One way to unravel the Gordian Knot of family law The change in the law to enable courts to penalise divorced mothers who won't give their former husbands access to their children is bound to be greeted with mixed feelings. A ban on recalcitrant ex-wives travelling abroad, or even driving, seems draconian - but is it? Punishing former partners by deliberately trashing your joint home in order to lower its sale price, hiding prawns in the curtain rods, and cutting the crotch out of suit trousers have become apocryphal tales of revenge. The cruellest, and most common, is not allowing one parent, usually the father, to see their children. I have listened with amazement to stories of deliberate holiday cancellations, financial dishonesty and even accusations of child abuse in the battle between warring exes. People who are otherwise sane turn into monsters. Even if many women have good cause to reject men they once loved, it's not hard to understand what motivates organisations such as Fathers 4 Justice. In all this, those who should come first - the children - come last. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, any legislation that cuts through the Gordian Knot of family law is surely to be welcomed. Yet, at the same time, I can't help thinking of an offer that was made to a relation in the throes of her divorce. An ex-con she was friendly with became so concerned at her distress that he asked her whether she would like her former husband to be "taught some respect" by his mates. Thankfully, she declined, and later told me that this refusal was worth months of therapy. Hers is now one of the most civilised and friendly divorces I know of, largely because the agonising sense of powerlessness which drives couples crazy was removed by her decision. London is the most expensive city in the world for a night out, according to the travel website TripAdvisor. It calculates that an evening out for a couple - cocktails, a bottle of wine with dinner, a four-mile taxi journey and a night's stay in a four-star hotel - costs £330. Shouldn't someone tell them that the local pub tends to be better, and cheaper, for eating out, and that thousands of cash-strapped citizens have put up their homes for Olympic rentals? But in any case, why shouldn't London be more expensive than Paris or New York? Why else do the wealthy of other nations come here, desperate to party and buy up our property? As the lucky couple is swished along, through historic streets which continually offer unexpected vistas of the eighth wonder of the world in all its beauty and exuberance, a night out at £330 is cheap at the price. A week before the republication of one of my novels about London, A Vicious Circle, I'm recording a Radio 4 Open Book programme today about the capital with Mariella Frostrup. The problem with writing about London is that you can't escape Dickens, and his vision of the city. I live in Camden Town, and regularly pass the brick warehouses (now smart offices), railway arches (offering sprightly car washes), and mean hovels (now desirable residences) he described. It's not that contemporary London lacks areas of awful ugliness, crime and deprivation; it's that even if you see it, as I do, as a place of transformation and hope, Dickens has made grimness the default setting. Is this why we can't celebrate the glamour of our city, as Americans do New York? Apparently, the new film of The Sweeney, inspired by the Seventies TV series, is bucking the trend, with violent car chases taking place in our spruced-up streets and the Flying Squad having a shoot-out in Trafalgar Square. "We do the things you can't even dream of," growls Ray Winstone as Regan in the trailer. Will they be arresting a few divorced wives and terrified children on the way? I can't help wondering.