Mind you, as a result of those investigations I had to have one of those colonoscopy jobs. You know those Christmas cracker whistles which have paper tubes that unroll when you blow them? Well the first eighteen inches of your bowels from your arse upwards is like that, all flattened until there's a bit of action going on. So they can't get a proper look up there unless they pump it full of air. Well what goes up must come down. Panic-stricken, I told the nurse, who was hovering three inches above my arse, that I couldn't hold on and that I was about to "break wind" (one does have to assume that one is in polite company). "Good heavens, my dear, that happens every time! Just let rip whenever you like and don't mind me!"

There's something shockingly unfamiliar, chaps, about a situation in which you are pointing your bare arse into a woman's face, knees under your chin, and are granted licence to fart thereat. I got away with it by pretending that the nurse was Margaret Thatcher, and I told her so. She approved wholeheartedly!