Next week ITV is showing the second series of Case Sensitive, starring Olivia Williams and Darren Boyd, and based on Sophie Hannah's The Other Half Lives. In the latest number of the Radio Times, Sophie has a piece entitled 'The Sex Question' in which she reflects on the gender make-up of detective partnerships. In that connection she has some more general observations about how women relate to one another as compared with how men do.
My female friends and I talk about almost nothing but our personal and emotional lives. We constantly ask one another the following questions: what do you think he meant when he said X, Y or Z? Am I an idiot for staying with him? He says he loves me, but does he mean it? Why do I get trapped in one destructive relationship after another?
Men prefer to talk about what my husband calls "other, more interesting things": dormant volcanoes, rare animal species, old maps, polar expeditions - and male TV cops are no different. Recently, my husband met up with a male friend of his whose marriage is a disaster. Afterwards, I said, "Did you ask about the state of his relationship?" "No," he replied, wincing. "I don't want to know about his love life. It's none of my business."
