PEOPLE ask me, 'Why did you do that?' They are usually referring to an adventure that might not always have been comfortable and sits outside their own experience. The answer is 'to find out what it was like'.

I think I was born wishing to judge for myself. Perhaps it is a feature of the post-war generation, rather than now when young people seem to me to be much more timid. Anyway, when I heard that the production of 'One Minute' at the Barn Theatre was attracting negative criticism I booked a seat.

'Too much swearing,' they said. Perhaps it was a clever marketing ruse.

Or maybe I am immune, since until a few years ago I considered swearing to be unimaginative and boring, and now I can rarely get through a sentence without it.

Anyway, the (occasional and realistic) swearing is the least important aspect of this play. To sit, having paid a modest sum of money, and receive the most wonderful acting on a wet Thursday afternoon, was a privilege.

Everything about the production was stimulating and exciting. Who wants cosy when you can have something challenging?

People swear in real life, so they must swear in a play depicting real people in crisis. Try sitting in my car when I am being tail-gated on the road to Cirencester.

I have said it before but will repeat myself. What is happening at the Barn Theatre is truly exciting. To have a play of this calibre, performed with such skill, is remarkable and all the more so in such a small town.

But, if you didn't like it (or didn't see it but said you thought it awful) do be warned.

I go to Stratford to the RSC and it's a far cry from how Shakespeare was emasculated at school, stripped of fire and passion.

The RSC expects to shock. Oh and don't look at the latest BBC version of King Lear with Anthony Hopkins.

I loved it but you might be upset that the play is just about as dark as a story can get, and what might offend with its anger, madness and blood, is in fact called acting. Brilliant acting.

Well done, The Barn Theatre, keep 'shocking'.

I AM very excited. I am embroiled in what is known as a 'twitter spat'.

Until now it had all been going too well. But I replied to a tweet in which 'girl power' was mentioned. I have noted this antiquated term, which I associate with a defunct girl-band, is being resurrected. Dubious then (the band was controlled and exploited by a music and merchandising industry dominated by men) it doesn't capture NOW.

I said so and suggested that 'woman' is a perfectly satisfactory word.

I questioned the tweeter's link to Christine Lagarde and Angela Merkel who might, like me, prefer not to be called a 'girl' when we so clearly are not. It never occurred to me to wonder at the gender of the tweeter so I was surprised to receive a reply from his wife of 35 years.

She told me no-one was a better 'champion' for women/ladies/girls in business than her husband.

Never having needed to be staunchly defended by men in the workplace or been in a marriage where one spoke for the other, I am stymied.

And, feeling that the world has become too easily offended, I cannot care too much.

However, please don't refer to me and my female friends as 'ladies'. It is so very Nigel Farage.

Finally spare a thought for the paramedic who treated Dame Judi Dench for a hornet sting. 'Do we have a carer?' he asked. 'Go away, I've just done 8 weeks of the Winters Tale at the Garrick,' she said.

Except she didn't use those words.