''Listen, kiddo, good news," began my agent in an unexpectedly excited voice. These days, he sounds barely civil when we speak: in marketing terms, a female client recovering from childbirth is about as useful as a grounded Concorde. "According to a new survey," he continued breathlessly, "you're up there with the IT crew." I looked blankly at my computer screen, where a half-finished "quick" crossword was ruining my afternoon's work. How could I be "up there" with specialists in internet technology, I wondered, when it takes me half an hour to download an empty grid from the Guardian's website?

But John was still in full flow. "When you get your figure back, it's all good, kiddo, you're hot . . ." It took a couple more minutes for the full story to emerge. There's a new website up and running called amihotornot.com. It's the big thing in "cool" sites because it wickedly combines our obsession with sex appeal and the individual's desperate need to be admired. All you do is upload a photo of yourself on to the site, and bingo - within minutes, strangers can vote to tell you whether or not your image has the honour of providing them with their afternoon jollies. Nice.

A minx at the Mail on Sunday has sent a photo of me to the site, and it turns out, according to 1,000 bored men, that I am marginally hotter than Anthea Turner, but less sexy than It Girl Tamara Beckwith.

I immediately returned to my crossword, and completed it in double-quick time. Then I carried on writing. No, I didn't - because, in the back of my mind, a little cockroach of insecurity was scuttling around whispering: "I bet the picture wasn't even a good one; upload that one of you on holiday and you'll rate alongside Cameron Diaz . . ." Being desperately competitive is nothing new for me. Being placed behind Hamida Bharmal on the school register (damn alphabetical order) tormented me through six years of my teenage education. From the age of 12, I was seized by the need to "top the bill" at any cost.

I found the website, and then pored over hundreds of photos of poor, insecure victims of practical jokes - most of the photos have been sent in by "mates" for a laugh. The girl blow-drying her hair in a scruffy T-shirt with her face completely obscured managed a rating of two out of ten, while the teenager with plentiful acne scored a crushing one. I started off giving everyone excessively generous points, saying things aloud such as: "Ah, bless him, he looks like a nice lad."

But the internet is no place for kindness: things happen too fast here. Soon, I was giving bikini babes a miserly two marks. I was stopped in my tracks when a snapshot of a boy no more than eight years old flashed up, and the question "Am I hot or not?" appeared sickeningly above his sad, little face.

Unfortunately, I was already craving another "fix" from the web. I visited fantasyworldorder.com, where you create your own ideal world leader by answering the sort of complex questions on ethics and international boundaries that are brilliantly avoided by Robin Cook. At the end of a gruelling 20 minutes, I picked the name "Blossom" for my kind and benign governor. My rating as ruler of the world flashed up. "Your leader has a popularity rating of 63.3 per cent," said the screen approvingly. I finally logged off at 8pm, cheerfully conceding that I am brighter than I am sexy. I won't be lured into any more demeaning totty contests - my brain is my biggest asset and that's how it will stay. At least, until I find that photo of me in the Caribbean.

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