Tits Oot!

Some men are breast-obsessed; I pity them, forever in the thrall of two ungainly, wobbly bags of soft tissue, fat and fluids. Newspapers, also, can’t leave them alone, whether they are on page three or snapped at some distance by a hack with a telephoto lens and shaky hands. And then there’s the publicists’ favourite maximum exposure vehicle, the so-called ‘bikini body’, regularly served up, unbidden, on the Daily Mail online’s ‘sidebar of shame’. There’s no need for any of it, really there isn’t, no need at all. But what a perfect storm in a D-cup was whipped up when Nigel Farage was asked his opinion on air about the Claridge's Couple.

More than a hefty handful of Twitter users were outraged in equal measures by both the suggestion that others found the practice of breastfeeding in public variously, uncomfortable, lewd, common or just unnecessary and that they earnestly needed to believe that Farage wanted to put baby in the corner; have they not seen the movie? Nobody does that. But for the avoidance of doubt, he actually dismissed the incident as largely an irrelevance, saying that it surely it ought to be up to the business. A shame he plucked from the air the word ‘ostentatious’.

He meant, of course, conspicuous; one of ostentatiousness’s flamboyantly long list of synonyms, but all it takes is a word these days. Looking through that list I also find obtrusive, pretentious, brash, affected and tasteless; all words that others may easily employ to describe an activity which, as natural as it may be, is a private thing, the over-sharing of which may indeed detract from other’s enjoyment of the atmosphere of a high class tea room. Another synonymous phrase is over-the-top, but I personally find that description of events far too graphic for my liking.

Breasts, bellies, flabby thighs, back fat; I’m no fan of exposed unsightly flesh wherever it is situated. You’d never catch me with my tits out, even on the beach, so not wishing to see the display I simply stay away. That’s easy enough, you’d think, but you don’t need this stuff springing on you when you’re really not expecting it. I’m not offended by breast feeding, but unlike television commercials I can’t just fast-forward to avoid it and I’d prefer not to encounter it at every turn. It’s not prudish, it’s not selfish, it’s not even – sorry mumsnet – sexist or misogynist and I think I’m allowed to avoid it if possible.

A huge pair of jugs

Maybe cafes should all have nursing mothers’ areas, next to the milk jugs perhaps? And a large sign so you can choose to avert your gaze from the display of floury baps next time you go for a teat treat? After all, you don’t need your thought-train shunted onto the siding when you are trying to order a raspberry nipple, do you? I hear there are women intent on picketing Claridge’s and deleteriously affecting their trade in the time-honoured tradition of the easily offended. Isn’t it good to know that some rights are just so much better than other rights? I only hope they don’t end up making a tit of themselves.