About 18 months ago, my wife and youngest son called in at the local video rental to grab a DVD. My son innocently recommended a recent DVD release which he had already seen with friends at the cinema and was happy to watch again. So it was rented, bought home and watched. And she hasn’t been the same since. And she is not the only one. This has infected women – well mainly women – all over the world.

The film? Pirates of the Caribbean. The disease? Johnny Depp Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It’s real, it’s serious and there doesn’t appear to be a cure.

Of course many women were infected before this film appeared but with Depp stepping back into mainstream cinema the infection rate has been exponential. Some of these women live, breath and order their very lives around the disease. Their houses will be full of pictures, books, calendars devotedly displayed and cherished. Their video shelf will have been swept of everything but the rather small collection of Depp features which they will wistfully stare at wishing he was more prolific. Their computer hard drives will be bursting at the seams with JPEGs. They are already ordering their social lives and family holidays around the release date of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

As it happens, having had the Depp back catalogue take control of the family DVD player, I have to admit that he is quite a remarkable actor and seems like a nice guy. His role choices are often quirky and he brings to each one a uniqueness and strength quite unmatched by the majority of movie ’stars’. And I was happy to sit and watch them all. Some, I was happy to watch twice…

I suppose many women might be immune to the infection but there is no way of telling. The best advice I can give is not to chance it. If anyone suggests going to see or renting a Depp film then the best approach is to nonchalantly decline. Suggest a Tom Cruise movie instead; she should be safe with that.