THERE’S only one thing worse than being in work when everyone else is sledging and building snowmen.

And that’s lying in bed with a stinking cold while everyone else is having fun.

Like hundreds of others, I’ve fallen foul of the winter lurgy this week.

Symptoms include: stuffy nose, fever, aching body, and a fatigue that makes getting out of bed to make a cup of tea seem like an achievement worthy of a certificate.

A classic case of flu. Although I don’t actually dare say the word “flu” as any time you do someone will always jump on you and say, menacingly: “That’s not the flu, it’s a bad cold. If you had the flu you’d know about it!”

Incidentally, my mum reckons the test of whether you’ve got flu is that you could see a £50 note on the street outside but you would be unable to go out and get it. Anything less is just a bad cold. She will automatically launch into this definition anytime anybody utters the word.

Having not been ill for a while I was in for a shock. I’d forgotten how mind-numbingly dull it is.

On particularly stressful days at work I’d even started envying people who were off ill, thinking I’d gladly swap a runny nose for a good lie-in and an afternoon spent watching daytime TV while someone brought me chicken soup and plumped my pillows. But now I know that when you’re not well there’s no fun to be had. You just get to lie around limply with a pale face, greasy hair and a bright red nose, not able to do anything more energetic than swallow a paracetemol and make pathetic sighing noises.

At least I’m not a man, though. I feel sorry for men nowadays when they get ill.

Not so long ago somebody coined the phrase “man-flu”. Now a man only has to mention that he’s not feeling 100 per cent and the woman nearest to him will feel compelled to cry: “Suffering from man-flu are we?”

There was one beacon of light that kept me going through my Vicks Vapour rub and Lemsip-flavoured haze this week though. One thing I found myself looking forward to every day — the Jeremy Kyle show.

I was vaguely aware it, but as it’s on during the day I hadn’t really watched it before. What a show!

Of course, Jeremy Kyle is the most insidious man alive, hilariously self-righteous and hypocritical, but you can’t deny its entertainment value.

Where does he find these people? Are they real? And why don’t they wash their hair?

If there’s one think I’ve learned this week it’s not to call any future child of mine Mackenzie or Bailey. That seems a prerequisite of being on the show. Owing a tracksuit and your own body weight in gold are others.

I don’t know how the guests restrain themselves from walloping Jeremy as he chastises them, ending each question with: “YES or NO?”, yelling “Look at me... look at me... look at me.

So although it looks like I’ve missed out on the 2010 cold snap that everyone will remember in years to come, I’ll always have Jeremy.