THIS WEEK a new kind of Diet Coke was launched which, because it is “small enough to slip into a handbag for that quick lunch break or shopping trip” (I quote a Coca-Cola spokeswoman), will specifically target the lucrative women’s market. This came as a shock to me, since I had no idea there was a men’s market for it anyway.

Still, I was delighted to hear that a special little can had been introduced for that sparrow-like half of humanity that has spent so many years struggling to hoist vast 330ml cans around like some burly hod carrier or baggage handler. And then I realised that the launch of “girly Coke” was an excellent opportunity to talk about insulting gender stereotypes and cynical corporate rapine, which I do so like to do.

Coca-Cola, you will remember, are the chaps who this year tried to sell us mains water from their Sidcup bottling plant by calling it Dasani (which is so close to being an anagram of “I, Satan” as to render it entirely your own fault if you drank any of it). People got angry simply because Dasani was water — “purified” from the factory tap — that was being sold before it had been turned into Coca-Cola. Like that’s a bad thing. It’s Coke without the sugar and caffeine, people. It’s Coke before they’ve made it bad for you. It’s Coke that won’t make you fat and toothless. Complaining about Dasani is like a mouse rejecting the cheese because it isn’t being served on a wooden block with a little spring-loaded guillotine on top.

And then Dasani had to be withdrawn anyway because it contained bromate, a substance which might just be bad for you if taken in enormous doses. Which would, of course, nullify all the goodness you have been getting from the aspartame and acesulfame-k in your Diet Coke.

Coca-Cola knew it had to redress this marketing disaster. The obvious solution would have been to make a new gross-tasting Coke, whip up a backlash and then yield to “consumer pressure” by reintroducing the old one. But there is a limit to how many times you can do that. So what else?

Of course: a new 250ml tin of Diet Coke so that women can put it in their handbags to go to the shops. What women? Audrey Hepburn? Margaret Thatcher? Who are these women with dainty little handbags? They’re all dead or mad. Handbags are huge; they’re usually rucksacks. Women can carry a crate of Coke in them if they want. Once you’re into gender stereotypes it would be far better to market the new can as specially designed for men to “carry in that bulging toolbox or pop snugly into that mobile phone holster.”

And who wants a can of Coke in their handbag, anyway, all warm and shaken up? And what a grim view of women, always shopping and guzzling Diet Coke. And why is it only Diet Coke that is being made smaller? Is it because only chronic abstemers will leap at the chance to get less of something for nearly the same price (down from 60p to 50p)? Are the 1.3 calories in a standard can now just too many for the serious dieter? By getting the unit product down to under a calorie (just enough energy to power a single eye blink), is Coca-Cola finally doing its bit for women’s lib?

“People have less time . . . we are moving with the times,” the spokeswoman said. Less time? Lunch break so short you have to reduce by a quarter the number of gulps of liquid you can take? Then get a new job, woman, for God’s sake.

The spokeswoman goes on: “It’s like everything in life that is getting smaller, from cars to iPods.” What is she talking about? Cars get bigger by the day. Everybody drives 4x4s and people carriers. And iPods aren’t getting smaller, they didn’t exist before. They just happen to be small. And she compares this stupid new can to an iPod as if that were a good thing. iPods are for those people you sometimes see who are too stupid to occupy unfilled moments with thought. They are the ones who, when left alone for three minutes in a café, jiggle their knee nervously under the table, light three cigarettes, shake down all the sugar packets in the little metal bowl and keep picking up and putting down their mobile phone. And now these sad people have to have a special tiny drink so that they don’t get bored drinking a whole 330ml?

Tragically, the new lady Coke will be exclusive to Boots. That’s where this mythical thirsty shopping trip has taken the modern working woman of the Coke men’s imagining. She is a nervous wreck who spends her nine-minute lunch-break in the chemist’s, rushing round purchasing fat-free cottage cheese portions, cheap nail polish, headache pills and scented insoles. As gender observation, it stinks to hell.

What do Coke plan next? Special Jew Coke which comes in a tapered can to stop it banging into long noses and has a drop of Catholic babies’ blood in every can? Arab Coke that comes in 12 little tins on a vest that you can strap on under you clothes when boarding a hot bus in the Tel Aviv rush hour? What about Black Coke, specially made not to spill when you’re dancing? What about Gay Coke with a non-slip bottom on the can so it doesn’t slide off the cistern while you’ re exposing yourself in a public convenience? Truly, the Real Thing will never have been so real.

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