Thursday 27 November

9st 1, alcohol units 3 (vg) cigarettes 19 (poor).

7.45am: Cannot believe am already up in middle of night! But getting out of bed is so much easier when latest Earl Spencer instalment is about to plop through letter box.

8.30: Cannot get enough of the story. As Shazzer said last night, is to do with impression that what Earl Spencer is really in court for is not respecting women enough: as if making women feel insecure, blowing hot and cold, chucking them when you are in the bath or over the phone in an arrogant manner, egging them on, then going off them and behaving as if it is their fault, has at last become a prosecutable offence.

"F---wittage," Shazzer was ranting, pouring an entire glass of chardonnay straight down her throat. "He's effectively on trial for f---wittage. For centuries aristocratic wives have put up with this stuff, but didn't I always predict that women would rise up together? The wife lying down with the mistress... here pass me some of that pizza, will you?"

"What? You mean, become lesbians?" giggled Jude.

"Shut up, Jude, you're drunk," growled Shazzer. "It's the idea that having mistresses is a man's right, that women are disposable, that just because he's rich and titled they should be grateful. Look at him, compared with them - big pink porky bloater."

Hah! Anyway, when I get to work am going to share Shazzer's feminist views with Richard Finch and make him let me do an item on it. I mean, what is the point of working in television if you cannot... Aargh, am going to be late.

10pm: Hateful rest of day: When I arrived Richard Finch was already boxing the air and torturing the research team.

"Ah, Bridget," he said creepily. "Earl Spencer."

I opened my mouth but he took the wind completely out of my sails.

"Come on. I'm thinking women rising up against men, I'm thinking the wife lying down with the mistress. Get me a woman whose husband's had a string of affairs. Live in the studio with all the mistresses."

"By when?" I said, alarmed.

"When do you think, dolly droopy drawers? This afternoon."

Sometimes there seems no limit to the absurdity of what Richard Finch will ask me to do. One day I will find myself persuading Harriet Harman and Tessa Jowell to stand in a supermarket while I ask passing shoppers which is which, or trying to find a Master of the Hunt and have him chased naked through the countryside by a pack of vicious foxes.

Remembering the importance of assertiveness for a woman, said: "Don't be ridiculous. It isn't humanly possible in the time."

"Fine," he said, with an evil glint in his eye. "In that case, Miss Hoity-Toity Pants, you're doing foxhunting."

Next thing found myself in rain-swept Leicestershire, knocking on the door of a big square house surrounded by horseboxes, ready to interview a huntmaster. Was quite excited actually, as would be a chance to put my views on... Suddenly the door burst open, and a tall man was standing in corduroy trousers and a quite sexy baggy jumper.

"Humph," he said, eyeing me up and down. "Better bloody well come in. When are these chaps of yours arriving?"

"The crew will be here in half an hour," I said primly, as he led me into a big kitchen, full of dogs and bits of saddle.

"It's supposed to be a free country," he was yelling, striding round, biffing things. "Once they start telling us we can't even bloody hunt on a Saturday, where will it end?"

"Well, you could say that about people keeping slaves, couldn't you?" I muttered, "Or cutting the ears off cats. It just doesn't seem very gentlemanly to me, a crowd of people and dogs careering after one frightened little creature for fun."

I should have kept my mouth shut. "Have you ever bloody seen what a fox does to a chicken?" he bellowed, turning red in the face. "If we don't hunt 'em, the countryside will be overrun."

"Shoot them, then," I said, staring at him murderously. "Humanely. And chase something else on Saturdays, like in greyhound racing. Fasten a little fluffy animal impregnated with fox smell on to a wire."

"Shoot them? Have you ever tried to shoot a bloody fox? There'll be your little frightened foxes left wounded in agony all over the bloody shop. Fluffy animal. Grrr!"

When the crew arrived, he was literally purple and suddenly grabbed at the phone and dialled. "Finch, you total arse!" he bellowed. "What have you sent me... some bloody little pinko..."

Twenty minutes later, under pain of sacking, I was in full hunting regalia, on a horse preparing to ride into shot and interview the Rt Hon Fox Murderer, also on a horse. "OK, Bridget, go, go, go," yelled Richard Finch in my earpiece at which I squeezed my knees into the horse, as instructed. Unfortunately, however, the horse would not go. After 15 seconds of frantic knee-digging and hideous abuse in my ear, during which the Rt Hon Purpleface held forth, unchecked, with an eloquent pro-hunting advertisement, my horse suddenly reared up and cantered sideways into shot. All I had time to say was: "Ah! Now back to the studio!" At which the horse reversed into the cameraman.

After the crew had gone I went miserably into the house to change, only to practically bump into the Rt Hon Bossybottom.

"Hmm," he growled throatily. "Spirit. I like that in a woman." Then grabbed me to him.

"Get off!" I said, jumping away. "What about your wife!"

"Wife?" he bellowed. "She's not fit to be my wife. I need a woman who can deal with a man with a strong personality."