Women drivers and diva moments

I was left a little red faced last week when a colleague pointed out that a series of questions I'd asked a business woman could be considered sexist.

The six questions I had put to the woman were for the slightly tongue-in-cheek Company Car Man/Woman column for Tuesday's the Business supplement.

The usual format for this long-running column is to mix current affairs-based questions and with more light-weight offerings. I realised that for some inexplicable reason the half-dozen posers I came up with last week were based around either shopping, soap operas or celebrity culture. After contacting the woman - a lawyer - she agreed that my questions could be seen as sexist, but hadn't said anything because the she felt the main tone of the column wasn't meant to be too serious.

However, I decided to change a question about whether the woman had 'diva moments' with one about the future of the city's developing cultural quarter.

A colleague told me a good rule-of-thumb in future was to ask myself whether I'd have asked a man the same set of questions. It's quite probable that I wouldn't.

What this highlights, of course, is the fine line between 'a bit of fun' and causing offense - a problem journalists have grappled with since the invention of the printing press. I think on this occasion I overstepped the mark slightly.

Consider my wrist firmly slapped.