It is alarming news - women don't have just ONE G-spot. They have FOUR.

Alarming not because we have three more than we have always been led to believe, but because it is a well-known fact that men have trouble finding even one - yet all the time they have had four to go at. It confirms what many women have thought for a long time - that the British male is a complete washout in the bedroom.

I suppose I should not lay too much blame at the door of the opposite sex. I have not got a clue where my G-spot is, let alone the others, which human biologist Desmond Morris - who breaks the startling news in his new book The Naked Woman - has called the U-spot, the C-spot and the A-spot.

In fact, I very much doubt that I have a G-spot. Well, not the kind that women discuss at length in Cosmopolitan.

I do have a G-spot of a different kind and, come to think of it, a U-spot, a C-spot and an A-spot, all of which have a huge influence on sex. And not just how it feels, but whether it takes place at all. They are:

G-spot = Gardening

It is a dirty word in our house, and not just in terms of the big dollops of mud brought into the house on the soles of size 11 wellies. Gardening - especially at times when there are more important things (like getting the children to bed) to be getting on with - can spark the most furious rows. Almost every night I find myself using language I usually reserve for aggressive motorists to bring my husband back from the far reaches of the garden, where he passes the time doing I know not what. A man's approach to his garden can mean the difference between a healthy sex life and a bi-annual one.

U-spot = Understanding

Or, how shall I put it, getting a man's head around a female brain. Let's face it, they just don't understand how we tick. Women have issues they would like to resolve. They try to talk about them. Men don't want to. Women keep at it. Men see it as nagging. Then you argue. And on top of all this there's the time of the month and all those hormone imbalances. Men cannot hope to understand us.

C-spot = Care

Do they? How many of us have sat by the phone waiting for a call that will change our demeanour from morose to ecstatic? To women, things like that are of huge importance and can make your day, while to men they are insignificant. "I wasn't near a phone," is a common excuse, yet to a woman this is an insult. This is 21st century Britain, for heaven's sake. It doesn't take much to make a woman happy, but lack of care - "I lost track of the time" - is another favourite to have the opposite effect.

A-spot = Affection

It could be an arm around the shoulder, a smile or a peck on the cheek. Little gestures that mean a great deal. Nowadays, displays of affection - particularly in public - appear to be confined to teenagers in bus shelters. A little more effort on the A-spot could do wonders in any relationship.

Desmond Morris may believe that the four spots are super-sensitive zones within a woman's body - but to reach them the super-sensitive areas in a woman's brain must be catered for. As a heterosexual male, he should surely know this. I know my husband does.

Updated: 11:16 Tuesday, October 12, 2004