BIG DAY, today. From today, as you will have seen headlined in The Sunday Times, magnetic therapy is to be available on the NHS. Hitherto, patients like Cherie Blair had to pay £100 a pop to have magic magnets dangled over them, but now the treatment is absolutely free. And tomorrow . . .

“It’s probably nothing at all,” I said, sitting down. “Slight temperature, mild nausea, bit of a headache, I really shouldn’t be taking up your valuable . . .”

“Nothing at all?” said my doctor. “Can you tell me the time of today’s high tide at London Bridge?” I shook my head. “And yet you claim your condition is trivial? Don’t you know most ulcers are caused by the Moon? I’ll put it in layman’s terms: Moon comes up, tide goes out, black bile reacts adversely with phlegm, result ulcers. You’re the third this morning. It’s phenomenally high tides due to melting ice-caps. Plus, of course, Krakatoa.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You didn’t know it was the 123rd anniversary of the eruption? 123 is a mystic number, if you’re Sumatran. The sea remembers. It’s a major duodenal crisis. I’ve gone on a polenta diet, and I’m not even an Aquarian. Last time anything like this happened, it defied the finest medical brains in Europe. We tried everything, burning mice at midnight, dung poultices, appeasing Uranus with garlic, but did it work, did it buggery, eventually we had to hang the Pope in effigy, sorted the epidemic in no time, but it put a lot of people’s backs up. Fortunately, medicine has come a long way since then, so I’d like you to see a top comet man.”

He pressed a buzzer, his door opened and an elfin man in a chalk-striped suit strode in. He was carrying an old leather globe and a stuffed terrier. He walked round me slowly, shaking the dog.

“It’s not comets,” he said. “Feel his head. He’s got no bump of Syriax to speak of. His sort never catches anything off comets.”

“I’d like to dangle this lodestone over you,” said my GP. “It won’t hurt.”

“Take your shoes and socks off,” said the consultant. As the lodestone swung above me, he got down on all fours and examined my feet. “I think he ought to see a demonologist,” he said, finally. “They’re not cloven yet, but my watch has stopped. What’s your lodestone doing?”

“Not much,” said my GP. He helped me up and handed me my footwear. “Sir Henry thinks you might be turning into a devil, but I don’t want you to say anything to your wife until we’ve tried dipping a bee in your saliva.”

“Could it be serious?” I said. “Could it be cured?”

“It may be no more than a textbook case of simple possession,” said Sir Henry, “in which case your best bet would be a leading bone-man.”

“An orthopaedic surgeon?” I inquired. “An osteopath?”

“He doesn’t listen, does he?” said the consultant to my GP. “I said a bone-man. He’ll shake a few lizard ribs on to the carpet, widdle over them, throw your hat out of the window, you could be right as rain in a day or two.” He paused, humming. “I’ve just thought,” he said, “it’s not a leap year, is it?”

“No,” replied my doctor, “but there could be unusual sunspot activity.”

“Irrelevant,” snapped Sir Henry. “It’s not as if it was his liver. Mind you, we shouldn’t rule out his bladder, what with the Gulf Stream changing course.”

“Has it?” cried my doctor. “Keeping up with the journals is a nightmare.”

“It’s fairly serious. My spirit guide has suggested I put a sockful of barley under my arm and walk backwards for a bit, because if you multiply my birth date by the circumference of my thigh, you come up with the exact height of the Great Pyramid.”

“My dear chap!” exclaimed my GP sympathetically. “I had no idea.”

“I can live with it,” murmured the specialist.

“What about me?” I cried. “What if I wake up one morning to find that my feet really are —”

Sir Henry pursed his thin lips. “There is a strong body of professional opinion,” he said, “which would insist on immersing you in one of our state-of-the art NHS duckponds next time Venus is in the House of Mars.”

“A duckpond?” I said. “Mightn’t there be a serious risk of bird flu?”

At this, Sir Henry laughed so hard that the monocle flew from his eye and, falling, clattered against the shrunken head on his watch chain. “My dear Mr Coren,” he said, “you really must learn not to believe everything you read in the newspapers.”