Greer says Cole and Price are no icons

Germanine Greer (pictured), the redoubtable Australian polemicist and writer, does not think much of the current crop of female role models. Speaking to the foul mouthed chef Gordon "fucking" Ramsay on his Channel 4 programme Cookalong, she was asked whether she thought Katie Price, aka the model Jordan, and Cheryl Cole, the Girl's Aloud singer and X Factor judge, were modern day feminist icons. She said no, largely because of their weight.

Of Price, who has slimmed down considerably in recent times and has had dramatic breast de-enhancement surgery (from 32FF to 32D), she said: "I wish I could say Katie Price because I think the girl's a genius, except that I also think she's destroying herself... and that's not a pretty picture. A healthy girl is a fat-bottomed creature."

And Cole hardly merited consideration. Said Greer: "There's not enough of her. She's too thin." Cole's weight is a very sensitive subject, as she is said to have gone down to six stone after her husband, the foootball player Ashley Cole, cheated on her. But Greerwasn't to know that.