What were you doing in 1998 when Sex and the City first graced TV screens around the world? I was 19, in my second year at uni, searching for the perfect pair of jeans (a quest which has not been fulfilled a decade on), and had just started going steady with a footy player from West Auckland who would become my husband eight years later.

I was young, relatively dumb, and definitely badly dressed compared to the four glamorous Manhattanites who flounced their way across our TV screens that year in a new show, Sex and the City. I probably thought Manolo Blahnik was a province in Eastern Europe.

I was a bit young to get their sex-in-your-thirties-while -everyone-else-is-partnering-up ethos, but the show's appeal was universal. I mean, what wasn't to like about great clothes, amazing shoes, some hunky male eye candy and the bawdy sexual subject matter which used to make us squeal - and cringe, in equal parts - with hilarity.

I'll never forget my brother Matt and I up of an evening and watching one particular episode of Sex and the City. The girls had gone along to observe a class on sexual technique where the instructors made their roles, er, practically based.

As the woman gave the bloke relief of a, um, manual nature in front of the class, the scream he and I emitted when the product of such relief' landed in Miranda's hair was so loud that our Mum launched herself out of bed and down the hall, convinced there was an intruder in the house. Think she was quite relieved when it turned out just to be a TV hand job.

After coming to an end in 2004 Sex and the City will hit the big screen in New Zealand in about two weeks, cause for women around the country to put on their heels, order a cosmopolitan, and head to the cinema.

There's been much hoo-ha made about the fact that the four actresses in the movie - Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Carrie, Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha, Cynthia Nixon (Miranda) and Kristin Davis (Charlotte) are not such buddy buddies off-screen as they are on.

Particularly, Sarah Jessica and Kim are known to have a relatively frosty relationship.

But so what? They are after all actresses in a fictitious story. It's funny, but not really that surprising, that these rumours started on a TV series with a main cast of all females. Like Kristin Davis once pointed out, you didn't hear these rumours of squabbling and backstabbing about the guys on The Sopranos. Hey, I'm sure a few people working on Everybody Loves Raymond actually hated Raymond.

Movies in production - and TV series come to think of it - require horrendously long working hours in all sorts of conditions. Admittedly, Manhattan offers better working conditions than many places. But in all honesty would you, after working weeks of 16-hour days, want to spend your scant time off with your workmates, having pillow fights and eating bonbons or whatever the press imagined these women should be doing?

Of course not.

Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall are not friends, that much is clear. But why should they be? A lot has been written about Kim Cattrall holding up the production of the Sex and the City movie a couple of years ago, when Kim reportedly wasn't happy with the salary she was offered in comparison to Sarah Jessica Parker's.

While Carrie was the heart of Sex and the City, Samantha was the nether regions. Her outrageous antics, upfront sexuality and heart of gold made her tremendously popular with viewers around the world.

Kim Cattrall knew they couldn't make a SATC movie without Samantha. She knew she was valuable to the production, and so she asked for more money. I don't see anything wrong with that. If it was Madonna demanding more money, people would call her ballsy.

She reportedly signed on for $6 million after expressing misgivings about the salary she was offered. Apparently Nixon and Davis got $2 million each.

So after all the press, and the paparazzi shots from the set, and the rumours and the plot spoilers (which I'm trying to avoid!) is anyone actually interested in seeing three forty-somethings and one fifty-something shaking what their mamas gave them across Manhattan?

New York's Time Out magazine appeared on city newsstands two weeks ago, with the Sex cast gracing the cover - with their mouths taped over. ?Enough already,' declared the banner across the front. ?We love ?em, but it's just too much.' Inside, they promised ?1,965 ways to enjoy your New York, guaranteed Carrie-free!'

I'm really looking forward to it. I can't help it! Given more money (and donations are welcome) I would be an unapologetic shoe whore, and I can't wait to seethe with envy at the glorious clothes and the divine footwear and jewellery. Apparently there's so much of it that the film's producers had to take out a $20million insurance policy.

So I'm planning on seeing it with my girlfriends and enjoying it, and you should too. After all, it is only a movie.

Which was your favourite Sex and the City episode? And will you be going to see the movie? Let me know below.

Next Monday I will be gleefully out of the office and the rundown of the gossip mags will be done by Amy Williams, my charming colleague with a keen sense of the smutty. Enjoy!