At about eleven o'clock in the evening the other day, I heard a thud and found that someone had thrown an egg at my "Not in My Name" poster. What kind of person goes about with loose eggs in the middle of the night?
Occasionally, the Daily Mail rings to ask me to contribute to one of its round-ups - "Are all Frenchmen lousy lovers?" "Yes," says Yvonne Roberts (or "No" as the case may be), "No," says Virginia Ironside. This time it was about whether the G (for Grafenberg)-spot exists. I was very pleased to be able to say that, after looking for years, I was convinced it was just another will-o'-the-wisp designed to make us all feel even more sexually inadequate than ever. If I knew where he lived, I would like to throw eggs at Dr Grafenberg's window. The whole exercise reminded me of the time that I printed a letter on the problem page at Woman from a lady who said that although she enjoyed sex, she never had orgasms and what was wrong with her? I hoped to reassure readers that orgasms were not the be-all and end-all of everything. "Don't worry," I told her. "Lots of people don't have orgasms, but they enjoy the closeness, the sensuality, the deep affection, the cosy cuddliness of sex." Now, surely, no one would ever write to me again whining about not having orgasms. But no. In the next post came a letter. "Dear Virginia," it read, "I read your answer on the page. I have three orgasms a night, but never experience these other feelings you mention. What is wrong with me?"
Since I am so very bad-tempered when it comes to committee meetings or fundraising, most of my shamefully small amount of good work is done either by sporadic gifts to unlikely causes (last donation was to a village devoted to helping children who had been forced to become soldiers somewhere) or by popping round to see old ladies. Most of my old ladies have died recently, but I always try to have one or two on the go. It's good for the soul. They are also extremely nice and interesting. I have a couple at the moment of whom I am extremely fond, one who used to go out with Lucian Freud when he was only 17. She rang me the other day to tell me that she was worried because her GP's receptionist had told her she had rung four times about the same thing on the same day. This surely must be the most agonising time of old age, when you hover in the interface between razor-sharp brain and memory, and senility. I do hope I shall become some younger person's old lady one day.
I have been campaigning relentlessly to stop Transport for London introducing a tram to west London. Everyone thinks that trams are lovely things - hold on little Noddy! Tring tring! - but the trams that are being dreamt up these days are four squash courts long (or four killer whales long, whichever you prefer) and will close main roads, force traffic into residential streets, cause gridlock and devastate business in the local area. Funny how, on a bad day, I can slag off Shepherd's Bush as being a ghastly place full of rubbish and drug-shootings - but when it comes to defending it against trams, I can wax lyrical about its diversely ethnic qualities, its village-like vibrancy, its multicultural magic. Both, of course, are true.
I recently had to chair an anti-tram meeting during which Tim Jones, the tram man at Transport for London, spoke to 250 furious residents. It was extremely difficult calming down a mob which apparently wanted to tear the man who was speaking limb from limb when that is exactly what I felt like doing to his beastly plans myself. Before the meeting, Tim Jones came up to me. "One thing I will not stand for," he said, "is personal insults." He even had it written down on a piece of paper: "No personal insults". When I told our MP, Clive Soley, about this, he roared with laughter. "No personal insults!" he said. "Welcome to the world of politics!"
I went up to Brick Lane to meet a living saint - Valerie Taylor OBE. During her VSO work in Bangladesh, she realised there was no provision for paraplegics in the country at all. She now lives in Dhaka, devoting her entire life to them. One of her most cunning ruses has been to get two young women, one completely paralysed down the left side, the other completely paralysed down her right, to start weaving, working as one person. She receives most of her money from the 500,000-strong Bengali community here (80 per cent of Indian restaurants in this country are Bengali). There is a 95-strong group of young Indian businessmen who raise money for her work. They call themselves BOBs - which stands, charmingly, for Bunch of Bengalis.
In August, I shall be a grandmother. It is the most extraordinary feeling. I have stared at the scan, at its huge head and skinny arms, with a feeling of affection that I never felt for my only son when I was pregnant. I've decided that it's because I know what's coming. Grandmaternal feelings are already pouring out of me like sweat. I want to take it to the Science Museum, to the park, swimming, teach it the old songs (whatever they are), bounce it up and down on my knee. I am desperate to be the kind of grannie that I had - a woman full of fun, patience, treats and mischief.
Cripes. Old ladies, here I come . . .
