For the past three days i've fallen prey to the kind of exquisite fantasy that will allow me to concentrate on nothing else, it's on my mind from the minute i leave for work in the morning and throughout the entire working day until the moment i get home again to satiate my cravings, to savour the blessed release of an all-consuming desire appeased until the next time it takes possession of my beleaguered senses.

It threatens to drive me insane, looming so vividly in my minds eye from one hour to another that it almost becomes a shrieking voice inside my head that demands immediate and total obedience, a demand which i am powerless to comply with until i am once again safely within my own four walls.

I indulge my fantasy the very instant i reach home, fleeing upstairs and plunging my feet into gloriously cold water with a sigh of orgasmic proportions.

The plain truth is this: i have bought a new pair of shoes and they're absolutely killing me, blistering me until i hobble along as if walking over hot coals, makng me feel that my poor feet are imprisoned within the raging fires of Hell...innocent though they looked in the shop, i have earnestly come to believe that they are the Devil's footwear.

Will i eventually surface on one of those Body Makeover shows begging the presenter for a saintly new pair of feet?

In times of trial and tribulation we must snatch at the merest crumb of comfort that we can and the only pleasure i've experienced since buying those abominable shoes has been getting home at the end of the day and taking the bloody things off!