THERE'S a quiz in this week's Radio Times which made pretty alarming reading for me.

It's part of a feature on a new TV show being presented by Robert Winston from tonight, called How To Sleep Better.

The quiz is aimed at helping you find out if you have a sleeping problem.

I didn't consider that I had any kind of a sleeping problem. My only problem is waking up.

On an average night, my sleep time begins the moment my head touches anything soft and doesn't end until my wife has become sufficiently annoyed by my radio alarm blaring at me that she nudges me into consciousness.

However, the Radio Times quiz asks me if I'm ever likely to fall asleep in the following situations.

1. Sitting and reading. Oh yes. Critics may describe a novel as impossible to put down, but that doesn't prevent me getting through two pages and then finding myself flat out with the book over my face.

2. Watching television. Isn't it normal to fall asleep doing this, especially when watching any programme about well-to-do people buying a home in France?

3. Sitting inactive in a public place - for example, a theatre or meeting. Yes again. If I go to the theatre, the main source of suspense is whether I'm going to make it to the interval without slumping in my seat and drooling.

4. As a passenger in a car for an hour without a break. Yes. Doesn't everyone do this? I'm afraid you don't get a lot of conversation out of me when I'm the passenger, and I don't see a lot of scenery.

5. Lying down to rest in the afternoon. Not that I often get the chance to do this, but what would be the point in lying down to rest if you weren't going to catch a few Zs?

6. Sitting and talking to someone. Well, I've certainly fallen asleep while people have been talking to me. Now that I come to think of it, I've fallen asleep when I've been doing the talking, which people find particularly odd.

After doing a more sophisticated version of this quiz on the internet, I learn that my sleep may be "poorly optimised". (Isn't that a contradiction in terms?)

I think any sleep problems I might have are to do with the fact that I'm forced to get up by 5.30am and not go to bed much before 11pm - whereas I'm the sort of person who would naturally stay up for late-night movies and not rise until the rush hour was safely over.

However, the folk at bbc.co.uk tell me my answers indicate I may have a snoring problem - and I have to concede that I do sometimes inhale so violently that I'm in danger of sucking in small objects.

So it seems I ought to follow some health tips which mainly involve cutting down on caffeine and getting more exercise.

I'll try. But at the moment it's touch-and-go whether I can stay awake long enough to finish this column.