Having your cake and reading it

I know this makes me a frightful Tory, but I've recently taken to visiting the Telegraph website.

This is partly because of their adverts on the tube about reading a quality newspaper in the afternoon, which amused me. It seems to be impossible to travel around London without being offered a free newspaper at the moment. I'm tempted to apply to write a column in the London Paper, but alas the only topic I can think of it along the lines of, 'just because it's free doesn't mean it's any good'.

My brief conversion to the Telegraph is also because I'm tiring a little of the Guardian. Yes I know I'm demographically and socially and politically destined to read the Guardian, but it's tiresome to read a story on climate change and then have to block a flights pop-up.

And nothing the Guardian says challenges me anymore. I broadly agree with most of what they say, although I think the newspaper's stance is probably slightly more liberal than mine. And so I do sometimes turn to the Telegraph, the Spectator, and such like, in the hope of reading something that will amuse or shock or anger.

So I was pleased to come across Boris' column in the Telegraph. The headline had me reaching for my pink address books (girls awake! we have a mission!) so imagine my disappointment when I found myself interested rather than annoyed by what he had to say.

The article is not flawless. The fact that a married man with four children is writing an article on the resurgence of women casts some doubts over his claim that the glass ceiling can now be permeated. And I was intrigued by the concept of rising IQs - can you make yourself more intelligent (not that, I'm sure, any of my readers need to)?

But all in all, I finished the article satisfied, if not to the equivalent of eating a large slice of chocolate cake, at least to the extent of a fair-sized muffin.