I was coming out of Sainsbury's and a young man stopped me with one of those clipboards… I'm usually very short with these people, but browsing the supermarket shelves is so soothing. It's like picking berries, isn't it? Instead of standing in front of a counter and begging, like a suppliant at a shrine, you feel as if you've found all this lovely stuff. Anyway, I was feeling benign, so I answered his questions about the product. We came to the end. Are you married? Yes. Children? One, little toddler. Occupation? Writer. Do you work outside the home? Not often. Would you consider yourself to be in full time or part-time employment? Full time, says I, not having much doubt on the subject. The young man doesn't fill in his box. He says: oh. And then, are you sure? I'm sure, I repeat, firmly: and he looks very doubtful. I can tell he's going to chuck that sheet away as a spoiled ballot.

Then again, here's a quote from a recent survey the Writer's Guild did on the position of women writers. It actually comes from an interview in what we call in the UK a ‘quality daily’, with a successful male playwright (who shall be nameless, and serve him right), who is describing how he manages to work at home with a young family around: ‘I am quite capable of walking over a pile of washing on the kitchen floor, and registering mentally that it's there, but feeling no obligation whatsoever to do anything about it.’

I'm not like that, I don't want to be like that. This playwright is a selfish infantile jerk and I despise per. We run an equal opportunities house here, and it kills us both (two careers and a baby, you know the one) but I wouldn't have it any different. Still, I admit I do sometimes fantasise about what life would be like for me as an artist, if I had a nice wife to look after the house and bring up my baby for me. He'd have to be prepared to starve a little.