Thursday morning.

I wake, feeling like death.

It’s 9:45 – a three-hour lie in – but nobody has told my body, which is racked with an utter and inexorable tiredness. My stomach is complaining and I’m all shivery, even under the duvet. What’s more, my head is pounding away like a Motorhead fan using a pneumatic drill to dig up the road whilst simultaneously shagging Abi Titmuss.

I appear to have a hangover.

What I can’t reconcile is this: I did not drink much on Wednesday night. Three pints and a glass of red. That’s all.

I have a hangover after drinking three pints and a glass of red.

Shit!

I am turning into a girl!

When I was at school, a man came to talk to us about the perils of alcohol. After the male sexual performance thing (many sniggers) he went on to claim that excessive drinking also stunted your maleness in a hormonal sense, viz it would turn you into a girl.

We went away scoffing at this do-gooder, but privately a bit worried.

So it is happening. I am turning into a girl.

Shit!

It’s proving difficult enough getting it together with Kirstie Allsopp as it is! What chance do I have now?

I check the bathroom mirror. All seems ok – adam’s apple, slight stubble, normal-sized head. I did used to have flowing girlie long hair, but my current generic male crop remains.

Moving down, I can’t work out whether my tits are excess weight and flab that could be easily shed given a little effort, or tits, which would be more problematical.

I check to see that I am not growing a vagina, like in some weird David Cronenberg film. I do not appear to be. This is a relief, in many ways.

I think I might have been hasty in my initial diagnosis.

As a final check, I put on some Dido. It still sounds shit, which appears conclusive.

I go back to bed, fretful. I am not turning into a girl.

I am turning into a wuss.