SHARRON DAVIES is an Olympic medal-winning heroine.
A woman who devoted years of her life to gruelling 5am starts and endless laps of verruca-plastered swimming pools.
A woman, in other words, who knows her stuff.
Except no.
Fat, hairy, Dave, from Swansea, and armchair-fan Paul, from Frinton — who, possibly, aged seven completed their 25-metre swimming badge — know better.
For having the temerity to say that male-to-female trans athletes have an unfair biological advantage, Sharron has been torn apart and savaged by the digital dogs.
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For standing up for women’s sport, Sharron now faces bankruptcy.
And for demanding women’s spaces be kept sacrosanct, she’s been dropped by charities — organisations relying solely on the kindness of others to keep them going.
The irony is lost on no one . . . well, bar those at the forefront of cancel culture, those calling for Sharron to be burned at the stake or shoved on a ducking stool. (Good luck keeping that freestyler submerged, chaps).
Says Sharron: “There’s been so much hate and bullying.
“It’s been very hard.
“Charities I’ve worked with for 30 years have dropped me, agents I’ve worked with for 30 or 40 years don’t use me any more, because the trans activists can be so vicious and malicious — they go after your work, after your brand, they attack everything.
“The money’s nearly gone now. But I can’t back down.”
Terrifying, and more Orwellian than Orwell.
Sharron, inset below, is not anti-trans. She is pro-fairness.
And it’s safe to suggest that those spewing forth their vitriol, those who love nothing more than a #bekind hashtag, haven’t been giving up their time for charity.
These flobby Twitter trolls, probably the last to be picked on any school sports team, haven’t been donating large sums of money to non-profit foundations.
And they certainly haven’t been asked by any charity to appear as guest of honour.
Because these tragic, mouthy little losers are far too busy cancelling others for any of that public-spirited nonsense.
Of course “liberals”, often those leading the charge for pernicious cancel culture, insist they’re all about freedom of speech.
Until, that is, someone disagrees with them.
Then, out comes the vile, threatening, abusive language in an attempt to shut down, and silence, said (free) speech.
Sharron — who was denied Olympic gold at the 1980 Moscow games by East German drugs cheat Petra Schneider, a woman dosed up on excess testosterone — knows a thing or two about biological unfairness.
As she says, mediocre biological males will always beat even elite female athletes.
But the cancel culture mob won’t listen to reason.
They just want their pound of biologically female flesh.
HALF of British women do no regular exercise post lockdown, a new survey has revealed.
Two in five said they’d dropped the habit of exercising during the pandemic, while only 15 per cent of adults were found to meet the NHS target of 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity a week.
This is beyond depressing.
Last week my dad spent eight hours in A&E with a suspected blood clot, and around 70 per cent of the other patients were seriously obese.
The woman next to him (sweetly) offered one of her chocolate-covered marshmallows, while all around us was a cacophony of crisp-munching.
Instead of nanny state-ing us with sugar taxes and banning BOGOF meal deals, the Government needs to be getting to the root of the problem – and actively encouraging exercise.
It costs nothing to strap on a pair of trainers and go for a walk. But where is the incentive?
FOR 30 years, Kate Moss has remained largely mute and completely mysterious.
The Croydon-born supermodel’s mantra has always been “never complain, never explain”.
Weird then that, aged 48, she appears to have developed a crippling case of Tourette’s – and simply won’t shut up.
First Kate, who was filmed apparently snorting cocaine in 2005, signs a megabucks deal with Diet Coke, chirpily telling the world’s gathered media: “I’ve always loved Coke.”
Then she does an interview with Vogue magazine, giving her tuppence-worth on the next generation.
And now she’s recorded a warts ’n’ all chat with Desert Island Discs, revealing she was targeted by predators as a teenager.
Presumably she’ll be cosying up on the sofa with Holly and Phil next.
AS PR stunts go, this backfired.
The chief minister of a North Indian state was airlifted to hospital after nailing a glass of water from a “holy river”.
Bhagwant Mann, who later suffered crippling stomach pains, was filmed merrily necking the polluted water in a bid to prove the success of a recent campaign to clean water bodies.
Which singularly disproves the theory that all PR is good PR.
MUCH has been made of just how diverse the Tory party of 2022 is in the wake of the recent leadership debates.
Racist, sexist, Marxist Labour should be quaking in their boots, apparently.
So then. Now down to the final two: Will our next leader be a PPE graduate from Merton College, Oxford, or a PPE graduate from Lincoln College, Oxford?
There it is. Diversity at its finest.
I’VE been banging the drum for Lionesses over three consecutive columns now, and with nine million of us watching their thrilling quarter-final victory against Spain, it seems we’re all converts.
(So I hope the male reader who emailed in last week, ranting “women every bit as skilled as the men, dream on, love!” followed by a stream of laughing emojis, and an aubergine, feels suitably humbled).
And as role models go, every one of the squad beats any contestant of Love Island, ever.
WE can all agree climate change is a Very. Bad. Thing. (Besides getting us a nice tan for this time of year).
The Government’s ongoing obsession with net zero is all very well and good – and worthy.
I don’t have children but yes, I too want my dachshund Dora’s grandchildren’s children to have a very nice life, unfettered by the prospect of a self-combusting sun.
But let’s not forget Great Britain is responsible for one per cent – ONE per cent – of global emissions.
We aren’t the bad guys here.
Until we start imposing meaningful sanctions on China – whose emissions exceed all the developed nations combined – it all just seems a little . . . futile.
IS there a more passive aggressive phrase* in the English language than “with all due respect”?
Kudos, then, to Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters for this seamless putdown.
The musician, livid because Canadian critics shunned his gig in favour of The Weeknd, responded: “With all due respect, I am far, far more important than any of them will ever be.”
FOR the past three and a half weeks I’ve been plagued with a debilitating spell of insomnia.
My new Oura Ring, pictured, – a high-tech piece of kit which tells you precisely how much (or in my case, little) sleep you’re getting at night – hasn’t really helped.
One particular low saw my “sleep efficiency” come with a health warning, my “deep sleep” measured as 29 minutes and my “sleep latency” – the time it takes to fall asleep – come in at a depressing four hours and 26 minutes, of which I can recall every painful, overthinking minute.
Cue a trip to the doctor and some hardcore sleeping tablets.
But not wishing to go too Michael Jackson, I’ve turned to the one thing I never thought I’d try – meditation.
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(And an app called Ten Percent Happier, for anyone remotely interested).
Which is probably as w***y as it sounds but, miraculously, doing the job. Who knew?
