MY WIFE reckons men and women are becoming androgynous - in other words, merging into a single shape - a theory no doubt fuelled by the fact that your columnist does most of the shopping and the cooking.

Go to the theatre, Ellen says, sit in the tenth row of the stalls and see if you can separate boys from girls in the chorus line.

I must be well on the way myself and came nowhere in a recent survey, which revealed men and women basically still keep their traditional roles.

Apparently 89 per cent of women do the washing and ironing while 74 per cent of men carry out repairs around the house and do the gardening.

I'm not sure where that leaves me and my supermarket trolley, though I see Tesco is planning 'creches' for reluctant male shoppers - a cosy room where men can wait for wives and girlfriends.

No doubt Ellen will sit in there with the blokes reading girlie magazines and watching soccer videos while her old man continues to ask the fruit and veg department why they are selling soggy tomatoes.

I'm a devil for shopping, something Ellen dislikes as much as being called 'the wife' - though she does make an exception in the case of dress shops and perfume counters.

Oddly enough, I bump into many blokes out shopping and we've all seen househusbands pushing baby buggies. No doubt they're unemployed and mum is out working as the breadwinner.

Ifind all that extremely sad, being of an age and culture where men never lifted a finger around the house - apart from mending fuses and the like - and would rather be seen dead than pushing a pram.

So what's the difference today? In my case - and I daren't speak for all men - I find young women don't have a clue when it come to running the home.

Sorry girls, but how many of you know how to press a pair of men's trousers?

When I say press, I mean produce knife-edge creases as sharp as the day they were born.

Ellen has double and triple tramlines running up and down my pants. Do 'em yourself, that's my remedy.

Do any of you ladies know where to buy a white loaf for 12p or the price difference between fresh and frozen Brussels?

As for standing up for shoppers' rights, don't make me laugh.

The wife - er, sorry, Mrs Jameson - would run a mile rather than tell a supermarket manager his vegetables are a disgrace to market gardening.

We went into a shoe shop on Saturday and she cringed when I demanded to know why shoes displayed in the window were half the price of those inside.

Admittedly, I was looking in the wrong place and got mixed up, but there you are. That's men for you.

Could that be why she calls me Victor Meldrew, do you think?

THE SOAP SPOILERS GET ME IN A LATHER

IS THERE anything more aggravating than newspapers revealing advance news of storylines in the soaps?

For weeks we Coronation Street addicts have wondered when Ian Bentley would get his comeuppance for betraying Sharon Gaskell while double-crossing Rovers landlady Natalie Barnes, the evil swine.

It all came to a head in an hour-long special on Sunday, but by that time the moment of truth had been plastered all over the tabloids - with pictures.

For years Granada Television jealously guarded secrets of the Street lest the viewers' pleasure be spoiled. Now they seem to be first to give away the plot, no doubt to score points in the ratings war with EastEnders.

When I was editor in Manchester, anyone trying to flog Street secrets was shown the door. They usually went straight to a rival, but at least I kept the faith.

RICH TEA FROM PRINCE WILLIAM

SO Prince William has been gaining work experience as a teaboy - a good place to start in life as I know better than most.

The 16-year-old spent a few days at the London dealers Spink as the first Royal ever to take such a job.

Ilearned a great deal while dispensing tea at the age of 14. For instance, bosses would ignore this nonentity at the end of a teapot and carry on talking freely, giving away far too many secrets. William could try that in the Palace.

It's also an easy way to make a bob or two. Tea in my day cost two pence a cup. By rushing into the Gents and adding hot water to the pot it would be worth a few extra coppers - and earn the canteen a dreadful reputation.

Another trick was to be short of change.

Threepenny bits were in vogue at the time and you could be sure of keeping the lot if you rummaged around looking for an elusive penny.

Still, I don't suppose Prince William is short of a few coppers.

ON TO A REAL WINNER

MONICA LEWINSKY is doing the grand tour to promote her book, but I'm sorry to say Brighton and Hove are not on the itinerary.

We are blessed with several bookshops and our highly cultivated community should be the ideal place for a social survey of inter-active relationships in Washington.

Apparently she succumbed to the "full Bill Clinton", whatever that means, though I fancy her decision to flash him a glimpse of her panties must have been a contributory factor.

I must ask author Andrew Morton for the inside story. I gave him his first job in Fleet Street - at about £10,000 a year. Diana's Story earned him more than £5 million and his Monica books won't be far behind. Better than winning the Lottery, eh?

Andrew is a good bloke, a no-nonsense Yorkshireman. He was grateful for my support when rivals trashed him for revealing the truth about Princess Diana.

"It was character assassination at its worse," he wrote. "Your support and that of other journalists have helped me through a very unpleasant episode in my life."

That should be worth a few secrets about Monica - the kind of libellous titbits we newspaper people dare not publish.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.