I RARELY buy women's magazines these days. For a start they're far too expensive and anyway at my age I don't really need instructions on ten ways to ensure I can entice a man into my bedroom or learn ten things I didn't know about the art of seduction.

Come to think of it I suppose I wouldn't mind enticing a man into the bedroom as long as he came armed with a wallpaper brush and knew how to hang curtains.

What I mean is that the majority of magazines these days are totally obsessed with sex.

At one time most were somewhat boring in that they contained very little else but knitting patterns and instructions on how to crochet antimacassars. Sex was dealt with very delicately at the end of the magazine with an Agony Aunt being all moralistic and rather jolly and probably keeping out all the really juicy letters and reading them to her friends at weekends.

It was, it has to be admitted, the first bit we turned to (and often the only bit read by men) but the rest of the magazine was bonk free.

Now you can't open a women's magazine without being confronted with half a dozen articles all geared at getting a man, keeping a man, comparing a man with other men and finding out if he's a real man when you do manage to find one. No wonder people don't knit any more, they're too tired.

What also surprises me is that all the expensive magazines have a free gift attached and these gifts get bigger and bigger each year and I must admit that I have on occasions fallen for the glittery make-up bag and bought a magazine for £2.50 which I won't read to get it. A little part of me knows I could probably buy a similar bag for less but I always manage to shut up that little part of me quite successfully. We women can do that, can't we?

Manufacturers know this, which is why the 'buy two products and get our lovely make-up set free' ploy ALWAYS works. At least it always works on me, especially at Christmas.

Most of these sets are produced by the more expensive cosmetic companies, who know full well that by offering a range of free products contained in nice little bags or boxes, or even on occasions full sized handbags or carry-alls, they are going to get you to order at least two of their products even if you usually buy your stuff at Boots.

There was a time when my daughters probably didn't realise that when I bought them each a bottle of expensive moisturiser packed full of clever enzymes designed to make their skins stay as fresh as a baby's bottom that somewhere in my bedroom I had stashed a giant box of free samples, scent, a dinky hairbrush, the totally useless eye-make up remover that nobody every uses, and the portable make-up carrycase.

That didn't last long. 'Where is it?', they say cruelly. 'Where's what?' I say. 'The giant box of free samples and scent, the hairbrush and the make-up carry case with the pop out mirror', they say.

Nowadays they even try it on themselves. 'Would you like some of that miracle new moisturiser from Esteé Lauder for Christmas?', they say. 'Oh yes', I say sweetly. 'And what comes with it? The dayglow beach bag with range of sun products; the full make-up box with £180 of make-up for only £25 (one per customer while stocks last) or the sequined evening bag with a full selection of colour co-ordinated make-up designed to make you look fab all night? Don't come that old soldier with me.'

Freebies

Getting these freebies is not always easy because some of the make-up ladies on the counters in posh stores guard them like a Rottweiler guarding a bungalow.

There was a time when I used to sidle round make-up counters, eyes desperately searching for any signs that there were free offers, then buy two products and casually say 'Oh, you've got a nice free offer with these haven't you?', and the make-up lady would reluctantly delve deep under the counter and pretend she couldn't actually find it just to see if I had the nerve to insist.

Now I merely go up to the counter, brutally say 'Have you got the free offer stuff in? and make it absolutely clear that I'm not going to deign to try to find out what are the cheapest two products I can possibly buy (usually mega priced deodorant) unless the freebie is well and truly brought into view. No more Mrs Nice Guy ladies.

I did once ask one of the ladies if they thought the free offers meant that customers came back again and again afterwards.

'Oh yes', she said, 'we find its a lovely way to introduce customers to our range and they return once they have tried the products'. Oh yeah, and I've seen a pig flying too.'

The big no no in all this is that you can't, under any circumstances, give these 'gifts' away as presents, lest you be marked down as a cheapskate. Not that the temptation to do so is ever very strong.

If it is, the only people who you could safely present with a handy little make-up kit with this season's glowing colours are those living at least a continent away from a Dingles, a Debenhams or a major Boots store. In other words, Outer Mongolia. And even then you might not be safe.