". She also has two cats, one "a beautiful marmalade creature with eyes matching his fur" is introduced as Christopher Greer, plus Parrot Greer, who has a red tail... She has been quoted as saying "maybe there is something female about gardening", and "you have to be ruthless to be a good gardener". I can only hope that male gardeners will not become the subject of her next published outburst of frustrated anger. Finally, I have to confess that, late last night when I finished the draft of this newsletter, my tired brain would not stop running, and it started to compose a silly little poem as follows:-