I remember the amazement it caused here in March 2009 when Parliament passed a law stating that every female user of public transport had to have a seat at all times.
Of course, there had been a not inconsiderable amount of public disorder in the very early part of the year: police turning a blind eye when dissenters who refused to shift took a beating; transport companies agitating to the Press that they'd need to order fleet after fleet of new vehicles with more seats - and how were they expected to do that in these austere economic times?
The British administration, though, was stubbornly unbending. Cross-party unity for once held, as though the whole lot of them had been gripped by madness or disease. The leader of the third-biggest party, in a moment of rare public exposure, declared that the need for new legislation exposed a majority of British men as a 'plague of chauvinists 'who should 'loathe themselves for their outdated attitude towards women.'
Even though Polly Toynbee in the Guardian accused the government of populism and sexism, rolling back the prevailing view of women to somewhere in the 14th century, nothing could stop the legislation as it travelled on its infinite bed of ice.
It had all kicked off the previous December when an unshaven little runt on a train going to Sheffield - he could never have known he was about to divert the course of British society - refused to stand up for a woman who'd just boarded. A ruffian (who had a face like a potato, God help him!) took issue with the little runt and ragged his glasses from his face.
Runty complained to the train company, and it ended up making the papers as these things do. When one of the opposition members passed an early day motion congratulating the aggressor for upholding old-fashioned English values, it started a run on the chauvinistic and un-English on public transport.
Several of these ignoramuses got slapped about for what was seen as a lack of chivalry. It's pushing it to claim that the hospitals were overflowing with casualties, but admissions to casualty wards had certainly spiked. Credit has to go to the red-tops, who stopped fanning the flames and pleaded for some diplomacy and common sense.
It was an editorial in The Sun on the last day in February 2009 which was the seed for legislation to be brought in. In an article headlined 'Enough is enough,' it went on to say that 'violence is no answer to an age-old problem. Both sides must agree to disagree. If not, then only the lawlords can bring this to an end with their big stick.'
With that, Parliament rushed through a bill declaring the indivision of women and public transport seating facilties. I can recall the astonishment and disgust I felt at such a retrograde, abysmal pace back into the dark, misognystic history of this nation.
