CUT to the quick I am.

The executive officer at the school of environment and life sciences at Salford University has given me a hammering this week, calling my column banal, boring and insensitive.

She has written objecting to an item last week in which I agreed with just one of the evil Taliban's prohibitions -- caged birds.

She reminds us that the regime enforces its ban on nail varnish by amputating women's hands, and on lipstick by shooting or stoning women to death.

Tragically, women are excluded from working, have no access to education and no medical treatment.

She says any reporter worth their salt would have made the connection that they effectively cage their women.

I think we all know that. Anyone who has watched TV or read newspapers for the past month will have gathered that life for women, in fact anyone, in Afghanistan is no picnic.

The column is meant to be light hearted, and in no way do I intend to trivialise the horrors of what goes on in the world.

Regular readers know that I am an animal lover, and to discover that the maniacs of the Taliban, so vile with their own people, have a bit of compassion for little birds amazes me.

Unfeeling is the last thing I wish to be, but I suggest anyone who is bored by my page should screw it up and throw it away. Don't bother reading it.