I yield to no one

Angelina Jolie, the actress, has written a letter to the New York times outlining how and why she has had a mastectomy.

I don't want this.

It's not just that it's too much information (although it is), it's why she did it. Ms Jolie sees herself as a role model who can help other women in similar circumstances.

i don't see it that way. For me it is all of a piece with Bono, a singer, shouting at politicians about children in the Amazon rainforest, or George Clooney demanding to address the United Nations (in one of their only sensible decisions in decades, they refused to hear him).

I yield to no one in my respect for Ms Jolie as an actress; perhaps she is a good one (although I have a suspicion she isn't) and she must, of all people, realise that there is a difference between Mother Theresa and the actress hired to play her in a film (I'm sure Ms Jolie is too attractive to get the part, I am speaking figuratively).

I want Ms Jolie to be an actress, nothing more. If she uses some of her income to help women with breast cancer, that is excellent. We do not need as a standard bearer for a serious problem someone who for a living pretends to be something she is not.