Last week on the Paris Metro I had a marvellous boost. I’d been feeling wretched after a flaming row with my boyfriend on the station platform when a charming man tipped me a wink and chivalrously offered me his seat which I gratefully accepted. My eyes sparkled and my pulse quickened. Suddenly the day seemed so much brighter.

I can’t remember the last time I saw this happen in London on the Tube. Timid British men have become so terrified of a cruel rebuttal many have given up on gallantry altogether. As for chivalry, what’s that?

Throughout Asia thousands of bears live a life of torture on bear farms, in agonisingly tiny cages, so their bile can be extracted for use in traditional medicine to cure anything from headaches to haemorrhoids. 

Fortunately, there is a lot we can do to end this horrific trade.

Spare me the misery, writes Julia Stephenson. I’m happy to be childless.

I’ve just read another miserable article about a middle-aged childless woman rueing her lack of offspring.

'Oh woe is me,’ the lady will weep. 'I am doomed to a lonely future with no one to love me and mop my furrowed brow when I am in the old people’s home’.

So argues frustrated dog owner Julia Stephenson, owner of Nutty, the loveliest dog in England

When my mother died last year her small 13-year-old sheltie, Nutty, came to live with us in our London flat. But although I knew it would be difficult to keep a dog in town, it was a terrible shock to discover how anti-dog the UK has become.

This story in New Zealand begins with rescuers finding this poor little guy they named Ralphie. Someone had already taken him under their wing but they weren't equipped to adopt.

As the new film Chalet Girl is released, Julia Stephenson looks back on her days at an exclusive Swiss resort, and recalls how she and the other chalet girls were far from glamorous. In fact they were fairly podgy, and absolutely rubbish at skiing.