This was an incentive holiday with a difference: as well as winning a place for yourself and your significant other, you were also allowed to bring along some friends. So JW, DT and other Edinburgh pals were joining us in the US to celebrate TPR’s career success. What I didn’t appreciate was that not all of TPR’s immediate colleagues had been lucky enough to secure places at the event. I made a terrible faux pas by listing everyone invited by TPR in the presence of a bearded engineer who had clearly not made the grade.

As things turned out, the trip was not a complete success. I lost TPR somewhere in the city and in his place ST turned up, all woeful about his various inadequacies. I called the police with a simple description that would surely help them track down TPR. “He looks a bit like Hugh Grant” I explained.