I was delighted to hear that the seriously misleading rhyme about the inherent qualities of boys and girls has been changed by somebody called Iona Opie writing for Walker Books. It now goes something like Sugar and spice and all things nice / that's what little boys are made of while girls are the demonic creations formed out of snails, the severed limbs of small dogs and God knows what else.
No doubt the revisionist re-vamp was inspired by the PC watch department of some North London borough council in an attempt to make small girls think of themselves as corporate mischief-makers and tiny boys to think of themselves as sugar-coated carers, but to my mind, it just confirms what I have known for some time now - boys are the new girls.
I first discovered this fact when I went on holiday with friends a couple of months back. On first glance, the male contingent seemed a perfectly boyish lot - there was plenty of talk about football on the plane, one of them made the requisite remark about fancying the air stewardess and they all insisted on eating lots of food before we'd so much as checked into the hotel.
But over dinner, an incident occurred that was the first indication to us girls that somewhere along the line, our territory had been seriously invaded. One girl mentioned a rather peculiar sexual practice she had heard about - heard about, mind, not done or anything. All the other girls took a lively interest in this - not that we wanted to do it, mind, we were just interested in the logistics and that. But who were shrieking, turning pale and stuffing their fingers into their ears up the other end of the table? Only all the lads, who you'd swear were fresh out of a convent education so great was their prudish horror. Now stereotyping is getting a very hard time of it these days, but an awful lot of it comes about because it's kind of true - I don't know about you but I drink, fight and say `begorrah' all the time. Well, maybe not the best example, but the point is, girls are meant to be prudish not boys. Boys are meant to make loud braying sounds of approval when talk turns to matters sexual and girls are meant to squeal and say "Ooo stop, Brad - that's dirty".
Once we realised that those dastardly boys had stolen one of our girl prerogatives, we began to notice that several others had gone missing too. While the female contingent were quite content to slop around the hotel in tracksuit bottoms, the boys bounced out of their rooms three quarters of an hour late, smelling of moisturiser and wearing a different outfit each time. Hello?
Then there was the incessant gossip, and the incidences of supreme bitchiness about other boys - I hate to admit it but at times those boys left us standing in the traps for excellent girl-style behaviour. I even made a few surreptitious notes on tactics and approach.
It wasn't just that holiday either - just last weekend one male friend decided to retire early on Friday night because he had an "early start" the next day.
"But we're not meeting until 12.30", I protested. He looked slightly pityingly and said: "Yes, but by the time I shower and get ready I'll have been up for ages", displaying a strategic awareness of the importance of guilt-inducement that underlined his advanced status as a new girl.
Advertisers are well aware of the new girl tendencies of the male consumer - if it isn't your man from Brushstrokes getting neurotic about germs on his kitchen surfaces, it's a central casting special getting queeny about a tense, nervous headache.
Of course, it was only a question of time before it happened. Nothing seems to be capable of being itself for any length of time anymore - one minute grey was just another colour of slightly more fashion interest than taupe or avocado and the next minute, it's been whipped into the spotlight because it has become the new black. Before you know it, dinner parties have metamorphosed into the new cocktail party, Robert Carlyle is the new Sean Connery and reiki is the new reflexology (don't ask).
However, the fact that boys have become the new girls doesn't seem to have been documented properly at all - indeed the whole emergence of new girls has been surrounded by a conspiracy of silence.
I blame the insidious use of football by so many of the new girls, who bandy around excessive footie terminology and arcane league table knowledge in an often successful attempt to disguise their new girl tendencies - even perhaps from themselves. But have you noticed how many good-looking football players there are at the moment? The good soccer manager knows that buying a player with a lovely head of glossy hair and good knees, will appeal to all those new girl fans to whom grooming is so terribly important.
However, try as I might, I can't get any boys to own up to their new girliness - in fact, the roll-eyed look of horror that crosses their face at the thought of being anything like a girl is a very interesting insight into the healthy state of misogyny these days.
For myself, I would heartily recommend being a new girl to any boy - think of all that nice supportiveness and back-stabbing, not to mention the nail products - but you want to get in there quick. All too soon being a new girl will be just so last season.