Why I Have Nothing In Common With Anthony Blunt Or Attractive Russian Redheads.

As if toothache wasn't bad enough, now I've got hypothermia as well. And I am rubbish at keeping secrets.

There seems to be something wrong with my syntax, too - given that I didn't mean to imply that my toothache and hypothermia should only be revealed to MI5, (as well as to a dentist when I can afford to see one).  Other things, however, are supposed to be kept under wraps, but I seem to have forgotten that today. Anna Chapman I am not.

When I get up this morning, the house is freezing, and I have to add yet another thermal vest to the millions I'm already wearing. Then I can't move my arms at all, and anything resembling a waist has disappeared entirely.

I'm sitting on the sofa, talking to Max about poor old Alan Johnson and why decent people always get shafted - if that isn't an unfortunate phrase - when I notice something odd about the colour of my hands.

"What on earth's the matter with you?" he says. "Why are you shaking your arms around like that?"

"I can't feel them," I say. "At all. And my hands are blue. Am I having a heart attack?" (Max may occasionally be right when he claims that I get more like Mum by the day.)

He leans over and squeezes the tops of my arms.

"No," he says. "You're not. But the sleeves on that jumper are way too tight. What the hell have you got on underneath it? You've probably cut your circulation off."

"Five vests," I say. "One more than usual. But it's so cold that I had to put it on."

Max looks a bit shifty, and makes one of those non-committal grunting noises that are usually The Boss' speciality.

"What?" I say.

"Talking about the cold," he says. "It's because I've turned the heating off. We can't afford it at the moment."

Good God, is he mad? We only have the heating on for a couple of hours twice a day as it is, so it's not as if we're going over the top - unlike most of our friends, who just turn their thermostats up the moment it becomes too chilly to sit around wearing a t-shirt.

Maybe that's why they are always otherwise engaged when we invite them to come and stay during the winter. And why their waists are more visible than mine, and they haven't lost the use of their arms.

Anyway, now Max has really got me worried, so I give him one of my Infected looks to make it clear that anything other than The Whole Truth would be pointless, before I start questioning him.

"We both get paid within the next ten days," I say. "So surely we can have the heating on some of the time? We won't have to pay for it before then."

"Yes, well," he says. "That's sort of the point. I've just found out I'll only be getting my basic this month. Don't seem to have earned any commission, or only £20:00 anyway."

It is definitely not an exaggeration to say that you can feel it when you turn white with shock, though even that's probably a more attractive colour than the weird shade of grey that Max's face has suddenly become. He looks slightly less healthy than John Major did in Spitting Image.

"Oh, my God," I say. "Your basic? Just your basic?"

"Yes," says Max, as if that's all that needs to be said, which I suppose it should be. But I never know when to stop, as my sex-life seems to demonstrate all too clearly. Flogging a dead horse, I think they call it.

"Well, what the hell am I going to do about your birthday party, then?" I say.

"What birthday party?" says Max.

Now I see why no-one from the security services has ever tried to recruit me.

A Licence To Kill

Oh God, I hate Fridays. I'm on the phone to DEFRA this morning when The Boss arrives, dumps his briefcase on my desk and opens it. A crumpled shirt and five pairs of obviously dirty Y-fronts fall out. He fishes around for a folder, and then buggers off to do an interview, leaving me staring at skid marks. I have a degree!

Andrew returns after lunch, just in time for surgery. There are the usual collection of total nutters, interspersed with the odd sane person with a really serious problem. I'm disturbed by yet another case where a middle-aged patient has apparently died unnecessarily while an in-patient at the local hospital. From dehydration.

That's the fifth or sixth case in the last three months. Honestly, I'm not at all sure that care is improving since they started making nurses do degrees. I make a mental note to contact the advice agencies and see if they've heard about any other cases, as I'm getting a bit worried about what's going on.

The Boss doesn't seem quite as exercised by death as he does about the ban on docking Boxer dogs' tails. This probably has less to do with Andrew having a secret desire to mutilate dogs, than with the fact that the constituent in favour of it turns out to be a reasonably attractive woman in her late forties.

She flirts outrageously with The Boss, who flirts outrageously back. Before I know it, he's agreed to consider bringing a Private Members Bill to reinstate docking, and she leaves in a presumably-hormonal tizz.

Andrew's still flushed with success when I show Mr Beales in, and greets him like a long-lost friend. Does The Boss have to do that? The usual suspects need no encouragement.

Grinning like an idiot, Mr Beales pulls out a piece of paper, ignores my outstretched hand and passes it to The Boss.

"If you could just sign that, Andrew, I'll be on my way," he says.

Since when does Mr Beales call The Boss Andrew? It doesn't seem to bother anyone but me, though - and The Boss flourishes his biro.

"At least read it first!" I say - sotto voce, or at least, that's what I hope, but Big Ears Beales hears me anyway. He pushes his double-barred paedophile glasses to the end of his nose and peers over them at me. His eyes are cold.

"It's just my shotgun licence application," he says. "Your Boss knows me -"

"Indeed he does," I say, "That was rather my point. Andrew, are you sure you don't want to wait and think about this first?"

The Boss finally notices my expression, which Greg says is the one that makes me look like the Infected  in "28 Days Later," and reacts.

"Ah, Edmund," he says. "Molly's right, you know -"

"Thank God for that," I say, under my breath, but then The Boss continues,

"She's forgotten to type up that reference for the court. Tell you what, she can go and do that now, and I'll sign this while you wait."

Of such incidents are armed serial killers made. I give up.