I had the pleasure and the misfortune of watching a few episodes of “The Housewives of…” just recently. It was unavoidable as I had promised my daughter that I would be her hairdresser that day and she had the remote for the Zombie box and it was her chosen poison that morning.

It became a sobering reminder of the fact that sometimes the blunt and mindless school playground behaviour that we all hope gets left behind in our primary and secondary years, at a time when we can sort of say that we didn’t know any better, actually follows- no, stalks us- into adulthood. We like to think  that we’re beyond this sort of behaviour but I think it can snare any of us at any time, given a ‘Goldilocks’ moment.

And the behaviour is definitely not exclusive to women. Though many of the men would roll their eyes and sigh at the latest “She did this… you’ll never guess what happened next…she’s soo uninvited..”, retreating into their offices most of the time, sometimes they felt compelled out of loyalty to defend their partners. Cockfighting was narrowly missed on a few occasions. Thank Heavens.

I read an article recently that had me chuckling. Put the political aspect of this aside. Tosh McDonald, a powerful man and president of the train drivers union, Aslef, said that he used to set his alarm early so that he could hate Margaret Thatcher for an extra hour each day.

These are successful women, driven to getting what they want, at whatever cost. And I suppose it’s that last point that makes them leave their brains behind and decide to sling mud. These are not stupid ladies. They know they can’t use sticks and stones but mud is soft and sticks so well and nails hurt and extensions come out with just a little more tug when angry.
Oh, and they don’t kid themselves; one thing they definitely corrected from the school playground: that names will always hurt.