I always reckoned myself as someone who can stay cool, in an uncool sort of way, in the face of popular trends. Latest weird fashions? … don’t care! … greatest pop group since the last greatest pop group? … couldn’t give a monkeys! … weird antipodean intonations at the end of spoken sentences that make every statement sound like a question? … not for this Joe!

But yesterday proved to me that I was completely wrong about myself.

I got into the office and busied myself with stapling and shuffling paper and staring blankly at the computer screen as per usual when one of the other office people intercepted a call; it was from “Dex” and it was for me.

I was still under the false belief that I was cool – that I treated celebrity in the same irreverent manner, (at least in my mind), as Avid Merrion does in Channel 4’s ‘Bo Selecta’. I spoke with nonchalance to the star of ‘Gamesmaster’, (well remembered by Bushra) … dammit! I was ‘Kool and the Gang’ with the guy.

I sat back at my desk basking in the reflection of the light shining out of my bottom … “Dex” had called me Joe and I had sorted out a minor problem for the man without fuss or bother … or so I thought.

Discreetly and a little later on, it was pointed out to me that not only had I been on my feet while I was talking to Mr. Fletcher but that I was bowing over the phone and had actually finished a sentence with a barely stifled “… thank you Dexter, sir”!!!

Andy, the writer of ‘Year 6’, suggested that I refrain from wringing my cloth cap and make a special attempt not to curtsy if I’m ever, ever allowed into the “Dex”‘s presence.