One Day women's fiction will be equal to men's...

I have just finished reading One Day by David Nicholls (like pretty much every other commuter on my train in the morning!). I thought it was a lovely book. It's funny, thoughtful and sad.

For those of you who haven't read it, it follows two people - Emma and Dexter. We meet them every year on July 15th from 1988, when they're watching dawn break over Edinburgh after a post-graduation one-night-stand, to 2007. It's a brilliant concept for a novel and glimpsing a snapshot of them each year is like catching up with old friends. We follow them through career highs and lows, travels abroad and at home, deaths, weddings and babies. The ending manages to be heartbreaking and life-affirming. David Nicholls is a natural, easy writer with a gift for capturing a character.

But all that aside, I have been pondering the nature of One Day. It's not, by any stretch of the imagination, literary fiction. It's rip-roaring, unashamed commercial fiction of the highest quality. It's a beach read, a tube read, a garden read. It won't ever be discussed by bored sixth-formers or pulled apart by eager undergraduates. And that's fine. Brilliant in fact. I LOVE commercial fiction. Love it. My own (almost, almost finished) novel is unashamedly commercial. My highest hope for it is to be given away free with a summer issue of Cosmo.

The beef I have with One Day is that because it's written by a man, it's deemed worthy. I have seen - gasp -MEN reading it on the train. It's got a kind of arty cover. Its inside pages are covered in quotes from The Guardian and other worthy publications. If it had been written by a woman, it would have a pair of shoes on the cover and be dismissed as chick lit, a term I despise. Marian Keyes writes 'chick lit'. Her novels deal with such lightweight issues as miscarriage, alcoholism, drug abuse, rape and bereavement. They often have pictures of shoes on the cover. Or butterflies.

It is a sad fact that in monetary terms at least, women's fiction is not equal to men's. Everyone knows women read books by men and women, while men only read those by men. I think one of the cleverest things JK Rowling did was to write under her initials instead of her full name. My dad and I share a passion for crime fiction. One of our favourite authors is James Lee Burke. Last week I read a brilliant novel by his daughter, Alafair Burke (Long Gone, for those of you who are interested). I offered it to my dad. He wrinkled up his nose and shook his head. His loss.

So I urge anyone in search of a good book to read One Day. It's wonderful. But please don't dismiss fiction by women. And please don't call it chick lit. You never know, you just might enjoy it...

Riots? I blame Cheryl Cole.

It's taken me a few days to decide what I think about the riots and looting in London and elsewhere. As a Londoner, it was horrible to watch places that were so familiar, burning. I worked in Croydon for years and got the bus home every day from outside Reeves, but I didn't realise quite how fond of it I was. No such worries with the area round Clapham Junction; I knew exactly how fond of it I was and it was terrible to see it being broken and looted.

So over the last few days I've been reading newspapers and listening to Radio Four and thinking about what's gone on. And I've decided that it's all Cheryl Cole's fault. That sounds a bit glib, but I do honestly feel something's gone wrong in our society and the X Factor and its ilk are a good illustration.

I am often shocked by the attitudes of my younger colleagues towards money and stuff. They measure success in things and are always noticing how big so-and-so's engagement ring is, or whinging about how they only have one designer handbag. I had a bit of a disagreement with one colleague recently about engagement rings. She said a big rock was an investment and I said if we'd had £6000 to spare when we got engaged, I'd rather have spent £1000 on a ring and the rest on a kitchen. Or a new car. Or our bathroom. You get the picture. Not only did she not agree, she didn't speak to me for THREE hours, so disgusted was she with my attitude.

Anyway, while pondering this approach to life, it struck me that we are surrounded by pictures of people who are rewarded for having no discernible talent. So lazy is Cheryl Cole that she can't even be bothered to listen to Elton John's greatest hits before Elton John week on the X Factor. But she's rich. Footballers are indeed talented but millions of pounds worth of talent? I don't think so. Coleen Rooney has been on holiday ten times this year. TEN TIMES. She does nothing. Katie Price is a horrible person. Loaded, though. People are plucked from obscurity and given wealth and adoration - for a while at least. And now everyone expects something for nothing.

I don't even think this sense of entitlement ends with young people. I think Tracey Emin's complaints about the 50% rate of tax (http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/oct/04/tracey-emin-tax-protest-france) were vile. I think MPs fiddling their expenses just because everyone else was doing it is unforgiveable. I hate rich people playing the system and paying less tax than their cleaner. The amount of mums I've heard saying they pay their nanny cash in hand is shocking. We're all at it.

While I do think the rioters need to be punished, I am worried that David Cameron, Boris Johnson and the rest of them will think sending a few people to prison will end this. I fear the cancer in society goes much deeper than just the actions of some idiots on Monday night and I'm not sure what the answer is. But I've got an inkling it might start with the X Factor...

A monumental day

Thing Two is learning how to talk. He is learning very differently from his big brother, whose first words were 'ball', 'duck', 'banana', 'Mummy', you know the kind of thing.

Thing Two says 'Batman'. He says 'Gaga' (meaning Lady Gaga, of course) and sings a passable rendition of Bad Romance. He roars like a dinosaur. He says "Oh man" if something goes wrong. He says 'cheers' and clinks his Tommy Tippee beaker against my mug. He even says "sit down" quite sternly to himself when he's balancing on top of something, like his high chair, or the back of the sofa, or the high slide in the park. He also says 'Daddy' and 'Grandad'. But he won't say 'Mummy'.

Until this morning. When I was changing his nappy he looked up at me and said, beautifully, clearly, 'Mama'.

HOORAY! My work here is done.

Guilty!

Like most working mums I feel guilty. All. The. Time.

I work four days a week on a TV mag. My job is not hard. It does not pay brilliantly, but the little money I make is needed and I am grateful.

I leave for work at 7.45 am and collect the boys from their (wonderful) childminder at 6.30pm; we all get home about 6.45pm, just in time for bed and bath at 7pm.

I feel bad for not being a good enough mum. And I feel bad for not being a good enough journalist. And I feel bad for not being a good enough working mum. I look at other working mums and wonder how they do it. How do they get to work without snot on their shoulders, with their hair looking nice? How are they not dropping with tiredness? How have they got enough holiday left to spend time with their husband, instead of just taking days here and there to cover childcare?

Here are all the things I feel guilty about...

*Sending the boys to a childminder. Every Monday Thing One cries and says he doesn't want to go. He loves it when he gets there, though. Which leads me neatly on to...

*Our childminder is too good. Seriously. She's brilliant. The school holidays only started two weeks ago and she's already taken her kids to museums, paddling pools, parks and they've even held the Olympic Torch. I can't compete! On my day off, Thing One complains that going to Tesco "just isn't exciting Mummy". He's got a point.

*Going to Tesco/cleaning/tidying/doing laundry/yawn on my precious day off.

*Not doing enough cleaning/tidying/laundry/yawn on my precious day off.

*Putting too much energy into my job and being reluctant to give it up.

*Not putting enough energy and effort into my job and not being successful enough.

Ooh and I could go on and on and on. There are also the things that come up as and when. Yesterday morning Thing One was being particularly stroppy and I spent a lot of time trying to calm him down before breakfast. When I eventually got on the train to work (missed my normal train, natch), I realised though I'd got Thing Two dressed, I'd barely interacted with him at all. Poor little mite.

Anyway, I don't want this to be a self-pitying rant. I just wanted to get it off my chest. And to appeal to all those other working mums out there - how do you do it? All tips gratefully received...