RICHARD KEYS, he of the Andy Gray Sky sexism debacle, described a conversation in which he referred to a young woman as "it" as "stone age banter".

Interesting use of words that.

Banter implies an amusing, good-humoured two-way exchange worthy of Beatrice and Benedict or Hepburn and Tracy.

What this actually was is something completely different.

It was nasty, snide and not meant to spark off a witty exchange.

It was abuse. The sort of abuse that is meant to reinforce the sad, little barriers some people construct to keep out those they deem different, the sort of abuse that allows weak, immoral people to feel a modicum of power over others.

And funny? The Chuckle Brothers have more going for them.

I have heard a lot of men wailing this week about how it's OK for women to make comments about men not being able to multi-task or see the common sense solution.

I cannot remember any woman using such comments to, say, question the ability of a specific male nursery nurse to understand 'quiet time' because he wears boxers.

Let's get out of that mental cul de sac, and avoid the other logical dead end where male columnists were this week making much of the "sin of thought".

Like Gordon Brown before them, Keys and Gray were caught saying unfair and nasty things about someone specific, here lineswoman Sian Massey, while wearing microphones. And this pair were on camera.

They were not in the bar of their local, they were in their workplace.

Try making comments about your female colleagues' ability to do their jobs and see how quickly you end up in a disciplinary hearing.

Somehow, it has become all we women's faults that Keys and Gray are unreconstructed dinosaurs with a talent for nasty comments. We are all taking it way too seriously, we should have more of a sense of humour.

In reality, the only sin we have committed is allowing men like this to get away with it for so long.

THE protests in north Africa must teach us a lesson here in Europe, and in the USA.

For too long now we have been propping up corrupt regimes which savagely repress any opposition because western governments fear the establishment of extreme Muslim states.

This cannot go on. We can no longer give our backing to regimes which stamp on any opposition while paying lip-service to the need to spread democracy.

If anything will end up in these kind of states, it will be the age-old vicious spiral of repression, revolution and terror.

Time for us to put all our weight behind moves to get the governments of countries where there are popular protests to listen to the protesters and address their genuine grievances.

AND finally...

Coastguards couldn't believe their ears when they were called out to a remote island off Scotland to save a marooned man - called Daniel Defoe.

Mr Defoe, the namesake of the Robinson Crusoe author, and a female partner were stranded by the rising tide on Cramond Island.

He used his mobile phone to raise the alarm.

A spokesman for Forth coastguard said: "The man was a bit sheepish about revealing his name at first."