ASK me what I want for Christmas and I'll tell you - I'll even tell you if you don't ask, or don't want to know. Sorry, there's no escape.

I want to be a size ten again. I want to be able to walk up to those cruel full-length mirrors in M & S without flinching, without rushing past, head down and eyes averted, to avoid catching a glimpse of what damage three square meals a day, plus titbits every hour, can do.

That's why I found myself in Hove last week, wrapped in clingfilm like a prime piece of pork.

I've no doubt some people (men usually) find the sight of women wrapped in leather or rubber very stimulating. But make no mistake, a woman wrapped in clingfilm is in a different league.

The purpose of the cling film was to lose a few inches, rather than weight, before Christmas. Quite frankly, I don't care if I tip the scales at 15 stone plus (which I don't!) as long as I look like Jerry Hall. OK, OK, another ten inches in height wouldn't come amiss either, but we can all dream can't we?

So, there I was, coated in a detoxifying gel, wrapped from kneecaps to just under the bust in cling film, and fastened inside a full-length zip up suit, a bit like a bodybag.

Well, it was that or a six-month starvation diet of cabbage soup and hard discipline, or an appointment with the plastic surgeon - 'I'll have five inches off the thighs please, four from the hips and, not being a marsupial, I don't think I need a pouch where my once flat stomach used to be!'

Expensive, painful and a bit excessive, a bit un-British as well. Mind you, I suppose being wrapped in clingfilm is hardly Land of Hope and Glory stuff is it?

So, once wrapped like a podgy see-through mummy, what next? Well, you lie there cocooned in your clingfilm and let the inches just melt away (don't ask where).

You can read, sleep or count calories. What you mustn't do is think about going to the lavatory (logistically impossible) or worry about the possibilities of a fire breaking out in the building. Above all, don't think roasting pork.

After about 20 minutes you're unwrapped, every shuddering, quivering, wobbling inch a pink, just-set blancmange. Oh, please, please, let there be less of me, let me be svelte, let me be a size ten, just for Christmas.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. The inches that had been tightly compressed in clingfilm sprang back defiantly - the too, too solid flesh refused to be subdued and conquered, at least not by sheets of clingfilm.

"I think you should come back in the New Year - you could have a whole course of treatments then," said the nice, SLIM, girl who had wrapped me so expertly. Was she being sympathetic or just seeing the opportunity to earn a fat buck?

There was only one thing for it under the circumstances. I crossed the road, bought the biggest, let's-push-for-a-size 16, puff pastry mince pie in Forfars - and a giant roll of cling film in the Co-op.

That, I thought, is my Christmas all wrapped up for another year. Now it's time for a spot of DIY body work. Let's hope no-one asks me to play strip poker on Boxing Day.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.