There’s nothing I like more than a good online quiz first thing in the morning, so I have to thank V. S. Naipaul (not, I admit, words I ever thought to string together in a sentence) for his Look at Me, Mummy, Look, Look! publicity rant, in which he stated that he knew (just knew) within a paragraph whether a piece of prose had been written by a man or a woman. The Guardian has done us the kind good service of setting up a quiz, to see if this is indeed the case. (Of course, VSN has the obvious response – if it turns out that most readers don’t know the difference, it’s because we’re not as smart as he is; if we do, case proven. See? Well, you would if you were a man. And as smart as VSN.)

I don’t see, but that’s because we women are little fluffy things, only concerned with the trivial and the domestic and sentimenta—  Oh, wait, is that a kitten I see? Awwww… Oh, sorry, got distracted. And then there’s my ribbon-drawer to tidy up, and then – oh, when I ask, am I going to have time to do such big macho things as sit and write?

Certainly it would have been better if Jane Austen had stuck to her tatting. Her novels, after all, are just sentimental, says the sage of Chromosomal Prose. And as for his ex-editor, who was so good as a ‘taster’ (oh kill me now, please) and editor, when she became a writer, ‘lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh’. Tosh, I tell you, tosh! Although just a teeny-tiny insy-wincy bit of me wonders if his views might just possibly be influenced by the fact that in her first book this very same editor described the feelings of joy and lightness she experienced when VSN took his masculine-prose self off to another publisher, and she realized she wouldn’t have to pretend to like him, or even listen to his woes any more.

Nah, I’m sure he’s above such things.

Oh deary deary me. Well, he’s a sad, bitter, lonely old man. Feel sorry for him. I do. It’s the kind of girlie sentimentality I’m programmed for.