One man's mess is another's beautiful minimalism was the convoluted, and let's admit it, furtive, description I gave someone of my flat.

Messy, though, is as you can see from my opening statement, all relative, and there are many gradations. But, I'm, worryingly, at the extreme end. Every day, my poor, old flat inches nearer and nearer to eyesore.

I'm privately terrified that those I have the courage to invite round, will see my flat, leave quickly, their hasty goodbye floating down the corridor, to make an urgent phone call to the social services "...single man living on his own....obviously can't cope...hurry..."

Spot on. I was right. My poor, old flat is royally 'spent'. So am I now after this past week.

It seems I'm never more than a moment from some domestic drama: dying fridges, pattering mice, leaking washing machines.

Ca suffit ! Basta ! Bastante ! Genug ! Enough and no more please !

In today's Observer magazine there's an article about extreme tiredness and debilitating weariness which looking at what's been described, really ought to be called uber-fatigue, but since I'm always just a little too late to the christening party, has already been named and classified by a South African doctor, Frank Lipman, as the condition, 'spent'.

Too tired to go on ? Legs like jelly ? Used up your sleep overdraft months ago ? Spiritually and emotionally depleted ? Feverishly insomniac ? Busted, weak, batteries drained ? You're all used up ? Then you're probably spent.

Actually, I'm not. I feel fine. Plenty of sleep. Eat well. Exercise. In transatlantic English, I feel good. Really, I do. No shell-shock stare here.

It's my flat - it's 'spent'. It's shagged, it's health is ruined, I'm convinced of it. Feeble, frail; if it was human, it'd be walking round on sticks. It just does n't seem to be able to go a day without panting for breath, or being brought down by some new viral infection.

Like today, I wander into the kitchen and it squelches underfoot like I'm treading through a peat bog. Another leak. A bigger one than the first I had in May. Bubbling linoleum. Aqueous films of damp everywhere.

Before you start, I don't neglect this place, it gets cared for, it's just 'spent'. It needs a rest, I need rest.