They think it’s tall over ...it is now!

JRICHARD, who’s six foot two, can be scathing about small men with aggressive traits. Aggro-man of the moment of course is Comrade Putin, the Monster of Moscow, five foot seven. Equally short and bellicose were Hitler, Mussolini and Napoleon.

I used to get a bit annoyed by this small equals belligerent theory, wondering if Richard were a foot shorter he’d be so convinced.

But I’ve just read a fascinating piece by Jeremy Clarkson which makes me think there’s something in it, even though Clarkson, at six foot four, also has a vested interest in feeling superior because of his height. He says small men feel picked on by tall blokes, even when there’s no offence intended. He quotes diddy friends who say tall people deliberately sit in front of them at the cinema to block their view, and humiliate them by barging in front of them in queues.

All very amusing of course because Clarkson, right, is a funny man. But actually I’ve noticed that tall men can be extremely arrogant, even if the only thing they have got going for them is their height.

And it’s not just small blokes who find them insufferable in certain situations... women (me) can get pretty fed up too.

When Richard and I were doing our C4 show all the guests congregated afterwards in the green room.The tallest men would eye each other up, hating it if they spotted a loftier specimen, and if two or more got talking they stayed head-to-head, eye-to-eye, determined to dominate. That meant smaller folk were practically invisible to them, therefore most women were automatically excluded from the conversation. We were like little birds cheeping for attention at waist height.At the time I thought “Men! Typical!” but really I meant tall men. So now I’m turning this on its head. Maybe small men wouldn’t be so bossy and belligerent if tall men appeared less sure of their own superiority. Meanwhile, we women keep trying to get a word in edgeways while our menfolk measure their place in the pecking order.