How I learned to stop worrying and love being hated

Girl: Dad, why do people want to punch your face in?
Me: Er, I’m not sure that they do, darling. Where did you get that idea?
Girl: It’s on YouTube. Look, here: ‘When Delingpole does that “air quotes” thing with his fingers I just want to punch him. Actually, I’d quite like to punch him anyway.’
Me: Ah, well, darling, you mustn’t worry about that. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing. It means Daddy’s famous.
 
Actually what I should have said was ‘infamous’. I’d first noticed this a couple of days earlier, at the Caprice, when I stopped by at the table of Daily Mail diarist Richard Kay. As Kay introduced me to his dining companion, I noticed a peculiar expression beginning to appear on the stranger’s face: that same weird mix of appalled horror and amused delight you might experience on meeting, maybe, Jeremy Clarkson or Piers Morgan, or Kim ­Jong-un.