It's rather fun writing a female spy, because she has so much more kit. Bond never carried a hair dryer or a makeup bag. And he certainly didn't wear an uplift bra.

Quite quickly I grew less deranged. I had begun the process of calming down, assimilating and compromising, which is necessary to live comfortably in the world as it is, and probably is why its imbalance never changes. But underneath, my idea of life was completely altered.

As Bridget writes to her son, in Bridget Jones' Baby - "if you just keep calm and keep your spirits up, things have a habit of turning out all right, just as they did for me."

I hate Christmas. Everything is designed for families, romance, warmth, emotion and presents, and if you have no boyfriend, no money, your mother is going out with a missing Portuguese criminal and your friends don't want to be your friend anymore, it makes you want to emigrate to a vicious Muslim regime, where at least all the women are treated like social outcasts. Anyway, I don't care. I am going to quietly read a book all weekend and listen to classical music.

But if you are single the last thing you want is your best friend forming a functional relationship with somebody else.

When someone leaves you, apart from missing them, apart from the fact that the whole little world you've created together collapses, and that everything you see or do reminds you of them, the worst is the thought that they tried you out and, in the end, the whole sum of parts adds up to you got stamped REJECT by the one you love. How can you not be left with the personal confidence of a passed over British Rail sandwich?

Oh God, what's wrong with me? Why does nothing ever work out?