Apparently, this sort of thing would never have happened at the White House.

So said a senior figure in the Bush security cabal, quoted on the front page of one of the newspapers this morning - but damn me if I can't figure out which one now I come to write it up. Anyway, the point is that they are wrong, wrong, wrong. And someone who is so stunningly arrogant they think they can get away with a lie like that - or is so stunningly stupid they don't think to check their facts before opening their mouth - seriously thought they'd be allowed to deploy miniguns in London? As in the things you stick on tanks to kill people? Oh, I see, it's the nice miniguns, which merely protect presidents from the dangers of people who don't agree with them. I feel much better.

Given the current political climate, what with George W. strutting around our little country and terrorists eagerly looking for targets, one can not be too careful. Especially when one works in a Government Office, as I do. Sure, this isn't Whitehall, we're dealing with development in the East of England rather than major national policies. Even so, we're a target.

I was therefore shocked that when, about fifteen minutes ago, I detected a suspicious package in the office, my warnings were treated with jovial levity.

Yes, it looked like it may well be the business cards we were expecting to arrive. But bombs and business cards share many superficial similarities when wrapped up - characteristics of suspicious packages taken from advisories issued by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the United States Postal Service give the following examples:

- Letter bombs may feel rigid, or appear uneven or lopsided (this particular parcel was all of those).

- Mail bombs may bear restricted endorsements such as “Personal” or “Private” (it said "documents enclosed", which is a fairly restricted endorsement).

- The addressee’s name/title may be inaccurate (or, more suspiciously as in this case, entirely accurate; clearly we weren't dealing with amateurs).

- Mail bombs may reflect distorted handwriting (not having a mirror on hand, I was unable to check this).

- The return address may be fictitious or absent (there was NO return address).

- Mail bombs may have excessive postage (this one had insufficient postage, surely even more suspicious - not only were these terrorists professionals, they were mean, penny-pinching professionals).

- Package bombs may have an irregular shape, soft spots, or bulges (it was all of these things. "Oh, but it's two piles of business cards," my colleagues argued. Yes, or two bombs, you silly people.)

- Package bombs may make a buzzing or ticking noise or a sloshing sound (it made a crackly, popping sound, like bubble wrap).

Well, I issued my warnings, I declared to the office that we were in mortal danger, I did my absolute best to create a genuine bomb scare (and certainly on a personal level achieved an ostentatious, if slightly camped-up, aura of panic). But at the end of the day the parcel was not addressed to me and I was forced to hand it over.

Naturally I was relieved that it turned out to be business cards after all, but I can't help feeling that if it had been a bomb my colleagues would at least have taken this brush with death a bit more seriously.

Did I read this morning that on Thursday, George W Bush will be sitting down to a nosh-up 'overseen' by Nigella Lawson? I'm not sure what disturbs me more, that a TV chef gets to meet the executive leader of the United States of America ... or that Nigel Lawson's daughter has to decide whether to poison him or not.

On a related note, were I one of the fourteen thousand police officers who are being used to guard against grandmothers during Bush's visit, I'd be sorely tempted to roll into work, look over my assignment, and then walk out again with the words "let the fuckers get him". Perhaps they could all transfer to Cambridgeshire Constabulary and help find out who keeps nicking our bikes.

Film makers have long been out of good ideas for films. Generally unable to come up with their own plots, and having ravaged British history, mythology and – worst of all – being in the process of ravaging British films, big Hollywood companies have, for the last ten years, methodically plundered what must surely be the bottom of the barrel where film inspiration is concerned. Computer games.

This would have seemed a ridiculous idea back in 1986 when computers were invented. If anybody had told me and my playmates as we grappled with Chucky Egg on a BBC micro that it was going to be turned into a blockbusting film, we would have laughed in their face.

We’d have gone to see it, of course. That’s the point, isn’t it? They sell. It hardly matters that the films are, without exception, irredeemably rubbish. (Though I would say that this summer I went to see a film based on a theme park ride and I thoroughly enjoyed it.)

Looking back to the games I played when I still thought that kind of thing was worth doing, I wonder what film masterpieces we might have got if Hollywood had got its act together a little sooner. What would a film version of Pacman have been like? Probably very surreal, possibly racist. How about Dizzy and its magnificent sequels (the computer game equivalent to Lord of the Rings), or my personal favourite, Rainbow Islands (with that title it could have been the first computer-inspired gay movie). Young folk today will have no idea what I’m going on about, and if I had a bigger house I would invite them all round and show them just what they’re missing out on.

Although I have a feeling my parents have moved my computer into the loft. Oh, the shame, the ignominy, my poor little Amstrad CPC464. You had to wait in those days for games to load, you would watch the tape go round and listen to the noise of a game loading – “duur diiiiiiiir, durrrrr, diiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”. There’s none of that these days, and I warn you all, we are breeding impatient children.

Anyway, it seems to me there is one vital and universal game that has not yet been exploited by the film industry: minesweeper.

Why has this beautifully constructed, tense and dramatic game been ignored? A film version could take full advantage of the vagueries of its actual background as far as plot is concerned, building up a fascinating scenario within which to interweave every ounce of the excitement of the game itself.

