[patsylimerick]

I watch Oprah sometimes - it's on the main network channel in Ireland. When I was pregnant it was required viewing, with a box of tissues at hand - Oprah speaks directly to oestrogen. It's remarkable. She's a bit hit and miss for me, though. She's done some incredible shows on the status of women in different cultures around the world and is incredibly strong in this respect. No-one on this side of the Atlantic is doing anything like what she does in relation to women's rights around the world. However, the whole I'm so rich I could buy your country, thing, is hard to swallow if you have a European taste palate. I remember watching one about her 50th? or 60th? birthday party and we were told the price of everything - down to the hand-painted plates imported from Botswana or somewhere. Now here's the thing, in America people go oooooohh at that. Over here, we vomit. It's simply a cultural difference. I can't stand that about Oprah but she's an exceptional interviewer and broadcaster. I also felt really disappointed in Jonathan Frantzen when he refused to allow The Corrections to be Oprah's Book Club book of the week. It was so petty, self-indulgent and downright stupid to be such an intellectual snob as to refuse the ultimate commercial endorsement because you object to your book being read by Stepford Wives. Ridiculous. Turned me right off him. And it reminds me that Oprah has also done an awful lot to promote the teaching profession and the simple pleasure and edification of reading in the US.