SO Bridget Jones is set to return.
Novelist Helen Fielding has announced that she is to reprise her loveable and bumbling heroine for a third book next year.
Predictably, since the news broke, there have been the expected grumblings: money for old rope, flogging dead horses and similar wearisome analogies. I, for one, can't wait.
When Fielding briefly resurrected her column, in The Independent in 2006, Bridget gave birth to a baby boy,
He was fathered by the roguish Daniel Cleaver, and the dashing Mark Darcy was out of the picture.
Her final column read: "Bridget is giving her every attention to the care of her newborn son – and is too busy to keep up her Diary for the time being."
With Fielding keeping deliberately tight-lipped on the details of the new novel, I can only really speculate.
But the world has changed a lot in the past six years, never mind the almost two decades since Bridget first burst into our lives.
Back then, her evenings were spent anxiously waiting for the phone to ring and obsessively dialling 1471.
One can only imagine what delicious depths her neuroticism has reached, with text messaging and multiple Facebook, Twitter and email accounts to check.
Between daily faux pas with the other yummy mummies at the school gates, I can picture Bridget going to Zumba classes, wearing a Sara Lund-inspired jumper and ditching her 40-a-day Silk Cut habit for a trendy electronic cigarette.
Given that no-one has drunk chardonnay since, well, Bridget did, evenings are more likely spent quaffing a suave New Zealand sauvignon blanc as she watches Strictly Come Dancing with an ear to the baby monitor.
Even poor old Mr Darcy may been usurped by a new-found obsession with Mr Grey, he of Fifty Shades fame. But here's hoping she hasn't dispensed with workaholics, sexaholics, commitment-phobics, peeping Toms, megalomaniacs or emotional idiots entirely.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article