I was once asked if I'd like to be the mascot at a West Bromwich Albion football match. It involved me having to wear a large thrush costume. I mean, of course, the bird. It wasn't some tasteless promotional event where I was dressed as an irritating rash and then seized upon by a man dressed as a tube of Canesten.

I agreed to be the thrush but only if no one knew that it was me inside. I'm world-famous in West Bromwich so I thought that it would be novel to stroll around in front of 20-odd thousand people and not be recognised.

The outfit was quite heavy and hot, with just a small slit at eye level to stop me walking into things. Before the game, I wandered around, waving to the crowd and having my photo taken with small children. Such is the role of the mascot.

For these photos, I adopted my regulation warm-hearted grin but after I'd posed for about 20 such shots, it occurred to me that this was completely unnecessary because I couldn't be seen. I was getting a bit bored and hot by now and it was a real treat to not have to look happy and enthusiastic.

Come photograph No50 I was actually scowling but no one could tell. This was a truly liberating experience and it suddenly made me realise why many Muslim women are reluctant to give up the veil. It can be truly joyous to pass unseen through the outside world with no obligation to smile or look interested - hidden in your own secret place.

The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, took a much more negative view of the burka issue this week when he said: “We cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity.”

I assume that he wasn't a big fan of Blind Date. He seems to assume that Muslim women are always forced by others to wear the veil. I don't doubt that this is sometimes the case but it doesn't seem to be the whole story. One often hears Muslim women in interviews saying that they like wearing the burka, not just for religious but also practical reasons.

These views tend to be disregarded and seen as the product of indoctrination. Such a dismissive response seems to make these women and their opinions every bit as invisible as the burka does.

The much-demonised garb is seen as a symbol of oppression, but oppression comes in many forms. Lots of British women have said to me that they resent being gawped at just because they're wearing a miniskirt or a low-cut top. I always apologise and say that I didn't mean any harm.

Alternatively, a friend said to me recently that she was saddened to notice that, as she grew older, men had stopped staring at her. She felt that she was no longer desirable, no longer receiving approval. These are two very different problems, both by-products of our Western cult of physical attractiveness and both solved by the burka.

I don't believe that any man should force his wife to wear a burka but I'm not sure that Mr Sarkozy, the extremely proud owner of a trophy wife, is the best man to speak on the matter. Add to this that he was once seen to be checking his text messages during a private audience with the Pope and one might also ask whether religious sensitivity is one of his strengths.

Either way, his call to actually ban the burka on French streets cannot be the answer.

In the late Nineties, I went to Africa with Comic Relief. A group of us, mainly white middle-class liberals, sat in a village in Burkina Faso and spoke to the village elders. We asked about the distinctive scars that many of the men had on their faces and they turned out to be the result of some sort of initiation ceremony.

Someone asked if we could see the ceremonial knife. I think that we were just trying to sound interested. Eventually a rather disappointing little penknife with a dirty wooden handle turned up, and we all

passed it around as if it were a beautiful artefact.

One of the women from the production team asked if it was used for any other purpose. “Female circumcision” was the reply. We all went silent and handed the knife back. None of us had the guts to register our disgust.

I sat in a disused army barracks afterwards imagining what I should have said. “I'm sorry. It's one thing having respect for other people's cultures but some things are just objectively wrong.” Only the mosquitoes heard my indignation.

Consequently, I do respect Mr Sarkozy for having the courage to speak out on the sensitive issue of cultural difference, but on this occasion I think that he's being too simplistic. It's not as clear-cut as he suggests. I'm not sure that the burka is objectively wrong.

Some Muslim women clearly feel oppressed by it, but then some clearly don't. To ban it is to remove women's choice, using oppression to combat oppression.

Rigid rules that make no allowance for personal choice are more suited to the Taleban than to one of Europe's great democracies. So that's my take on the burka issue - all based on 55 minutes in a thrush suit. Next week: Silvio Berlusconi on why stockings and suspenders should be compulsory.

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