This is hardly an exhaustive survey (though it might qualify as ‘exhausting’), but – give the blog a prize – boys and girls really are different. Oh yes, pop that Phd in the post. An outing with a goddaughter yesterday afternoon (English National Ballet’s Angelina Ballerina in Holland Park: completely adored by the overwhelmingly female, under-five, audience) revealed a few differences to the mother of boys who took her. For what it’s worth, here are her thoughts.

• Little girls like clothes. Love and worship them, and might just sell the family pet for cash to hit Baby Gap with. Boys, on the other hand, simply don’t care. (Until the ‘trainer’ years, from about eight, apparently.) It must take hours to get ready when gorgeous girlie pulls everything out of the wardrobe, tries it all on, does it all over again until finally happy with look du jour. Boys? You bung it on, they then concentrate on important things like breakfast, and the number of different cereals they can cram into a bowl.
• Girls show off. While boys run around like crazy, climb everything that moves, and chase pigeons/dogs/pigtailed girls, their exuberant behaviour is fuelled mainly by that scary mix of testosterone and adrenaline. Girls pirouhette, twirl, prance and skip, and go into overdrive if they suspect anyone of watching.
•  Feeding girls is cheap. Boys like bulk, girls munch on half of half a sandwich and are good till bedtime.
• Watching me, watching you. Girls are acutely aware of what other girls are doing, wearing or eating. Teeny tots wearing tiaras and top-to-toe ruffles and sparkles are likely to bring on an attack of, ‘can I have that? All of it??’, followed by disatisfaction with own tiara/ruffles/sparkles. And they’re not above pointing out how superior their own sparkly skirt is if it’s more frou frou than anyone else’s.
• And what is it about pink? If it’s pink, girls want to wear it, smile at it or eat it. Despite boys being invariably dressed with something blue in the mix, they don’t swoon every time they see the sky or an empty crisp packet.

So there  we have it, girls will be girls,  and very nice they are too. Though blog angels & urchins now feels a little bit more solidarity with SMOG.