BARBIE COBOL PROGRAMMER

She's been an air hostess, a showjumper and bizarrely, even an astronaut. Barbie, the perennial favourite doll with the tiny waist and impossibly long legs has now become an IT computer engineer. This follows an online vote hosted by Mattel, Barbie's makers for a new Barbie for 2010.

Her new outfit which is replicated worldwide in the offices of IBM, Microsoft et al is black spangled leggings, a lime-green fitted top patterned with binary code under a slinky waistcoast. Accessories include hot-pink glasses, watch and shoes. Barbie conducts her business on a pink laptop and has a bluetooth headset. And whilst she's crawling under desks cabling computers to IT sockets, Barbie gets down to practicalities with a pink bobble to tie her hair back into a ponytail, and pink wedgie shoes. Mattel got that bit right.. 6 inch pink stiletto heels are sooo last season in the IT industry. To me, the new Barbie just looks like Katherine Jenkins doing a promo for Dell (have ITV done laptopstar to Operastar yet?).

Call me cynical and with some previous experience in IT, this doll doesn't exactly represent a typical female IT professional. Sadly, this doll looks more like one of the HR admin girls who after a few cheeky vimtos at the work's christmas party, can usually be seen straddling and sucking the face off the IT Commercial Director before skulking off to the hotel bedroom on expenses for a bit of drunken rumpy-pumpy. Here are my suggestions for the next Barbie which I think is far more representative of today's young woman who inspire girls everywhere....

Barbie WAG. Complete with surgical breast enhancements, designer clothes from Cricket in Liverpool or Selfridges Manchester, and designer handbag and shoes. Blank, botoxed expression and limited vocabulary versions optional. Comes with premiership footballer doll called Jermaine (black ethnicity), or Wayne (white and neanderthal ethnicity). Jermaine and Wayne come with tattooed arms and clothed in hoodie, jeans and trainers. Convertible Bentley and VIP pass to Spearmint Rhino optional. To complete the Barbie WAG collection, there's Jermaine and Wayne's 'bit on the side' dolls which look very similar to Barbie WAG, but a little less well polished and wearing clothes from Primark.

Barbie Paris. Highly coiffured Barbie with high quality designer clothes with fun option of knickers falling to the ground at alarming regularity. Barbie Paris comes with vacuous expression, which lights up when a camera flashes in close proximity. Use with caution when Barbie Paris is playing with 'Ken' and there's a handheld video camera nearby. Accessorise Barbie Paris with an ugly, hairless small dog called Tinkerbell. Optional extras include a free hotel pass to any Hiltons worldwide (including continental breakfast), a TV series and a gay new best friend called Sasha.