When I arrived it was like the second coming (I mean, Jesus, madam) with them all rushing out to embrace me (some rather too fondly, I fancied. For example, the small brunette with the - oh never mind) but the trouble was the person who had the key for the room with the toys hadn't arrived. Apparently she'd had a serious incident with a bowl of porridge, a one year old and a jar of jam with the lid off.

One of the women asked me jokingly if I could play the piano - they have an upright beast there which I reckon was last played when they held the town dance to celebrate Federation - and of course I wasted no time flexing the fingers and giving them a rendition - and lusty vocals too of course - of such standards as Mine's a Pint With A Cherry on Top, and She's A Barmaid With Big Things Ahead of Her. Oh sorry, I mean pub standards. When I looked around again several of the women had their mouths wide open and two kids were crying, but overall I think I can say they were entertained until the keys arrived.

Later, when the toys were out I got talking to some of the mothers, one of whom works for Esso. They let her do two days a week which frankly is probably good enough as she is an engineer and presumably as long as the pumps are working she's not got too much to do. We got talking about my book (yes, I know, I'll drop a hint whenever I can) because it's a thriller set in the motor industry and then we got onto Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear. I mentioned that back in the day, as they say, Clarkson was a struggling motoring journalist (he might say he wasn't, but take it from me...) when I got a call from the Sun newspaper (daily circulation 6.5 million, I believe) asking if I could do a column for them every week. At the time I was too busy running eight magazines or something equally ridiculous so I told the bloke I knew this journalist who'd probably be able to do it, what with his writing being lively and amusing, and so I told Mr C and he got the gig. I guess it was one of the stepping stones for him, gave him a high profile and eventually led to an interview at the BBC who had a new program planned, called Top Gear .