I have begun to lose my faith in girl power, especially after seeing Madonna and Britney kiss in Spears' new music video. First it was the three-way clinch with Christina Aguilera at the MTV awards and now Spears is talking about what a great lady Madonna is while promoting her 'scandalous snog' in Q magazine.

Madonna has always tried to stress how she is breaking taboos and going where no other woman has gone before. Yet she is all too quick to get into bed with Britney for a bit of pseudo lesbianism straight out of a male fantasy manual - and TATU got there before them anyway.

Britney naively said in the interview that the kiss "didn't bring me any closer to her". Why would it? Madonna is happily married and Britney has never said she is less than happily heterosexual. So how are we to believe their 'passion' is anything more than a simulated stunt?

The 'lesbian' fantasy seems to be gaining ground among some female celebrities, who wrap themselves around their female friends for photo calls as if homosexuality is the latest fashion statement.

It may sell videos and get you talked about, but it's not very clever. Madonna is not doing anything risque or important by putting on her lingerie and giving Britney a very tame kiss on the lips. What would be really ground-breaking would be if she put her money where her mouth is and ran off with Britney into the sunset. But the men might not be best pleased, so let's just leave it at the music video.

In an embarrassing journalistic assignment, I was told to cover Sir Ranulph Fiennes' London leg of his seven-marathon challenge by running with him. The last time I ran anywhere was when I was seven and I chased a boy round the playground for stealing my banana.

I turned up as Sir Ranulph and his entourage reached the 20-mile mark. I joined the group, to the astonishment of the other runners, who couldn't understand why an ill-dressed woman with a notepad had suddenly joined them outside Harrow train station. But it turned out to be a life-changing assignment for me.

All the runners had run multiple marathons (one had done 42) and I was fired up by this knowledge. Join your local running club and start off with small distances, you'll soon be hooked and running in the snow, they said.

I went home, my head burning with running fantasies. Me in a lycra body sock at the Chicago marathon; travelling with the run club to the Paris marathon and beating all the men; leaving journalism and going professional.

That was last week. I haven't quite got round to my second jog yet but the fantasies are still recurring.