IN DIFFERENT ways and for different reasons we all have certain things that we choose (or need) to hide from others.

Personally, I tend to hide the fact that I have had an education. This is mainly because an education is not deemed to be one of the valued qualities of a builder. An ability to build and the possibility of turning up are the main attributes, with the capacity to string together a sentence of more than three words being a bonus. I am happy to hide my little secret, but may always reveal it when pushed.

One man who is receiving more than just a gentle push to reveal his hidden secrets at the moment is Jerome Kiervel, the young trader at Société Générale, who appears to have gambled the entire capital valuation of his bank on the future price of chocolate fireguards. No wonder he kept things quiet as long as he did; if he had come clean when he made his first loss he probably could have got away with a slapped wrist, but as with all of these things, a small lie becomes a big lie and a small loss soon becomes more than 5 billion - more than I earn in a week.

Another man with something to hide is my latest client. At least, if it is not something to hide, he certainly has things to hide away.

He contacted me to convert an attic space for him. Nothing unusual there; we often convert lofts. For a substantial amount of money, people gain extra room without building an extension. Though this one seemed rather ill conceived - access was poor, the doorway could not be more than half-height. The available head height inside was again poor, with 80 per cent of the room only being accessible to Snow White's mates, not to mention the huge waist-height beam that cuts the room in two, ruling out access to anybody but the nimblest limbo dancer.

Undeterred, he wanted to press on with the project, not to create another room, but to make a wardrobe. Yes, a wardrobe, and not only that, some bookshelves as well.

Apparently his wife has a lot of clothes - enough to fill an attic, in fact - and a collection of more than 5,000 cookery books. I have two cookery books, both of which get consulted at least once every two years, and we seem to manage to avoid starving to death. What can anybody do with 5,000?

We started work a couple of weeks ago and we have been given glimpses of boxes full of clothes and books. We have met the man, we have nearly converted the attic, we have been given detailed instructions, we have seen drawings done by his wife, but there is one thing we have not seen, or heard. And that is the wife.

It is hard to know where she might be. We talk about her a lot, I know her likes and dislikes, I know she is agile and doesn't mind swinging under beams. She loves cookery, I even ate one of her mince pies, but I haven't seen her. Somebody with a more fertile imagination might have ideas about a Norman Bates character in a rocking chair dressed in his mother's clothes reading her old recipe books, or a latter-day Bluebeard who keeps builders chained in the attic until he can cook parts of them to feed to his guests...