In which Christmas excess leads to a spell under the knife

It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid. So sang my good friends Sir Bob and Sting, who have actually been rather quiet of late. I bet that postman’s been stealing my cards and party invitations again.But there is a need to be afraid, Christmas is the time every woman fears, single or not, because of those sneaky calories that manage to find their way into the most innocent of snacks from champagne and caviar blinis to those moreish cakes in the Iceland platter (now, now don’t sneer, we’ve all had to make some cutbacks with the recession and it’s good the money was going to the Jason Donovan career memorial fund).
This morning I got up before dawn so the neighbours, and the fox that has adopted me, couldn’t see and put on my new Christmas coat made with the skin of 100 baby Emperor penguins and the salty tears of a few Eskimo orphans – who really are beating the Chinese with their workmanship. After taking a sip from the cat’s bowl – Fiji water seems to taste better when you lap it up – I walked out of the house into the bathroom I converted from an outdoor barn. Some of the locals have called my haven an outdoor loo, but that is just the kind of uncultured remark I expect from the Northerners that I now find myself amongst. Ignoring the world around me I gingerly slipped off my designer cardigan and £300 tights and stepped onto the scales. My dear readers the shock I got was too much for my little bird legs to take and I collapsed to the floor. After a few hours I regained consciousness and discovered Christabelle my pet iguana was stuck to my face. Bless her, she had tried to revive me with her tongue and got stuck. I suppose this is why the vet warned me against trying to domesticate her.
Back in the safety of my home, I flicked through my contacts book trying to find someone who might pick up the phone. So many of my friends have seemingly disappeared, all lost in their selfish lives of raising families, looking after elderly parents, nursing themselves through chemo. I’ve told a couple of them to their face what I think of their abandonment, the rest had to read it in a recent article for a glossy magazine, which I must say paid handsomely. So I called the only number on my speed dial that I knew would answer, and readers I do not mind telling you I was appalled with the response. Apparently the Samaritans have got high and lofty all of a sudden and the young lady on the phone was terribly rude to me and told me that having to drop one pound in weight was not enough of a disaster to waste their time.
Well, I would have told her what I thought of her if she hadn’t hung up and then barred my number from their switch board, BUT, having to lose a pound is an absolute travesty for a woman like me. I am known for my skeletal frame and face that is hard to put an age to. I am an icon for females across the world. A feminist who has single-handedly raised the sisterhood out of the dark ages, and done it while wrapped only in a swathe of cashmere and a slick of Crème de la Mer lipbalm. Plus it is very hard to lose something when you don’t know how you gained it in the first place. I am usually very rigid with my diet, so was finding it very tricky to know what to cut back on, when I remembered an intimate interview I had with one of the leading footballer’s wives. I won’t name drop but she let me in on a little secret to drop a few pounds – an appendectomy.Who really needs an appendix, luckily mine was never whipped out on an NHS whim and I could put it to good use by dropping it and some weight. The celebrity medical community is always looking for easy quick fixes and have come upon this wonderful elective surgery. It is so much more sensible than cutting down to one carrot a day for 7 weeks and exercising myself into the ground. So I am booked in on Monday, I have put Mindy the Labrador in charge of the rest of the animals as she is always the most sensible and when you next seem me I will be less one physical pound and only 1,500 pounds lighter in the monetary sense. A triumph for modern technology and a world full of more money than sense.

Next week: What did Princess Diana really say to me in a dream and my quest to pass on that message to her dear boys