YOU realise you have reached a certain amount of notoriety when you make the national papers. Last Monday morning my mobile phone rang. The nameless individual on the other end of the line could hardly contain himself.

Through fits of laughter I gleaned that I had made the previous day's Sunday People. I didn't realise that the People covered antiques and asked what exactly the article was about.

Through choked laughter my ex-friend advised me that apparently some eagle-eyed contributor had noticed a striking similarity between yours truly and the Churchill insurance bulldog; seemingly the view was that we had been twins separated at birth.

I toyed with the idea of complaining but finally came to the conclusion it was justified on the grounds that the dog was quite probably younger, better looking and knew more about antiques than I do. The cries of "where's your scarf Philip?" have now been replaced with "Ohh yes!". Oh no.