I’m famous at last — thanks to the internet (and this column)

I don’t know quite how to put this without sounding nauseatingly smug or dangerously hubristic, but I think I might finally have become almost-famous. The revelation occurred while I was doing Vanessa Feltz’s show on BBC Radio London. I was burbling away in my usual self-hating way about how needy I am and unappreciated, and Vanessa said: ‘You know a lot of listeners are going to be quite puzzled by that, because you’re a successful columnist with a huge audience and you’re broadcasting to thousands of people right now.’

And I thought, ‘Bloody hell, Vanessa. You’re right.’ Sure I’m not famous enough to be mobbed in the street, or get tables in restaurants, or have gorgeous random females forever hurling their bodies at me. I’m not as famous as my old muckers Toby Young, Dave Cameron or Boris Johnson. But I’m definitely famous enough not to belong any more to the category occupied by 99.9 per cent of my friends and family, i.e. not remotely famous even in the slightest. Like, the other day, I was having lunch in the rather good beach café at the end of Hengistbury Head in Dorset and, a few tables away, two men in loud tweed jackets did that thing most of us do in restaurants when we see a famous person (FP).

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One of them spotted the FP and commented on the fact to his mate. Then the mate — the one with his back turned — waited a beat, before craning round in a ‘No really, I’m not looking round because I’ve been told there’s a celebrity to look at. I’m craning round because, um, because craning’s the kind of thing I do all the time’ way.