Writing a column after returning from holiday is one of the trickiest feats of the year.
It may not match the cognitive challenges faced by brain surgeons, fighter pilots or High Court judges following a sojourn in the Caribbean, but for a humble hack it is nonetheless a tough call.
Having been abroad, one is out of touch with domestic developments so it's difficult to comment on "the big issue". I am aware David Beckham has reinvigorated the national football team, that Big Brother has been hit by another "race storm" and that the legacies of bin collections and Bin Laden rumble on. But that's about it.
So there I was, newly returned from the south of France, freshly showered and stark naked in my bathroom, when I started to fret. My mind was blank. What was I going to write about?
I clambered on to the scales, took a nonchalant look down at the reading and saw my weight had soared to. . . well, I'm not going to say what, such is my shame. But as far as I am aware I had set what athletes like to call a personal best (PB), except mine was for cake eating and cheese munching rather than marathon running or the discus.
It is a well accepted fact that long distance journeys and foreign water play havoc with an Englishman's digestive system. Perhaps I needed – how can I put this delicately? – a decent bowel movement. Every schoolboy knows it is possible to shed several pounds after returning home from an overseas trip.
A robust cup of brick red Yorkshire Tea did the trick. I stripped and weighed again. And do you know what? My weight had actually gone up.
Depressed, I ordered a home delivery curry and at 11 o'clock last night returned to the scales to discover I had broken my only recently established Mr Blobby PB.
None of this should have been any surprise. I had vowed I would allow myself to eat as I chose on holiday. "You'll only make yourself miserable if you don't," I reasoned.
I succumbed to the delights of pungent, ripe soft cheeses. Then there were the steaks, the frites, the rich sauces coating delicate fish concoctions, the mountain sausages, onion and anchovy tarts soaked with olive oil. . .
The alcohol: the limitless rosé, the vin rouge, Armagnac, those sweet little 25cl bottles of Kronenbourg. And more rosé.
And the cakes: Tarte Tropezienne (the mother of all cream pies), wild strawberry tartlets, blackcurrant sorbet, croissants, apricot custard flan, pain au chocolat, layered apple tart.
The young woman serving at the patisserie always gave me a pleasant smile. "Yeah, still got it," I thought. I now realise why she was so pleased to see me: I was single-handedly responsible for the shop's best early summer takings on record.
As I nursed the bloating effects of my vegetable biryani, tandoori chicken, pakora and naan (plain rather than sweet – a sop to my new healthy eating regime), I decided something had to give. Pay-back time for the French blow-out had arrived.
I knew my weight would go up during the holiday. I just didn't think it would go up as much as it did. This was a wake-up call. Like those brat camp fat kids, I needed tough love.
But first I vowed to sleep on it and not rush into any rash decisions. I didn't want to be a victim of yo-yo dieting.
And this morning, I weighed myself again. After a good night's kip, my weight had plunged almost half a stone. Half a stone! I checked the scales. They were fine.
So there you have it. Curry and sleep: the new Atkin's diet.