I had suspected too much sherry, but he'd said the odd drink was a social obligation, laughing inappropriately and rather repetitively, so I'd also suspected he was bipolar.

He never came back, though, and I'd assumed he'd pitched up somewhere else with his grandiose ideas about being someone big in the frozen North. I assumed he meant Leeds.

Still, here he was now, wearing a hideous red suit and looking thoroughly yellow. 'What can I do for you?' I helped him off the reindeer and on to the couch.

'Bellyache,' he groaned.

I prodded his right upper quadrant. 'Hmm,' I said, 'do mince pies make it worse?'

He groaned, 'mince pies, sherry ...'

'Pale stools?'

'I've 300 to deliver. Some have matching sofas. It's the bloody DFS sale ...'

Clearly he had flight of ideas again, but he'd also got cholecystitis. 'You,' I said decisively, 'are going to hospital.'

He looked anxious. 'But the deliveries? Someone has to do my job.'

I sighed. Since the last patient questionnaire the DoH made it compulsory to solve all of my patients' problems without spending anything. 'Okay. What do I do?'

'See far too many people in far too little time, drive vehicle steered by a team of bolshy animals who think just because they drive the shebang they know better than you about everything, remember what everyone wants, give it to them for nothing, and if everybody doesn't think you're wonderful, you're out.'

I smiled. Last week I spent three days running around Gotham City with my knickers on over my tights. Compared to covering Batman this would be the easiest quality point I'd ever earned. Ho ho ho.

Dr Selby is a GP in Suffolk. You can write to her at GPcolumnists@haymarket.com.