I've been somewhat impressed by my psychic ability recently and it is with some confidence that I, hand on heart, can say I have seen my future - and it's pants, BIG pants.

Yes, at 34 years young I have finally decided that Mother Nature may need a little (lot of!) help putting things back from whence they came.

I guess I've always been a little behind, if you pardon the pun, in the underwear fashion stakes and in the past have been quite happy to grab the "5 High Leg Briefs in Cotton" on a trip to the supermarket.

Thongs? Seen them, bought them, binned them (why anyone would want to wear the equivalent of dental floss on a winter's day is beyond me) and as for French knickers, well the French can keep them as I spend the whole day dislodging them.

Underwear for me has to be functional, and although it's nice to think that one day I will enjoy slipping into something slinky I can see little point in spending a fortune on some wisp of lace that sees me holding my tummy in all day.

My mum had a very similar attitude to underwear so it's easy to see where it all started for me. In her day they were called "girdles" and it became the norm to see something of an underwear convention with hers, mine, my sister's and my dad's underwear all flapping freely on a washing line - a bit like the flags outside the United Nations building in Brussels, just with more elastic.

Elastic, you see, is the key - too much and you find day-to-day tasks impossible. Too little and you may as well be wearing a hankie for all the good it does. My new discoveries however are just right, they are firm, they won't - and for that matter CAN'T - move, but they're not so tight as to cause a fainting fit (imagine being carted off to hospital and the doctor removing your clothes to find THOSE! Eek!).

Starting at just above the knee and finishing under the bust, these little beauties have the elastic strength to trampoline a rhino, miraculously removing the damage that too much chocolate and not enough exercise has done over many years. My waist is slimmer, my tummy flatter and my bum looks high enough to rest a pint on.

The only downside for me is the time it takes to get the darn things on and indeed off. It's bit like stuffing a sausage - slowly easing them up or down with several deep breaths along the way. That aside I can only think of positive reasons for wearing them; your wing-span waist becomes a hand-span and I'm really going to reap the benefits when winter kicks in, as you just don't feel the cold when you've got your bum shrink-wrapped.

Graham calls them my Magic Knickers, "Is it because the extra pounds just seem to disappear when I'm wearing them - poof! Like magic?" He thought for a moment and quipped back "No, it's a case of Piff! Paff! Poof! One look at them and I disappear down the pub..."