Maybe I don't know what I'm missing but I have never in my entire life set foot inside a betting shop.

I won't deny ever putting money on a horse - I have, when my arm has been twisted, been known to join the office sweepstake - but that's the extent of my little flutters.

As gambling has never been one of my vices (and I'm not about to tell you what have) I was therefore taken aback on Saturday when a friend rang threatening to 'out' me.

"We saw you going into the bookies this lunchtime," she said. "Having a bet on the Grand National were we? Even killjoys like you can't resist the National."

Of course I denied everything.

"It wasn't me, truly it wasn't me," I said.

"I've nothing against people having a flutter if they want to, it's nothing to be ashamed of, but it just doesn't appeal to me."

But she was having none of it.

"Be sure your sins will find you out," she said gleefully.

"Look," I said, "have you forgotten that holiday I had in Las Vegas when I was the only person in the group who didn't lose any money in the slot machines?"

"That's because you were too mean to chance your luck," she said before ringing off.

So it seems I shall now be regarded as at best a closet gambler, at worst a bare-faced liar.

But it wasn't me in the betting shop, truly it wasn't.

The truth is . . . the truth is that at the time I was supposed to be in the bookies I was actually in a queue inside the local baker's shop.

Only I shouldn't have been there either, of course, as I'm still officially on a diet.

It's not that I mind being caught out if I'm actually doing something I shouldn't - and enjoying it to boot - but what really irks me about the incident is that I wasn't.

It reminded me of another incident a couple of years ago. A friend who'd recently remarried came to visit me with her new husband in tow.

Not to mince words, they couldn't keep their hands off each other.

It was one of those occasions when an "early night" meant theatrical yawns at 7.30pm and an 8pm beeline for the bedroom (mine).

They were, and I shall phrase this as delicately as possible, an enthusiastically loving couple.

To avoid embarrassment, I turned up the volume on the TV, I had exuberantly noisy baths, I crashed the crockery as I washed up.

It was useless. On the noise stakes, they were unbeatable.

If sex were an Olympic sport they'd have won Gold for Britain.

To make matters worse, it being summer, my bedroom window was open.

"What must my neighbours think?" I asked The Mother.

"They probably think it's you," she said.

For the next week I slunk down the street half expecting a round of applause.

And it was The Mother to whom I related the betting shop story on Saturday evening.

"I reckon I must have a doppelganger," I said.

"Indeed you must," she replied. "As you're on a diet it was obviously your doppelganger who sneaked into my bedroom yesterday and ate the last of the chocolate cream eggs I've been trying to save for Easter . . .