SCIENTISTS in Arizona reckon they have proved that men are just as chatty as women.

They bugged some of each and counted the words and the totals were not far apart.

But I don’t believe it. Stereotypes don’t become stereotypes for nothing.

Perhaps the sons of Wyatt Earp and the Clanton gang get together nowadays for a chinwag at the OK Coral. In Tombstone, the town that was ‘too tough to die’, the menfolk like nothing better than to hang up their sixshooters and have a damn good natter.

But I doubt it. Comedians joke about women talking a lot, because it’s true and, therefore, funny.

Men talk in headlines, women give the full story with no full stops until the very end.
A man may say: ‘I heard today that Marjorie has got a new fancy man. Guess who? Henry the fishman!’

That’s it, 16 words, a tantalising pause after ‘guess who’, and he’s just pleased he’s remembered to tell you at all, but having imparted the gossip he’ll get rapidly bored with the subject.

The more he’s interrogated, the more desperate he is to wriggle free, like a naughty schoolboy caught by the ear.

We are glad when the last drop of information is drained from us and we can get on with reading the paper.

Trust me ladies, if you ever say to your man, ‘We need to talk about this...’ inside he is already groaning.

Even worse, when you demand, ‘Talk to me,’ because he is saying to himself, ‘Ohhhh. Must I? What about? I’ve nothing to say,’ having forgotten for two days to tell the news about Marjorie and Henry the fishman.

But a woman won’t forget and she begins at the beginning.

‘I was in Woolworth’s, I’d only nipped in there for some buttons, you know, for that blouse that popped open at our Alice’s wedding, oh you do know, you do, anyway, I’d just paid and turned round when who should I bump into but Greta, you know Greta, long hair, wart on her nose, oh you do, anyway it doesn’t matter but she was telling me her cousin is a good mate of Marjorie’s and she’d been round to her house and copped the smell of kippers, but Marjorie didn’t let on and it was only then Greta’s cousin spotted the fish van parked outside and then she heard the front door go and saw Henry scuttling down the path, so...’

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