Have been forced to adopt New Year's resolution to get fit by magazine editor.

She wants article later in the year about whether people have kept up and benefited from well-intentioned resolutions. Has selected self and two colleagues as guinea pigs and already made up her mind as to who will keep up the good work.

Helen, just returned from maternity leave (baby only six weeks old) is to manage her time better, enabling her to use hours spent in office productively before returning home to her own production.

Since Helen had phoned in with several ideas for New Year issue of magazine within two hours of giving birth, and has organised her nanny and husband into terrifyingly efficient routine, she will obviously have no problem.

Iron-willed and iron-bodied Emma, who let her resolve slip for a moment over the festive period and indulged in a bit too much food and drink, gaining an extra micro millimetre of flesh, has resolved to lose it. Again, she will have no problem.

My own resolution, to adopt a carefree attitude to life and not get wound up by trivial office matters, has been rejected by editor who instead has ordered me to get fit.

She and rest of her team have decided all the above resolutions should be incorporated into ordinary daily routines, making us more likely to stick to them.

Therefore, my method of getting fit is to forgo daily tube journey and instead walk briskly from Victoria across Green Park to office at Oxford Circus.

Put like that, it didn't seem too hard a proposition and the first few cold crisp days of the new millennium were pleasant enough for a stroll across the park.

Since the editor had put me up to it, I didn't think she could object to me being 20 minutes late for work. Obviously, if I have to walk, it's going to take me longer to get there.

Editor though has a different idea. She claims I'm not walking fast enough. The journey, which seems to take about 40 minutes, she maintains can be done in 25.

So, either I have to get up half an hour earlier and take an earlier train or boost my cardiovascular efficiently, i.e. get a move on.

Spent the next couple of days trying to walk faster through the rain, with improvements in fitness or timekeeping.

Was about to admit defeat, submit to humiliation by article which showed how hopeless I was in comparison to slimline super efficient colleagues, when given fresh incentive by tap on shoulder as I waited at pedestrian crossing, outside Buckingham Palace.

I didn't know you walked anywhere, said the unmistakable voice of blond athletic man from Hassocks. Is this a New Year's resolution or just a tube strike I don't know about?

Thought about lying, to effect that I often walked and he'd just never happened to see me doing so before, but thought better of it and muttered about resolution.

Great, replied Hassocks. I go this way every day. We can walk together.

Fantastic, I thought until he strode off at a pace which explained his athletic build, while I risked heart and lung failure trying to keep up with him.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.