Out of the blue Steve Jobs called up New York Times reporter Joe Nocera - who's been pestering Apple about the state of Steve's health - and told him - off the record - what's been ailing him.

Jobs appears to have confirmed the Times and Fortune speculation that he's got serious digestive problems brought on by his operation for a rare form of pancreatic cancer.

According to Nocera, "Suffice it to say that I didn't hear anything that contradicted the reporting that John Markoff and I did this week. While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than ‘a common bug' - [Apple's untrustworthy explanation for Jobs' wasted appearance] - they weren't life-threatening and he doesn't have a recurrence of cancer. After he hung up the phone, it occurred to me that I had just been handed, by Mr Jobs himself, the very information he was refusing to share with the shareholders who have entrusted him with their money. You would think he'd want them to know before me. But apparently not."

The oddity increases when you consider Jobs' opening line: "This is Steve Jobs," he says to Nocera. "You think I'm an arrogant [expletive] who think he's above the law, and I think you're a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong."