Policywonk, in Hobbs and em and ess, LIVE FROM THE G20

[policywonk]

YOWZA

He He - you know us too well DesperateHousewife! We were indeed handflapping and shouting at the screen "Say Mumsnet, Say Mumsnet!" But she couldn't have done a better job, could she?

Re Robert P - not an official nickname. He is indeed nice though.

"it is not unIslamic to have spaces between births (as in, not get pregnant, produce baby, get pregnant again). Surely, this is the best way forward, to engage the leaders in communities and to find alternatives that are more progressive, while being culturally acceptable?"

I may have this totally wrong, but I understood that Muslim women are encouraged to BF for 2 years, and one of the "benefits" of this is that their husbands are not supposed to require sex from them during that time. I was told this by an elderly Muslim woman. It may not actually be in the Qu'ran.

Here she is again. Go pw!

www.switchnewmedia.com/clients/G20Voice/live.htm again for people

OOO this is so exciting! But who's Robert Preston (sorry, very dim I know )?

Robert Peston is the BBC business/economics editor.

Does he wear slip-ons too though?

I'm quite smitten with the child - such a nice boy.

Oh bugger I can't listen at work (no sound card in the pooter ) will have to listen in later.

Did Pesto appreciate the joke PolicyWonk? He always comes across as very dry and humourless to me.

RP seemed honestly very friendly and pleasant. Whereas John Pienaar was much more distance and professional/busy (not unpleasant but not particularly friendly either).

Mark Malloch Brown has run away but apparently we might have MANDY soon

More coffee!

Re. Mollie's q - he took it seriously at first (because he takes bloggers seriously I suppose, which is a good thing). He's not to know that we were just joshing with him. But when I said it was a joke really, he told me to ignore his previous answer

JP was always like that whether on or off duty.

Robert Peston on bbc 1 news at moment. Didn't hear what he said but I'm sure he's talking about being on the radio with Policywonk earlier.

You could collar Mandy about flexi working - how business should see it as an opportunity to keep key staff who otherwise will leave (especially women) rather than a pain...

Ask Mandy if he's grateful he's been given a second chance. He bloody well should be.

Good work PW.

Georgimama: I'm just taking that from a documentary I saw. In some of the rural areas in Afghanistan, the women were encouraged to sprog as soon as possible, but they're now getting the local imams to encourage them to space births out. I don't at all know the official Quranic position on this.

Oh no, neither do I. I'm basing this on my anecdotal knowledge of one woman. And the official Quranic position on plenty of things probably has bugger all to do with what illiterate women in rural areas of Afghanistan are told Allah wants them to do, unfortunately.

Third chance grumbling - he's resigned from government twice so far.

A lot of apparently Muslim practises are not derived from the Qura'an at all, they are cultural. For example, women being covered from head to toe in heat-absorbing, black abbayahs in the Middle East (while the men waft around in heat-reflective white ) is cultural not religious.