My life has once again ground to a complete halt – not because I am swamped during the day with an excessive workload, nor because the recent spate of bad weather has left me feeling lethargic and useless … as it often does.

No.

Neil and I have started to watch the fifth series of 24.

For those of you who have not yet experienced this highly addictive and compelling programme that could rival any best selling thriller novel for its ‘not able to put down-ness’, it is an absolute must see… although warn your friends when you are about to start viewing – it is unlikely that they will see you for a while.

Admittedly I was a little dubious as to whether the script writers would be able to pull it out of the bag again and create new and interesting ways for the indestructable Jack Bauer to be superficially maimed, blown up, shot at, thrown off buildings, out of helicopters and be hidden in yet more air conditioning vents whispering husky voiced into a two way radio…

But they have!

Significant achievements in this series should also be realised in giving Audrey a new hair do, Chloe a better wardrobe and a gun, and for still not giving Curtis (head of field operations) a helmet in dangerous and gun wielding situations – making you fear his imminent death as the only chap on the ground that has two brain cells to rub together and is able to fill in for Jack in saving the world when on the odd occasion Jack becomes a fugitive of the law or is suffering at the hands of another hostile and has to plan his own escape by faking death and hijacking a camel….

Anyway – I won’t say anymore for fear of giving too much away, but let it be said my evenings have certainly been enriched as Neil and I battle on through countless episodes of 24 until our fingers grow sore from holding our eyelids open, and we head for bed.

I highlight ‘we’ for emphasis. You see 24 has been having some unintentional consequences.

Indeed, although I promote viewing of 24 as being an immensley thrilling and a somewhat essential waste of your life, it isn’t without side effects. You may, for example, sense a heightening in your bravado (I have found this particularly the case in male viewers), you may begin to say ‘copy that’ at the end of phone calls to friends or colleagues, and a disturbing proportion of viewers are also now in posession of the cisco ringtone. The effect it has had upon me, however, is a little more embarrassing.

If I have finished my viewing of 24 on an episode where the latest batch of ‘baddies’ haven’t been apprehended, all irrational fear I reserved for monsters under the bed and ghosts in the wardrobe when I was five years old comes flooding back to me, and I am unable to enter dark rooms without a companion. In fact it is often I require to be escorted upstairs to close the curtains or brush my teeth after an episode – just in case there is a terrorist lurking in the depths of our three bedroom semi.

In fact, I am particularly suspicious of the cupboard above the stair well. You could fit at least two heavily armed Russians in there….

Still…you’d think at 25 I’d be equipped enough mentally to differentiate between reality and fiction, that I’d know technology is advanced enough for people to no longer have to sit inside a television for you to watch it, that the baddies aren’t real and my teddy has no additional claims on my life than it had before…. but for or some reason none of this matters.

Every day I give thanks for Neil’s patience.

Watch 24.

I advise not alone.

You’re going to love it.