This week the Burberry fashion house broadcast its annual catwalk show in 3D, which is fairly amusing since most fashion models are themselves only 2D. Filming something entirely flat must be quite a challenge for a 3D filmmaker. Presumably they left the price tags on the dresses so there was something large and scary to leap out at the viewer.

I've only been to see one 3D movie and already I'm over it. Actually, I was over it about five minutes in, when the glasses started itching and my friend Amanda threw up due to motion sickness. It seems 3D has this effect on some people. Hollywood's old slogan will have to be rewritten: "Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em chunder."

The 3D technology added much to the price of the tickets but little to the experience. As soon as I became involved in the story and the characters, I became oblivious to the technology. It was the flipside of the experience I've had watching subtitled foreign films: within a few minutes you find yourself "hearing" the words, unaware that you are reading.

I think this comes from deep within the human brain. We have storytelling and story-hearing genes within us. We bring them to any narrative, whether it's in 3D, 2D, black-and-white or audio. When Jimmy Stewart looms into shot in a black-and-white classic such as , our brains render him as flesh and blood. We sympathise with him as if we'd spent the last hour walking beside him. The differences in technology are entirely bland compared with this story-hearing technology in our heads. The introduction of 3D is like pimping a 1200cc motorbike by mounting a battery-operated fan on its rear.

This story-hearing technology is even more powerful when you read a great novel. Enter the world of, say, Hilary Mantel's and you'll find characters who do more than simply "leap from the screen", to quote the 3D sales pitch. Mantel's Thomas Cromwell clambers from the page, follows you out of the room and becomes — for a week or two — a lively presence in the rest of your life. I found him constantly lurking behind my shoulder, commenting on what I was doing, sometimes cannily advising me in the art of realpolitik. It was beyond 3D; he was impossible to shake off, entering my dreams and my waking hours.