monitor

Monitor has received almost enough unsolicited approaches in recent years to consider himself an expert on the subject. This week was no exception, with a busy post bag and an exhausted fax machine. So Monitor has decided to take a lesson from the BBC's director general, and this is the week It is time to cut the (ahem) crap. It seems the simplest way to get rid of the - erm - unnecessary material is to use this week's column as an extended explanatory note about which sort of press releases get straight on a fast track to annihilation.

Among them, however, are some of Monitor's personal favourites. Stand up, press releases about impotence which centre on a Valentine's theme! This year, Colchester primary care trust carried the baton with a news release about the fact that a 'qualified psychotherapist for sexual dysfunction' (Mrs Monitor mysteriously laughs that she, too, has earned this qualification over the years) was to visit the Healthy Colchester shop on Valentine's day. Hoorah!

The most romantic date in the calendar seems an ideal time to explore the joys of an indisputably flaccid penis. Anyway, the sex therapist will be visiting the one-stop shop to give confidential advice to men and couples suffering from impotence.

(Mrs Monitor is slightly bemused by how couples can suffer from impotence since she had always thought it was a gentleman's problem. ) But seriously (yawn), the press release goes to extreme lengths to point out that one in 10 men suffer from erectile dysfunction and that physical conditions are often behind the problem (almost literally).

Still, how wonderful that the press release was addressed to the good folks of HSJ's picture desk. Since the confidential advice was available in a private room, one must presume that only one's entrance to and exit from the clinic would take place in the full glare of the meeja eye. Monitor has really got the hang of stigma, and knows that people are supposed to be proud of their inadequacies, particularly of a sexual nature, but wonders whether inviting the paparazzi along is one step too far.