How scary this breast implant business is. The idea of knives slicing into delicate areas of flesh has always made me feel rather odd – my legs go cold, and then the thought of having a flimsy-looking bag of jelly stuffed into the wound makes me want to faint, so I'd never get as far as the clinic door. And as for testicle implants, I can't work that out at all. Fielding gave a cry of pain when I mentioned it. But I did have a chum once whose chest was as flat as a board and always had been. She felt desperately miserable about it, managed to have implants stuffed in by the National Health, was thrilled with the results, and summonsed me into the lavatories at workto see them. They looked a tight fit to me, as if they might blow up at any moment, so I said 'Marvellous,' and ran off as quickly as I could.

I nearly understood. If it made her happy, I suppose that's all right. It's not just breast implants that give me the vapours. Any sort of body chopping, snipping, reshaping, sucking out of fat or even piercing does it too. I saw a woman wandering through Marks & Spencer the other day with her pallid son, his face thickly stuck with metal bobbles and spikes. It wasn't the sort of thing I like to see when out shopping. I don't want to come over all queer when I'm trying to buy a cardi. Then I go into Accessorize and the assistant has a metal bolt through her tongue and I have to cling to the counter for support, and when I spot someone with a whole line of earrings, I imagine them snagging on a passing twig, which would rip off a length of ear along the perforations, and it's very cold legs again for me. But I don't like to sound unreasonable. I do wear one earring on each lobe.