It had all been such a rush that none of us – not even E – had remembered to print off boarding passes for the flight from Birmingham. So here were all three of us forking out an extra £20 each for a tiny slip of paper that would permit us to fly.

Then E spotted the two bottles of perfume in my hand bag. “Are those more than 100ml?” she asked. On learning that one was 150ml E offered to pop over to Boots to buy a couple of empty containers into which we could divide up the liquid.

While E was away I slowly edged up the queue to show my boarding card and passport. When my turn came the official took one look at the passport then reached for a pair of scissors. She started to trim the maroon edges. Then, in a complete frenzy, she chopped my passport up into a hundred pieces.

“Why are you doing that?” I cried.

“Because you are an impostor” she replied loudly. “It says here in the Daily Mail that you are the Macedonian voice coach to the 2012 winner of the Eurovision Song Contest. This means that the papers that you have just presented to me must be fake!”

I later learnt that this was an elaborate practical joke orchestrated by my German friend WB.