What the film should play on more than anything else is the unfairness of it all. It is a very very unfair game. Okay, to a large extent it is a game of skill, but there is an element of chance. There’s the first square you click on, for a start – there is no way of knowing, you just can’t tell, and what a tragedy it is when your very first choice of square reveals a mine, and the little yellow smiling face (who I see as being played by Danny DeVito) crosses his eyes and weeps.

It is also possible to get yourself into a position where, having almost finished a game in an unbelievably short time, you are left with two little grey squares, under just one of which lies a mine – and there is no way of telling which.

Oh, the heartrending moment of choice. You have to guess! Time, and your potentially highest score ever, are ticking away…but which square is it? Will you choose right, or will you choose wrong?

I chose wrong. So my film is jolly well going to end in tragedy.

I'm currently listening to Beethoven symphonies, and I keep on being distracted by very small melodic phrases which I'm sure are the main themes of various blockbuster films. Unless I'm very mistaken, Herr Beethoven didn't actually work for Warner during his lifetime, which means that either people are going around blatently ripping them off, or I'm mistaken.

The latter I'd be prepared to accept - the phrases that trigger my memory flash past pretty quickly, to be replaced by more recognisable Beethovian fare.

Am I perhaps just now coming to realise a huge fraud of which everyone else is already aware? Is perhaps all film music ripped off Beethoven? Can I hear the strains of a well-known quartet in Lord Of The Rings? His late piano sonatas in Schindler's List? Because that last riffle at the end of symphony number five is sure as bloody hell in Star Wars ...

I've had a couple of dreams recently featuring Stewart Lee. But not the real Stewart Lee - instead some paragon, with giant blond hair, a huge imposing air about him, and an idea for a TV series he's going to write with Matt Holness. Depending on the dream, I am invited either to go round sometime (which my short-term memory immediately records as 'tomorrow', but is actually 'tonight') to hash out some ideas with them, or to a party to celebrate what he's currently doing, which comes across as another TV show while actually being a group of people in a pub. I never make it to either.

Strangely, although it's definitely Stewart Lee and Matt Holness in the dream, neither looks anything like they do in real life, making me wonder if it's actually all an extended experiment by the government, or possibly a very strange joke by unscrupulous friends.

I wake confused, and unrefreshed. There must be a way of ridding my head of unwanted comedians.

Apparently we were featured last night on (of all things) 'Airport', ITV's reality TV show. It seems that some footage of us from the Royal Mile this summer was used in the 'this is Edinburgh' section at the beginning. Presumably there weren't people wandering round airports subjecting innocent members of the public to bizarre psychoanalysis in the hope that something interesting might pop out. Although we live in an age of authoritarian security, so maybe there were.

If anyone happens to have the clip on tape - or, better yet, if anyone knows if we can get the raw footage from ITV somehow - then obviously we'd be vastly grateful, before descending into a fug of self-admiration. Can we perhaps just pay our ten pounds and get the footage under the Data Protection Act?

We tried something in yesterday’s workshop which was new to me: the idea was to say a word – we chose the emotive, if overused, “love” – but to precede it with a noise expressive of some emotion of the speaker’s choice. Step two was to then remove the emotional noise and just think it, resulting in an internalised emotion apparent in the manner of the word’s delivery.

That is the theory, at least.

It is an interesting and surely useful technique for loading every word and every sentence with emotional meaning and intensity. Something that, as an actor, I was keen to try out more. So I’ve been doing it at work today.

All morning, before saying anything at all, I have carefully internalised a wail of anguish, a choking sob or a groan of resignation, with the result that the most insignificant comment or query – “this payment should have been processed two months ago,” “has anybody seen the file for Bulb Product Development?” or even “would anybody like a cup of tea?” – suddenly elicits responses of great sympathy and concern.

That is the theory, at least.

In reality, the last question merely elicits a response along the lines of “ooh, yes please,” “remember I have two sugars,” “can you pass the biscuits round as well?” Not one person has reacted to my internal agony in the slightest, not even with a troubled look or reassuring smile. I have been considering reasons why this might be – I momentarily worried that my abilities as an actor were at fault, an idea I naturally dismissed without too much thought. Perhaps my colleagues are simply thoughtless, inhuman and uncaring – a more likely theory. Or maybe they just don’t like me.

The actual reason is far more interesting. While the idea of internalising an emotion before speaking was new and exciting to myself, over the course of the day I have gradually realised everybody else in the office does it already. All the time.

There is a girl opposite me who makes every single thing she says sound like a threat of suicide. Spoken by her, the words “can I use the stapler?” cause a ripple of panic to pass around the office, hands suddenly poised over telephones to call for help, sharp objects quickly concealed in drawers. Clearly, this girl is preceding each word with an internal scream of desperation.

Another woman makes everything sound as if she’s just taken some bread out of the oven. “We’ve just had a complaint from a client who says we’re Luddites,” she’ll say, and everyone will sigh cheerfully and think of Hovis. I suspect she thinks about puppies a lot.

My boss is an impressive woman who somehow makes “I’d like you to do some photocopying” sound like she is bestowing the order of the garter on you. She undoubtedly precedes every sentence with the words “I am the Queen” (I am sure of this because she sometimes says it out loud).

It is an interesting discovery that while we at the Uncertainty Division have to practice ways of giving emotional context to our words, ordinary office workers have somehow perfected the technique. Perhaps office temping is not such a bad training ground for a resting actor…

That is the theory, at least.