On the first day at the school, which needless to say was a boys school, I was handed a set of the school rules. One section of the rules was on how to behave in front of women. I was to take my cap off to a woman. I was to give up my seat on the bus to any woman. I was to refer to the mothers of my schoolmates as Ma'am and stand up when a woman came into the room. I don't know who decided to impose all this nonsense on ten year olds, but I hope someone goes and desecrates his grave. This, incidentally was not at the turn of the twentieth century, it was only a couple of decades ago. And it set me pretty badly for going out into the real world and dealing with feminists.

I was told women were a race apart. They were delicate little blossoms who would shrink from the merest suggestion of foul language. They had to be treated like plaster saints, so we were supposed to bow and scrape and cut little capers in front of them, rushing to refill their glasses, bouncing up from our chairs to open doors for them and chivalrously protecting them from heat, cold or discomfort. And we weren't supposed to bother their little heads with talk about politics or religion or any of those serious subjects. A bit of light banter and few words of flirtation, were all that they could reasonably manage. I kid you not.

Of course, by the time I went out on the pull, this view of women was not very helpful. In fact by then feminism had become firmly embedded in the female psyche. So much so that if you offered to buy them a drink, they wouldn't just say 'thanks' or 'no thanks'. They would give you a lecture on the patriarchal nature of society and explain why your innocent gesture was reinforcing gender stereotypes and oppressing women. Lord help you, if you opened a door for one!

The world has moved a long way over the last twenty-five years. It's become more confusing for a simple bloke who only wants to do the right thing. We've had every kind of feminist - lesbian separatists who claimed that all men were rapists; ladettes, who felt that it was terribly feministic to get blind drunk every week and shag complete strangers in nightclub toilets. And I have even met nuns who claimed to be feminists!

And in these feminist or post-feminist days, I now realize that ostentatious displays of chivalry are regarded as completely ridiculous. Yep, Walter Raleigh, who was much praised because he lay his cloak down in the mud for Queen Elizabeth to walk over would now be considered some kind of humiliation fetishist.

But I maintain that this doesn't mean that there is no place for manners. Women don't have to be treated like pretty dolls but on the other hand, I really don't think it's criminal to show respect for women now and then. Of course, I don't stand up because a woman has entered the room, and I'll only give up my seat on a train for a female if she is pregnant, elderly or disabled. But, if I happen to be standing near a door, I will hold it open for a woman – and I don't get too many complaints about it. I don't have a hat to take off to a woman, but if I'm at a party and a woman I'm talking to doesn't have drink, I'll generally offer to get her one. Oh, and if a woman has a great hairdo/handbag/ shoes/dress, I'll tell her how much I like it. I don't want to sound like something out of a 1930s guide to etiquette, but I do really think these gestures are appreciated. If anyone thinks I'm being insincere, creepy or sexist, then they can take a running jump. They're part of me - the chivalrous 'me' who wants to be nice to women.

I generally manage to keep the 'knight in shining armour' part of me down, but now and then he will rear up and escape. Once it happened on the tube. A young woman walked on who was so breathtakingly beautiful, that - almost without thinking - I got up and offered her my seat. She acted as if this was perfectly normal behaviour - as if men routinely performed acts of self-sacrifice to satisfy her merest whim. Thinking about it, I would have thrown my cloak in the mud and let her trample all over me, while I composed odes to her beauty, if she'd been up for either, but luckily I had to get off at the next stop. The thing is, I suppose that if you're as beautiful as she was, none of the normal rules apply.