Iris Murdoch is grievously misunderstood. If you care about fiction, this should make you furious. Twentieth and, inevitably, twenty-first century literature, television, film, are packed with female writers whose work is dismissed.

Every book I read in my youth spoke to my sexuality, because I was straight: Darcy; Heathcliff; the fondue orgy in Asterix in Switzerland – I longed for them all. Later, when things became more romantically interesting, which was the book which spoke to me most strongly? There wasn’t one.

I am a bad blogger. Actually, I'm no blogger at all; every word I have is currently being poured into either Twitter, my favourite waste of time (perfect for interrupters, perfect for chatty introverts, just...perfect) or my current, fifth, novel. And, secretly, into another secret book, which arose out of HINT something I've posted on this very website.

Perhaps careers offices have changed since the late Eighties. When I was at school, not one of the folders on display contained a single job I could imagine doing. Was this because it was a girls’ school, so, swotty and over-achieving as we strove to be, we were encouraged to do the less showy, more supportive, aspects of even the most demanding jobs: solicitors, not barristers; health visitors, not surgeons; primary school teachers, not professors; caterers, not chefs?

Some people can juggle. I don't know why they want to, but they can. Others can dive, learn languages quickly, play the flute, walk into rooms without crashing into the doorframe