Life with Orla Barry is like straying into the radio version of the hairdressers or the ladies' toilet.

The atmosphere suggests hordes of expensively dressed women looking into mirrors and giggling hysterically and admiring each others' nails and being AS NICE. The comparison does no favours for bad-tempered, carelessly groomed self-doubters.

The Ray D'Arcy Show on Today FM doesn't offer an alternative either: the fact the presenter is a man makes not the slight difference, as D'Arcy seems to be surrounded by women and adopts the persona of a girly mascot . . . sexless and motherable.

On Thursday's programme, Orla Barry wanted to hear from people who have eloped! People who said, hang the faux-celebrity wedding, let's run away and get married somewhere private! Weddings! Babies!

Shopping! Nails! Men! What fun!

Alison, an Australian woman who whisked her boyfriend to a secret ceremony in Melbourne after proposing to him, was the first to ring in. Alison knows what she wants and how to get it and she has had loads of fun in her life she doesn't mind telling you! Then there was Julie, who eloped with her boyfriend to Denmark after they'd been together four months. That was three years ago and now they have a house in the country and a three-month-old baby and "everything is really just perfect!" said Julie.

"I would be MURDERED if I eloped!" said Orla Barry. "MURDERED now! There'd be no more coming home for the Christmas dinner or dropping by with a bit of laundry!"

Later they discussed pregnancy and, later still, what it's like to be a sports widow. There was nothing for it but to switch off the radio and wait for your leg hair to grow out.

Fittingly, Woman's Hour on Radio 4 began a new drama called 43 Years in the Third Form, based on old, vanished comics like Bunty and Judy and the messages they used to impart to young girls. The author of the series, Jane Purcell, was interviewed on Monday's programme, and was full of enthusiasm for the old days. The girls in those comics were resourceful, adventurous, ambitious and tough, she said. "Bunty provided me with a far more varied and interesting set of role models than girls have now, " said Purcell. "If my daughter picks up a comic today, she is not going to be reading about tough gymnasts, thwarted ballerinas and feline French resistance fighters. She's going to be reading about muppety boy bands, celebrities, 'do boys like me?', 'am I thin enough?', etc and I think that is a bit of a shame."

She even claimed girls' comics used to encourage young women to take up a career, which might be stretching the fond-memory business a bit thin.

Purcell pointed out that Girl and Schoolfriend used to have a section called 'I want to be. . .' .

"It was always 'I want to be a telephonist' or 'I want to be a secretary', never 'I want to be a nuclear scientist'. But at least it wasn't, 'I want to be famous despite having no discernible talent whatsoever', " Purcell said scathingly.

Still, on the bright side, at least today's girls don't have to be secretaries. They can be nuclear scientists if they want. . . They have to have the nails as well though.