Diary – 25 March 2006

It’s been quite a week for mistaken identity. It began with my partner sounding very excited on the telephone. ‘At last a chance to make some money,’ she said. ‘The Independent has a story about dodgy dealings by companies in Iraq — one of them is run by Tim Bell. And they’ve printed a photo of you, captioned Lord Bell.’ I emailed Bell: ‘Have you seen the Indie piece which accuses you of making squillions trading with Iraq? They illustrated it with what purported to be a pic of you — but it was me. Should you sue or should I?’ Ping! came the reply. ‘As long as you don’t want a share of the squillions, I’m happy to be you.’ I suspect that the picture desk had grabbed a publicity still of Bell and me taken for a documentary I had made and in the rush they had flipped the transparency, so we had changed places.