Daftest column of the holidays?

Pity the poor Christmas holiday columnists, having to slave away over the word processor to provide pithy and topical reflections for us to fall asleep over.

With no Guardian published yesterday I had more time, while at the in-laws, to spend with both The Independent and The Times. And what a strong early contender for daftest column of the holiday season from Magnus Linklater, whose experience of a dinner party leads him to herald the splendid return of the Victorian tradition of "sending out the ladies".

I don't know whether the dinner party will survive the recession - I've been to so few recently that I wonder if it has survived into the 21st century. But if it has, it may be reverting to the customs of the 19th century. At the last one I went to, the ladies retired after dinner, leaving the gentlemen over the port - and instead of causing ridicule and outrage, the thing was judged a huge success.

Now, we may have to ignore that Linklater may have broken a key columnar rule here: I had understood that three anecdotal observations were needed to legitimately declare a social trend.

His main point is that, while the practice fell away because it used to be thought rather sexist, it can now be brought back safe in the knowledge that this would not now be sexist at all. Hurrah!

I think this is going to be hard to beat.

Unless, of course, you know better.

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