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When people ask me my favourite Dragon, I never have to hesitate in offering an answer: Deborah.

There are two reasons that I give that answer.

Evan will write weekly updates of Den activity throughout the 2009 series.

The first is that if I singled out one of the guys as my favourite, the other male Dragons would probably hold it against me forever.

The second reason I offer Deborah as my answer, is that Deborah is my favourite Dragon.

And in this series of the programme, she has been at her very best. Always reasonable, considerate and highly analytical. Her ability to get straight to the point in judging the predicament of a business has been unrivalled in recent programmes.

You could see an example with her pithy summary of the problem facing Russell Bowlby's giant £28,000 Wendy house. "The problem is price" she explained.

(Ok, on reflection, that particular judgement was perhaps rather obvious. But I stick to my point that she has been on good form.)

For me, though a striking feature of this whole series of Dragons' Den is that it is not just Deborah who has had a good run. It is women more generally.

Week after week, it is women who have been among the most impressive characters.

I mentioned Sharon Wright some weeks ago (magnetic rods to pull cables through wall cavities) and Samantha Gore last week (with her electric curtain shutter).

This week it was Kay Russell who won an investment from Deborah for her Physicool product, a cooling bandage (for people or for horses!)

Now I'm not one for sweeping generalisations about gender. We all know the variation between different men or between different women is as great as any variation between men and women.

But I am prepared to accept that there are some traits whose distribution is slightly skewed towards one gender or the other.

So let me make two observations about the Den women – and leave the question open as to how far the women in the Den differ from the blokes.

The first observation is that the women tend to be practical. Their business ideas are modest and useful, rather than grandiose. By way of example from the latest episode, compare Kay Russell's bandage to the electric car project of Stephen Voller.

Was it not always more likely to be a man that would first enter the Den looking for an investment of over two million pounds?

If I'm right about this, it is an advantage for the women that they are down to earth. But it is also an advantage for the men that they have the occasional big vision.

The second observation is this: the women are just as well endowed with business acumen and even ruthlessness than their male counterparts.

I imagine some might think the fairer sex would somehow be nicer than the men; but when it comes to business in the Den there doesn't seem to be much reason to think so.

Again, I can only make my argument by example:

1. In programme 2, Sharon Wright gave a stellar performance. But that did not stop her making a tactical omission in her pitch, failing to mention that there was another producer of magnetic cable pullers. That is no more or no less than would expect in the Den from someone of either gender.

2. And another example this week: Kay Russell came into the Den proffering one business to the Dragons, while keeping for herself an existing successful business that sold the same bandages. One male Dragon – James Caan – didn't like it at all. Again, Kay is hardly the first person to structure a deal that way, but it's not exactly the offer that Florence Nightingale would have come up with.

These two examples are not unusual examples of behaviour in the Den where it is after all, every man and woman for themselves.

They just caution us not to exaggerate the differences. We might be pleased to see the women coming into their own in this series, but they haven't re-written the rules.

Last updated: 26 August 2009