Say what you like about Sex And The City - and I have, the thrust of most of my previous comments being that it was an act of surpassing collective lunacy ever to elevate to the status of feminist icons four women who habitually:

a) turned into a gibbering, prancing, hair-tossing flutterwit whenever she came within 10 feet of her supposed soulmate (corsage fetishist Carrie);

b) turned into a gibbering, prancing, hair-tossing flutterwit whenever she came within 10 feet of any man from the Upper East Side and upper tax bracket (Charlotte, pretty as a picture and dimmer than a trout);

c) scared men away by having short hair (Miranda - a successful lawyer, yet still too stupid to take the morning-after pill);

d) reduced herself to a giant vagina (Samantha - although, to be fair, the writers occasionally gave her breasts as well).

I mean, you may as well have claimed that Ally McBeal was written by Mary Wollstonecraft.

But the SATC women did at least paint, in very broadbrush terms, an almost recognisable picture of supportive female friendship. You could at least imagine that occasionally during the 167 hours of the week when we didn't see them, they found time to talk about something other than funky spunk and Carrie's $30,000 shoe collection.

Add to this the power of relentless publicity and the unrelenting tedium of my average week, and I became moved to perform a quick ring-round of all my female friends to see if they'd like to join me at the Croydon Odeon, south-east London's answer to Bungalow 8, on the day of the movie's release.

"It's a film," hissed Female Friend Number One. In retrospect, I should not have started with a woman whose most frequent topic of conversation is the desire to have the crime of grammatical solecism put on the statute books so that she can sue Any Amount Of Books on Charing Cross Road for emotional distress. At the very least, I should have taken care not to strew my conversation with Americanisms.

"Hello, Female Friend Number Two. Will you come and see Sex And The City with me? What's that? Why would you want to see four women in designer clothes walking down the streets of Manhattan looking like they are made of elastic bands burnished to a high gloss when you are so fat and ugly? Carrie is a 40-year-old woman with thighs like a 23-year-old Indian brave? Yes, I think I see the way this phone call is going, so I'll call back in a few years' time, OK? Stay strong. And away from cake, if you're really that bothered."

"Female Friend Number Three, how are you fixed for a night out at the pictures? You've just had twins? Blimey. How long is it since I saw you? Really? Your second set? You haven't left the house for four years? I didn't realise - doesn't time fly when you're having fun. Well, I was, obviously, not you..."

Four, five and six have proper jobs and are working until midnight every night on what they inform me are the last deals taking place before the entire country goes into economic meltdown, so I'm going on my own. I shall sit in the dark and try not to contemplate too closely the gulf between the glittering fantasy on screen and my motley crew sitting at work or home, nursing body issues, children, semantic furies and shareholder briefs. Although I may just pledge to try to keep in better touch with them in future. Apart from anything else, in a couple of years Sarah Jessica Parker may be up for a sequel.