I could see that she was impressed by my sophistication.

We stood in the kitchen at the Drumming Barman's leaving party, chatting. I was doing most of the chatting, anyway. I do like a good listener.

Despite being quite shy, I am actually very witty and urbane in real life, and in fact get more witty and more urbane with each glass of wine I drink, until I am so witty and so urbane that I just get overcome and have to have a lie down.

The foxy blonde lawyer laughed uproariously at one of my jokes. Actually, she laughed quite quietly and understatedly, being too classy to really roar like most people do when I say something witty. Her eyes darted round the room nervously, probably due to worry that she was making it too obvious that she was interested in me.

I metaphorically adjusted my tie. It is unusual that I find someone like me to talk to who oozes class and breeding. Short Tony and Big A swigged beer like the peasants that they are. I sipped my Blossom Hill with suavity.

All this made the later misunderstanding so much more annoying. Clearly it was not my fault that I broke the toilet door, nor was it down to me that the locky bit was a bit rubbish in the first place. The fact that my stomach had got a bit dodgy was down to the forces of nature, and one can blame a lack of communication for the 'if the door's shut, don't go in' protocol not to have been spread and adopted by all.

"Oh God, I'm really, so, so, sorry," she stammered.

I gazed up at her glassily, swaying slightly from side to side, wondering what to say, my pants round my ankles.

She backed away and pulled the door to.

We didn't speak again that evening.

This small story tails off here, but I had to write it anyway for one reason.

I have always wanted to use the phrase 'my pants around my ankles' without having to follow it with '(actually that was a joke)'.

In fact that was my one remaining ambition in life.

Where do I go now?