2005-01-31 - 11:50 a.m.

Like all mothers, Mother Nature is a conniving whore. My basic starter flu has been in training over the weekend, and has stepped up the intensity to dishing out some startlingly explosive action in the gastric division. Now I can�t even just lie around moaning on the couch. I�m up and down like a bride�s nightie.

I�m trying to be philosophical, and seeing it as a kind of a metaphor for my tax bill, the annual delights of which are brightening up today even further if that�s possible. Both involve unwanted nasty outgoings, and leave you feeling like the Christmas turkey that�s just been presented with its own giblets.

Speaking of which, the situation isn�t helped by the fact that last night I was glued to Anatomy for Beginners, with fedora-sporting, cadaver-mongering creepster Dr Gunther von Hagens slitting open dead bodies on live TV. Here�s a man that makes Quincy look like the model of pathological restraint. Some of the more colourful demonstrations of the digestive tract are certainly coming back to haunt me. I�m not sure being party to the exact vacillations of my small and large intestines are helping my colonic wrestling bout.

I�m retreating to the soothing balm of daytime telly, and hoping that there are no magazine features presented by Pip Schofield on Irritable Bowel Syndrome. That said, it�s all doing wonders for my weight loss programme.