What's all this nonsense about the millennium bug being non-existent?

As far as I can tell, it's everywhere. All right, so the computers haven't been affected. But just about every human being I know has come down with it - or one of its mutations. Me included.

The last thing I said with any clarity was "cheers" on New Year's Eve. Since then I've been speechless.

The only sound I can make is a wheezy impersonation of a deflating hovercraft.

I've had to rely on people reading my lips to make myself understood, which hasn't been terribly successful.

My neighbour wondered why I was wishing him "a bee in your ear" on the first day of 2000.

My husband has been poorly, too. His rasping cough was accompanied by backache and a fever which made him want to swear at my mother.

He very nearly didn't make it to the New Year's Eve supper to which we had been invited.

It was only when he learned that our host was in the grip of something worse and was heroically soldiering on with cooking a three-course dinner for 13 people that he found the strength to attend.

Our daughter, Eve, hasn't escaped the bug either. She has been suffering from inflamed bronchial tubes and a compulsion to watch her Winnie The Pooh video at least three times a day, for which there seems no cure. I did try voicing my objections, but all that came out was "hhhuhsss".

If I take a deep breath and then try bellowing, I can make enough noise to be heard above the hum of the central heating. But I don't stand a chance in conversation.

Not that people have been seeking out my company anyway. Apart from those who tell me they have "already had that one" and who then take delight in describing how they were so ill their family called in a priest before they'd made a miraculous recovery, I have either been shunned or ignored.

"I don't want to talk to you any more," said one compassionate friend after hearing my strangulated whispers down the phone line. "It's too painful for me."

Becoming vocally challenged has certainly humbled me. Never again will I take for granted my powers of speech (should they ever return). Never again will I squander valuable words in idle chatter and malicious gossip.

Indeed, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm not being punished for having said wicked things during the last century. Perhaps this is now my day of judgement.

Admittedly, I have occasionally been uncharitable about my in-laws, who are good people at heart.

And I once gave Maureen Lipman a bad review for a show she did in Brighton. Maybe that was more than she deserved. She was clearly upset because she demanded to see my 'head on a plate'.

Then there was an occasion when, by mutual agreement, Dennis Waterman and I terminated a phone interview after getting off on the wrong foot. I wasn't lost for words then.

I would ask their forgiveness right now, if I could. Honestly I would.

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