Editor-At-Large: Oh spare me the caring, sharing drivel written about Cherie. Just leave her be

I'm 55, childless and have no plans to reveal any of my gynaecological history during the course of this column. This will be a miscarriage-free zone. I'm sorry, I know nothing about IVF, fertility, hormones or childbirth, and what's more I don't want to read about them.

Last year Woman's Hour asked me to take part in a programme about the menopause. I told them that particular bus hadn't stopped chez Street-Porter yet, but when it did I would not feel the need to share intimate details with members of the listening public.

Cherie Blair fascinates women journalists. They feel compelled to write utter drivel about how she balances family and work, latching on to every detail of the poor woman's wardrobe, keep-fit regime, diet and work schedule. Now her miscarriage has prompted another tidal wave of sympathy, couched in prose that has me reaching for the sick bag. One of the good things about having a miscarriage and being a reasonably competent female journalist is that you can sell at least 1,000 words to a quality paper about your experience, comparing it to how you imagine Mrs Blair must feel. Listen, I can decorate a house brilliantly, but I'm not writing 1,000 words telling you how to revamp your kitchen. I can bake a decent fruit cake but there's no danger of Jamie Oliver getting one of my recipes via the Independent on Sunday. I can write prose, appear on television, think for myself and speak at public functions without notes. I can even shop in a supermarket without a list. Aren't we modern career women wonderful?

A whole industry has grown up filling pages of newsprint each day that requires women to reveal their innermost medical secrets for the benefit of the sisterhood. My favourite exponent of this grisly art is Annabel Heseltine, who has made a lucrative career out of two ectopic pregnancies (whatever they are), a miscarriage and IVF treatment. Via the Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard we have been treated to thousands of words about her bodily malfunctions over the past few years. I'm surprised her long-suffering husband hasn't read his sperm count in print. When you read anything bylined (as in The Guardian last Thursday) "Like Cherie Blair, Corinne Sweet had a miscarriage in her mid-40s. Several in fact...", you know it's time to turn the page. This is what I call the Evening Primrose Oil school of journalism, a genre that grew up during the past decade in the Femail pages of the Daily Mail where acres of text each week are given over to advice designed to keep the dual threat of middle age and menopause at bay. A whole new form of journalism has involved covering cancer to constipation via the writer's own experiences. In the case of cancer, an even more insidious form of writing has emerged: the endless discussion of the disease by surviving relatives. Justine Picardie is a prime example of someone who can't let the death of her sister go unwritten about. John Diamond's death from throat cancer prompted another flurry of pieces written by "friends" about the disease.

Of course, suffering a miscarriage or being treated for breast cancer deserve understanding and sympathy. But I wonder if any of the hundred or so women in Britain who also suffered a miscarriage last week felt any better after reading one of these mawkish pieces about the Prime Minister's wife? When Anne McElvoy writes something entitled "Why we care about Cherie Blair" in the Evening Standard and the exact same headline is used the next day on a piece by Esther Rantzen in the Daily Mail, shouldn't these pieces be subtitled "because she's a bloody good subject to churn out a column about – rich, quirky, intelligent and successful, just like one of those Jackie Collins heroines that sell so many books (and it's August)"? It's all part of our obsession with the "sharing" culture. We have to "share" our experiences, via TV documentaries (there are several gross series on at the moment, including one about transsexuals contemplating surgery); we feel compelled to reveal the most intimate details of our sex lives to cameras and in print; and we subscribe to the mistaken belief that by "sharing" we are "helping" each other. What bilge. The one thing Mrs Blair needs now is three weeks blobbed out on a sun lounger with the freedom to wear what she likes, drink what she wants, and let that groomed hair go unkempt. What she won't be needing to do is read about herself. By focusing on her womb, rather than her brain, we diminish her achievements. When I met Cherie, I found her great company, even if she was a bit brave giving me little Leo to cuddle. And guess what: we didn't discuss middle age, menstruation, or the menopause either.

Prom news

Last Tuesday at the Proms was Wagner night. Shock, horror, it wasn't a sell-out, even though the highly acclaimed Jane Eaglen sang Brünnhilde's immolation scene from Götterdämmerung and Isolde's death song, and there was a lush performance of Richard Strauss's Symphonic Fantasia. Prom audiences are a very mixed crowd, as I discovered last year when I interviewed about 30 of them on one day for a piece in the Independent. According to Proms director Nick Kenyon, this year's top sellers are Mahler and Shostakovich. This is surely heartening news. Proms devotees move gingerly into the modern world. Mind you, Nick confided that it was not a good idea to premiere more than one new piece a night; "There's only so much they can take," he lamented. Meanwhile, I urge a 2003 season ban on slushy English romantics such as Vaughan Williams and Elgar – isn't it time to give these over-exposed composers a rest? In the Dolomites the other week I took a chairlift to 5,000 feet for a concert in the clouds organised by the Trentino Arts Festival. In spite of pouring rain a string trio and an accordionist performed pieces by modern composers, including Astor Piazzolla, under the veranda of a mountain refuge for a couple of hundred enthusiastic drenched walkers. An unforgettable experience, combining the elements, ravishing scenery and sublime sounds. I know we have the Proms in the Park, and the Covent Garden performances in the Piazza and Victoria Park in east London. But how about some William Walton from the top of Helvellyn or Delius from the Malvern Hills? Maybe I could get interested in the English composers again, given the right location.

By the way, who thought up the Proms' branded merchandise which is being sold in the shops at the Royal Albert Hall during the season? What brave soul would wear a T-shirt emblazoned with a red, one-eyed geometic man or buy a tasteless white-and-red coffee mug? Call in a decent designer, please, this stuff is as uninspiring as Delius.