If Bryn Gilligan is reading this, he won’t approve of the above paragraph. Young Bryn took to Twitter recently to argue that Tasker’s novel should not have valuable column inches squandered on it, and that readers should not waste time reading it, when he, Bryn Gilligan, is no longer allowed to sprint competitively. Yes, you did read that correctly. Gilligan seems to believe, in a worrying lost-his-marbles kind of way, that because he suffers, Tasker must also deserve to. (Is this my fault, for drawing a parallel between them? Probably.) Gilligan is still engaging with his Twitter critics on an hourly basis, trying to persuade them that if they had been him, they too would have taken performance-enhancing drugs. When they declare themselves unconvinced, he tweets, “BLOCKED,” at them and then, as far as I can tell, neglects to block them and continues to try to win them over.

I pointed out to Gilligan that what he ought to want, rather than equal-footing pariah status for him and Tasker, is the opposite for both of them: acceptance, and a modicum of compassion. Gilligan didn’t respond, but Keiran Holland did, God help me. Holland retaliated with two lists, each of which he tweeted at me one item at a time, like an online drone attack. The first was of literary masterpieces composed by writers partial to mind-altering substances. The second was of critical and commercial flops written by the square and sober. These lists would have been a devastating critique of my position if only I’d argued, even once, that opium addicts were incapable of writing well and/or that all novels written without a narcotic boost were indisputably fantastic. Perhaps I’ll devote my next column to two lists of my own: one of brilliant sporting wins by those on steroids, and one of people who have never taken illegal drugs and can’t even run for a bus.

But wait! There I go again, writing about men without cleavages when Saint Paula has gone to the trouble of making herself extra-specially newsworthy to get my attention. In an interview with J’aime magazine, Our Lady of Self-Promo has revealed that, while married to diamond geezer Richard Crumlish, she had several extramarital flings in addition to the three about which we’ve all already said, “So what?” Two more, to be precise. To which I say, “So what? x 2.” I do wonder how Paula’s newly ensnared landowner-farmer second husband feels about it, though. Is Fergus Preece the kind of man who will happily and with a heart full of hope spend all his free time parceling up bottles of Clearasil to send to leopards? One thing’s for sure: he’ll need to be either extremely open-minded or exceptionally gullible if he’s going to go the distance with the People’s Pussy.