Release your inner a*se for just £300

It's 11.00 pm. The phone rings. "It's me," I say, brightly, mouth on the move before the brain has even got its Jimmy Choos on. "I know it's you," says Marion, the hairdresser with the strong spiritual dimension.

She's desperate to tell us about a course that would allow Francis the chance to become a born again executive, liberated from the traumas that, unknown to him, are hiding his true character and thus preventing him from gting a gd jb, as those ancient Speedwriting ads used to say.

Apparently it's brilliant. It runs from 9.00 am to midnight and is 'incredibly' intense. For a pittance - a mere £300 - you get to go on stage and share your innermost traumas with two hundred complete strangers.

"It's really spiritual," says Marion. "Everyone needs to do it." As proof of its cathartic powers, she cites a previous boyfriend, who changed so much as a result of sharing his problems with a crowd and discovering that deep down inside he was a total arse that he immediately split up with her.

As a successful graduate of the starter session, she's been canny enough to save a few traumas for later, ensuring she has enough misery left for the advanced course, which costs £400 because it's so much smaller and intimate: this time round, you share your searing inner turmoil with just one hundred complete strangers, all nodding their heads supportively and asking open-ended questions, though not simultaneously.

"Sounds great," I say, wondering why she doesn't save the money and simply take a small megaphone into a public park to give the dog walkers a thrill.

As instructed by Marion, I pass on the news to Francis. Strangely, he seems less than thrilled by the opportunity to shell out for the chance to launch his first public speaking appearance with the line, "Hello, my name's Francis, and I'm redundant."

"Is he going to do it?" asks Marion, when she calls again next morning. I don't pass on his exact words, which are that for £300 he'd contemplate releasing his inner demons by drilling holes in his own skull. "I think he's going for beer-related therapy at the moment," I say. "If Stella Artois doesn't work, he'll certainly think about it."

Of course, there's the added risk that the course would reveal that only the trauma was holding back Francis's inner arse, too. In Speedwriting, a ttl rs. Or a pschpth. And I'm not sure our marriage is a good place for either. Unless, that is, I go on the course, too. Because I know I've got an inner arse. And sometimes, I feel it's on a very tight leash indeed - at least it would be if I could work out, even figuratively, just where a tight leash might go.