I know how David Blaine feels - apart from the lack of food, obviously.

Although I did have a nasty bout of sickness a few weeks back and could only sip water, very gingerly, for three days afterwards, by the end of which I was very hungry.

So I know he must be very hungry. But what I'm referring to, by saying I know how he feels, is the feeling of being cooped up in a box, not much bigger than yourself, and having to spend much of the day in it with no contact with the outside world.

I work in these circumstances on a daily basis, in my former boot cupboard turned home office, which I calculated is roughly the same size as Blaine's box.

My boot cupboard is built on solid foundations and not suspended from anything dangly so I don't get as much motion, though I do have a swivel chair which I can swivel on - so I guess we're about equal on that score.

Blaine scores better than me on the view though. He has 360 degree panoramic view of London, whereas I have tiny chink in wall through which, if I swivel the chair and strain my neck I can just about see a brick wall.

Blaine has a pencil and paper (or does he have a pen? Who knows?) with which to while away the hours spent in his box, recording his thoughts on his time in there.

I have a computer screen on which I am supposed to while away the hours spent in my box with thoughts on people I've interviewed or issues I'm supposed to be writing about.

I have the added bonus of access to the Internet, which I can log on to at any time and find out how Blaine is getting on in his box.

He, though, has no idea how I'm getting on in mine.

Not very well this morning, David, I'm afraid. How much have you written on your sheet of paper? I've not done much at all. Only 55 words of what is supposed to end up as a 3,000-word article. I have a word counting facility on my Mac to tell me that.

You can obviously only count the words by hand, though I suppose counting words by hand gives you something to do in your box when you're wondering what to do. I wonder if I counted my words by hand whether it would help me get on with writing more of them.

In the past week Blaine has had the devil sent to tempt him in the form of tabloid newspapers organising barbecues on the site below his dangling box.

He has appeared resolute in the upwind of the aroma of charcoaled sausages.

I too have had the devil here, in the form of my neighbours organising a very impromptu midweek barbecue with all the associated smells wafting over the garden wall and bouncing back off the tiny bit of brick wall, which if I swivel and strain I can just about see, into my office, tempting me to abandon the work I'm supposed to be doing and go and grill a bit of bacon.

I suppose that's the difference between me and my box and Blaine in his.

Although we are both at liberty to leave our boxes if we wish (I think Blaine can just give up and go and grab himself a bacon sarnie if he decides he's had enough - though he may be Jewish so it might have to be cheese) one of us apparently has the willpower to stay in the box and one of us doesn't.

I admit, after smelling next door's barbecue, I abandoned the 55 words and had a bacon sandwich. But then I needed lunch in order to concentrate on writing another 2,945 words, whereas it doesn't really matter if Blaine writes anything on his piece of paper or not.

I suppose the other main difference between self and illusionist is that there's no one watching me in my box, whereas plenty of day trippers have been to gawp and Blaine.

One journalist on a Sunday paper said he made the trip and found it to be a very uninspiring experience. While he was there, Blaine apparently stared vacantly at a wall of the box, wrote about three words on his piece of paper and scratched his leg.

This, as spouse very cruelly pointed out to me, is probably all anyone would have seen had the bricks and mortar walls of my boot cupboard-turned-office been transparent.