So I’m not down the tubes then?

8:46am Monday 18th February 2008

So there I was, lying on my side on a hospital bed, in such utter discomfort, trying to conceal the embarrassment of what was taking place. I got through it by thinking: "People pay a fortune for this."

Thankfully, I'd gone along to my local outpatients' clinic in complete ignorance of what I was was about to undergo. I was about to have a short procedure, for which I was booked in, when the doctor said: "I've got a note here to give you a sigmoidoscopy."

Now that's one I reckon would stump even the most able contestants on University Challenge.

"It's an examination of the bowel," he added, "You can come back another day if you like, or you can get it over with now."

The prospect was scary. As instructed, I hadn't eaten for the previous few hours, but what if the food I'd had before that was lurking down there, undigested? It would shatter the fibs I'd been feeding the nurse about my healthy diet. Instead of the home-grown organic leek, potato and French bean stew I'd led to her to believe I lived on, my real eating habits would be laid bare, with pieces of tough, ready-meal chicken, intermixed with Pringles and oven chips.

I didn't want a camera filming that. It was too horrible to contemplate. And then they dropped a further bombshell. Before anything could take place, I had to have an enema.

In the manner of every cowardly journalist, I was about to make my excuses and leave, but then I remembered - people pay for stuff like that.

Colonic irrigation, colonic hydrotherapy, call it what you like, people clamour for those things. They pay the earth for them. Celebrities are always popping to health spas to have their innards cleaned out.

And here I was, having it offered for free on the NHS. Of course, I'd have preferred a fluffy white towelling dressing gown and a glass of chilled white wine on a poolside lounger afterwards, but the hospital gown and a cup of tea in the recovery room would be fine.

Also, I thought, it can't be a bad thing, having a good old clean-out. After 47 years disposing of the, mostly, wrong sort of grub, I felt my bowel deserved it.

So I swallowed my pride and went ahead. The spring clean wasn't half as bad as I'd imagined, the camera part was worse. I did, however, manage a quick peek at the screen. The view wasn't what I expected at all. "It's so clean," I said, amazed at the pink-fleshed thing on the screen. "It's like new."

It was as if all those years of dodgy-looking kebabs, Pot Noodles, Fray Bentos tinned pies and crisps hadn't happened. It looked as if I really did live on organic, home-grown produce.

"It's only clean because you've had an enema," one of the nurses told me.

Afterwards, I would have liked the experience of chatting to a few celebrities, sharing our enema experiences. By celebrities I mean the more glamorous ones - I wouldn't relish sitting chatting to Sir Jimmy Savile or Ann Widdecombe about the bowel's inner workings.

I felt amazingly cleansed, and am thinking about popping back to ask whether they do private parties. I'd like to take my friends for my next birthday. After the cake and wine, of course.

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