NO MATTER what I've said about women in the past, I reckon we don't give them credit where it's due.

Make no mistake about it, behind every successful man there is a determined woman, planning, scheming and organising.

While men have just mastered the art of being able to walk and talk at the same time, women have for eons been able to multi-task, to juggle the daily tasks of their family's everyday life.

For instance, no doubt you'll be jetting off on holiday anytime soon. Who will sort out the clothes, sun cream, currency, travel arrangements and en route refreshments?

Who will have the ironing all neatly laid out like a national serviceman's bed, then packed so every garment emerges from an aircraft hold as if fresh from the laundry?

At airports, the suddenly-meek husband will take second place in the queue, relegated to the role of grown-up child, while his wife sorts out the passports and tickets and does the business of checking in.

Sitting enjoying a drink passing the interminable check-in time, it will be the wife who gets up to keep an eye on the little screen that flags up just how much the flight departure time has slipped back yet again.

And then you land at the other side, get ferried to your apartment; and who then unpacks and organises while the hunter-gatherer male goes foraging for emergency provisions - by way of a bar?

For the rest of the holiday, he is forever asking: "Which drawer are my socks in? Where did you put the...?"

Just for the record, this is not the man being lazy. He merely hands over responsibility to the woman because she is better at organising. It is simply the labourer acknowledging the skills of the tradesman.

For it is scientific fact that women are different, quite apart from the obvious. They are good at bringing things together, despite an office colleague's comment during a battle of the genders this week that: "Of course women can do two things at once - they can make love while telling you that the ceiling needs painting."

If only poor Charles Darwin had looked a little deeper when formulating his Theory of Evolution. He might have found that while man was beginning to straighten up and shed his body hair, advanced woman was watching the boys play with their bows and arrows while scratching out a shopping list on a tablet of stone and working out the weekly bills on an abacus.

I reckon Darwin's failure was because he was mollycoddled by an organised Mrs Darwin.

She probably booked his six-month, round-the-world cruise tickets, ironed his calico underpants and packed his salt beef sandwiches and ship's biscuits. She'd wave him off at the quayside, with instructions to stay away from those naked women in Tahiti (or was that Captain Cook?), then she'd go home and bounce the babies and balance the books while he was off gallivanting.

Naturally, things have evolved a lot since Mr Darwin put quill to paper.

A woman is probably skippering the ship that he would have set sail on in his search for the truth. It could be she is piloting your holiday plane and owns the apartment block where you are staying.

Teenage girls are no longer just beginning their apprenticeship in the kitchen, they are upstairs listening to music in a bomb-site of a bedroom.

Men are turning into galley slaves with cooking, washing and ironing duties while women are out on the town - unescorted, for goodness sake.

If you look into the past of the rich and famous, it is something from their childhood that has shaped their destiny. And there's no doubt that the major influence was a woman (Hitler's mum must have been a hell of a woman, and Churchill only ever wanted to be loved and wanted by his mother).

Not that all males capitulate that easily. Some of us still have self respect and can stand up for ourselves. Phew, that's it. I hope I've written this exactly as instructed or she'll kill me. Or worse, I could find my rations docked for a fortnight.

u There was an interesting, almost humorous response to the question posed in last week's column, What Makes You Laugh?

I liked Iris Wells' offering: "In one of the toilet cubicles at York Station, someone has written at the bottom of the door (on the inside) 'Beware of limbo dancers'!"

York ex-patriate Ann J Wright sent me her favourite "70 things we've learned from the movies".

Here are five

"1) During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a striptease club at least once.

2) All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.

3) The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty.

4) When paying for a taxi, don't look at your wallet as you take out a bill - just grab one at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.

5) Kitchens don't have light switches. When entering a kitchen at night, you should open the fridge door and use that light instead.

John Robson sent me the one about a York University student who got drunk and swallowed a whole sheep as a dare. Next morning, suffering from a terrible tummy ache, he visited the doctor and when asked how he felt said: "Very baa-aad."

And finally, this one is obviously from a dedicated, sycophantic fan who shall remain nameless: Question: What's the difference between the Evening Press offices and York Minster? Answer: The Minster's got gargoyles on the OUTSIDE!"

Updated: 10:00 Tuesday, July 01, 2003