Spare A Thought For Paltrow ; She Does.

Gwyneth Paltrow has lost a husband this week . She has also made few friends by claiming life for her as a mother and actress is harder than for women with less demanding roles.

Many have scoffed at La Paltrow's moans. In doing so, her critics are chosing to ignore some simple truths about Thespians.

Firstly, creative people are almost always at least a chapter short of a full script.Sometimes they are completely mad, but even those who somehow cling to some semblance of sanity could never be described as normal.This means of course that nothing they say should be taken at face value.

It also has to be realised that most actors of either sex are completely self-absorbed. It must therefore be incredibly difficult for them to stop looking at the man (or woman) in the mirror to give attention to their children. The lovely Gwyneth has a particularly attractive visage, plus a figure that most women her age can't achieve even using industrial-strength Spanx, so giving personal viewing time up for kids must indeed seem very hard.

Finally,it is necessary to consider why an a member of the acting sorority would want children in the first place? Living in a world of make-believe means actors have a child-like existence. Why have off-spring when you are a child yourself ?

So the G Girls comments have to be viewed in the context of a mentality that thinks 'me' 99% of the time. Devoting as much as 1% attention to another human being, even if your very-own "Junior", is a remarkable sacrifice.

Perhaps all children of actors should be called "Oscar". That way they could be guaranteed their parents attention, though the tear-filled speeches during nappy-changes might drive the youngsters to something stronger than gripe-water.