Deadline for article about why men have one-track minds was looming while Rugrats, who purported to be off school sick, showed few signs of it.

"Look, why don't you just pretend that the sitting room is a hospital and lie quietly on the sofa," I said to middle monster, when she came into boot cupboard/office to ask for a fourth time if she could have chocolate mouse to make her feel better.

"Chocolate makes people who are sick a lot sicker, believe me."

"But when I fell over and hurt my knee, I had chocolate to make me better," she reasoned, with the logic of a three-year-old, before I finally managed to dispatch her from place of work with the promise that if she managed not to be sick for the rest of the day she could have a chocolate biscuit for breakfast before going to bed - probably not a good idea but it did the trick.

Back to article then, which dealt, in an unintelligent frivolous women's magaziney way, with a new piece of research which proved that men have one-track minds.

Not the sort of one-track mind which thinks only of sex but the sort which can only concentrate on one thing, often sex, at a time and therefore renders it totally unable to do the sort of multi (breakfast making, clothes washing, calling the plumber while writing an article and carrying on a conversation) tasking that most women are capable of.

The researchers proved, by playing two different conversations though stereo headphones, what we all know to be true - namely that men are unable to do or think about more than one thing at once.

In their study all of the women who took part were able to pick up the nuts and bolts of both conversations, while listening to them simultaneously, while the men only managed to pick up the gist of one and had no idea what the other was even about.

"Which just goes to prove what I am always telling you," I told Thomas as he was brushing his teeth in a leisurely fashion, while I supervised Rugrats teeth cleaning, while getting their lunchboxes ready and opening file on computer, so that I start as soon as I had dropped them off at school.

"What proves what?" asked Thomas innocently. "I couldn't listen to what you were saying as I was brushing my teeth."

"Exactly," I replied, as he took off the top of his shaving foam and began squeezing foam on to his hand in preparation for a shave.

"I'm writing a piece about how men are only able to concentrate on one thing at a time."

"That is a bit rich," said Thomas but was cut off before he could conduct a greater defence of the male species by self who pointed out to him that by having momentarily diverted his attention for the task in hand i.e. squeezing out shaving foam, in order to listen to me, he had ended up squeezing foam all over the bathroom.

I left him to give his undivided attention to the task of clearing it up and tried to settle allegedly sick Rugrat in sitting room, while I tried to meet deadline.

Despite numerous interruptions, I managed to get the 1500 words required of me written and check for spelling and grammar while taking their temperatures, before emailing finished piece to editor, in between turns at snakes and ladders - which they were now well enough to play.

My editor called later to thank me for sending piece so promptly, despite the fact that I obviously had my hands full, what with the children being off sick.

"How did you know?" I wondered, to which she replied that the sentence 'This research goes to prove what most women already know - no, darling you can't have chocolate, chocolate makes people a lot sicker believe me - namely that men cannot concentrate on more than one thing at a time,' indicated that my eye was not entirely on the ball ...