We are a nation of fakers, fibbers and cheats. And we Yorkshire women are apparently the most fabulous fakers of the lot. Not satisfied (literally) with faking our orgasms, we are now apparently faking whole dinner parties.

According to a new study by the independent market analyst Datamonitor, hostesses are duping dinner party guests by passing off gourmet supermarket specialities as evidence of their own culinary skills.

We are so fed up having to fricassee about in the kitchen for hours on end, blowtorching our crme brulees and basting our blummin' birds, that we have begun ditching our aprons en masse and are now relying instead on our good friends Mr Marks and Mr Spencer.

More than a third of women admit to heating up supermarket products and passing them off as their own creations, and the laziest of the lot are us Tykes.

And is it any wonder? Staying in is the new going out, with Britons hosting 313 million "at home" gatherings a year at an average of £43 per party... and rising as our innate need to keep up with the Joneses kicks in.

Modern dinner parties are opportunities for us to show off. We want to provide our guests with picture perfect plates of food as they admire our new state-of-the-art DVD player, click their heels across our hard wood floors and glance enviously through our French doors across the decking to our rose-entwined pergola.

The problem is, however, that to get to the point where we can afford all this stuff and nonsense, we have to work ridiculously long hours. This in turn means we don't have time to actually cook a meal. So instead we sprint to the supermarket after work, dash home, skid into the kitchen ripping open packets and cartons with our teeth, throw everything into the oven and dispose of the evidence carefully.

This last part is vital, as I have found to my cost on more than one occasion. The best course of action is to gather up all the incriminating packaging, cut it into tiny pieces, set fire to them and then scatter the charred remains at various unrelated sites around the county. Unfortunately this actually takes longer than cooking a meal yourself from scratch, so you should probably just wrap the evidence in newspaper and bung it in the bin outside.

Whatever you do, don't put the packaging in your recycling box in the utility room. If, like I do, you have a sister-in-law who is half bloodhound on her mother's side, you will soon find yourself having to explain two empty jars of Ragu pasta sauce and a Tesco custard carton.

If I'm honest I have to admit that I hate hosting dinner parties. I love seeing my friends, knocking back a few beers, listening to brilliantly bad music and putting the world to rights, but I don't relish having to spend more time in the kitchen than it takes to grab a bag of Doritos and some dip.

So why do I do it? Why do I run around pretending to be the hostess with the mostest when all I really want to do is give my guests a big glass of something alcoholic and the phone number of the nearest takeaway? Why do any of us bother to fake it when we could just raise a glass with our friends to Messers M&S, tuck in and enjoy?

The truth is that while we might be lazier than a whole heap of snoozy cats on a summer afternoon, we are also too proud to admit it. None of us want to be the first to reveal that we are a faker. It takes guts to break the perpetual spiral of dinner parties, in which you and your friends continually invite each other round for increasingly elaborate culinary extravaganzas.

So-and-so poaches quail eggs, so you have to sear ostrich steaks, which means thingy and her husband whatsit have to serve up four courses of unpronounceable dishes from a country you have never heard of and can't spell. It's all very tasty, all very stylish and all very cold when you buy it frozen from Sainsbury's before nuking it in the microwave before your guests arrive.

If only we were confident enough to admit to our fakes, fibs and cheats. Unfortunately, my pride exceeds my laziness. So when my Easter weekend dinner party rolls around in a couple of weeks time, you will undoubtedly find me in the kitchen swearing at a joint of meat and furtively hiding a small mountain of supermarket packaging up my jumper.

Updated: 09:07 Tuesday, March 05, 2002