Wouldn't you feel like bragging a little if you'd scored 99 points out of 100?

Never mind asking, "99 out of 100 for what ...?", I think a score like that is pretty impressive in its own right.

Yet when I told The Mother she advised me against making the score public.

"It's nothing to be proud about," she warned.

But never having scored 99 out of 100 before - for anything - I'm ignoring her advice.

My triumph occurred on Sunday evening while we were finishing off the weekend's papers.

Actually The Mother was doing the reading while I snoozed between supplements.

Suddenly a newspaper landed in my lap. "Have you read this?" she asked.

Before I had the chance to reply, she added: "If not, you really ought to. It's very interesting."

To make sure I couldn't miss what she intended me to read, The Mother had put a cross beside an article illustrated with a photograph of a blurred figure slumped at a table or desk, head buried in its hands.

The article was about anxiety, or rather a condition doctors are now calling Generalised Anxiety Disorder.

You know you're suffering from it if you can't remember a time when you weren't worried about something, somebody, anything.

According to the report some people worry about their health or their finances, others brood about their boss or their sex lives. GAD sufferers, however, worry about all of those things - and more - most of the time, well, probably all of the time.

Since September 11, we've all been more anxious than usual, evidently, but GADs have taken worrying to new extremes, stocking up on antibiotics, buying gas masks, digging bunkers.

"How sad. Life must be hell for people like that," I told The Mother.

"It's even worse for the people who have to live with them - and I should know," she replied.

Funny, I thought. My father was an easygoing sort of fellow. Who could she mean ...?

She was staring at me. "Oh, come on, I'm not that bad!" I said.

"Aren't you?" she said. "Well, let's find out. There's a questionnaire underneath that article. Answer the questions honestly and it'll tell you exactly how anxious you are compared with other people - normal people!"

"Okay," I said. "I'll do it if you will." Well, there was nothing worth watching on the TV at the time.

The questions were reasonably straightforward but The Mother and I couldn't agree on the answers. At least, she couldn't agree with mine.

Question: Do you worry about things that really aren't worth it?

Me: "No I don't."

The Mother: "Yes you do."

Me: "No, you're wrong - all my worries are worth it."

Question: Do people around you think you are irritable?

The Mother: "Well you certainly are most of the time."

Me: "Let's re-word that to: "Do people around you make you irritable?"

Question: Do you suffer from palpitations or a racing heartbeat?

Me: "Not until I started answering these questions."

Finally we finished this mini-inquisition and it was time to check our anxiety ratings. Points were awarded up to a maximum of 100.

If you scored under 20 you were so laid back you were probably dead. From 20 to 50 you were slightly stressed but nothing to worry about. Between 50 and 80 your anxiety could become a problem so take up yoga, see a shrink. Over 80? Your anxiety levels were so high that you'd be better off dead.

The Mother got 48. Me? Well, that's how I came to score 99 out of 100.

And that, said The Mother, really is something for me to worry about.

She's right. It is. And I am.