IT'S not a diet, it's not exercise - the key to health and well-being in later life is sex and lots of it. A study has concluded that regular lovemaking can keep you young, and that among middle-aged and older people, women are keenest to keep up the hanky-panky.

According to researchers at Sheffield University, mature people enjoy their love lives because they have more self-esteem and are less concerned with their body image than when they are younger.

Former Bond Girl Honor Blackman, now 75, has said: "I believe we can enjoy some of the best sex of our lives when we are older, and that we know exactly what we want from intimate relationships."

What a lot of tosh. That may be the case for an ex-Bond girl, who probably has the money and time to keep herself looking 20 years younger. But for the rest of us it's a different story.

I have a wide circle of friends in their late thirties and early forties and not one of them is happy with their body, and most would do anything - clean the loo, wash the car, service the central heating - to escape sex.

In fact, they have so many hang-ups with their bodies that they would cry if their other halves spotted them in anything more revealing than an M&S nightie. One thing, however, is true - as Ms Blackman said, we more mature (physically, not mentally) women know exactly what we want from intimate relationships. We want:

- To be sure that we're going to get a decent kip every night and not be harassed by a bed partner who makes repeated attempts at foreplay.

- At least half the double duvet for the whole night. With no attempt at 2am by husband or boyfriend to steal the entire thing and weave a tight cocoon around themselves to prevent your ever getting it back.

- To be able to lie back on a bank of pillows on your own, sacred side of the bed (complete with strands of razor wire and CCTV) and read trashy, raunchy novels without interruption.

- A cup of tea and toast in bed on a Saturday morning. And a newspaper would be nice.

- Exclusive use of the bathroom for an hour before retiring - so we can use our exfoliating bars and pummelling sticks to attack cellulite, with no fear of husband or boyfriend barging in to use the toilet or rummage through the laundry basket for half an hour to find a reusable pair of boxer shorts.

- To feel entirely comfortable and unselfconscious in whatever type of heavy-duty nightwear - cassock, surplice or shroud - we happen to select for ourselves from the Nuns and Monks UK mail order catalogue.

That's what older women want in an intimate relationship - not Ann Summers' lingerie and nightly hot sex action. It's not too much to ask, is it?

THE scenes last Tuesday in New York were horrific and terribly disturbing. As the news came through, it gave me - and many others - a feeling of nausea. Suddenly, our everyday lives seem at risk, our homes, our families, our very existence. Sitting at my desk, I had an overwhelming desire to go home to my children.

In Britain - unlike the Balkans or Middle East - we live in such a safe society, we happily go about our business, and if we are honest, we are complacent about our comfortable existence. But, as the events across the Atlantic have shown, it does not take much to change everything.

I know it is simplistic, but I wish everyone, everywhere, could live harmoniously. If we carry on like this, I can't see a future for any of us.

The prophecy by Mother Shipton of Knaresborough springs to mind: "The world then to an end shall come... In..." The year has been changed many times but it does end with a number one.