All the people I am currently dealing with at Bloomsbury are women; as from my experience they almost all seem to be in the publishing world. (It wasn’t like that in my earlier authorial days.) I have no problem with that, of course; but it set me thinking.

All the dogs I see around me just now are bitches. (I’m aware of this, as we have a dog of our own; and we have to make sure that the only bottoms she sniffs are other girls’.) So, what has become of all the male dogs? – Then, on the human side: between us Kajsa and I have nine grandchildren, eight of whom happen to be girls. Sweden of course is a very gender-aware society, and Britain is becoming more so. Are ‘they’ putting something in the water to prevent male babies (and puppies) from being conceived? Or aborting them as soon as their willies show up on the scans? Or are they being shifted out immediately after birth to some very secret male-only orphanage, where they have to live out their lives without women, and with the left-over male dogs, until they all slaughter each other, as men do? Is this part of a great feminist plot to end the oppressive hegemony of the male sex once and for all? – I wouldn’t particularly mind that: my female publishers are wonderful, as is my sambo; and look at most of the women prime ministers there are around currently (i.e. post-Thatcher); but I do have some concerns for us boys: specifically, for what may be happening to us, in or just out of the womb.

Then yesterday I had a message from another of the people who are getting my book produced, called ‘Merv’. That can’t be a girl’s name, can it? Thank goodness, I thought; at least they’re keeping some males on. – Or is this only for breeding purposes?

Of course it could be just that I notice women more, now that they’ve been let out of the kitchen and into the public domain. It wasn’t like that in my youth.