KNOCK! Knock! Who's there? "Hello," says the man standing on my doorstep. "I'm your local MP."

"Yes, I know who you are," I reply. "We've met before." And indeed we have, many times. Our two sons were friends and went to school together.

My local MP looks at me quizzically.

"It's Vanora," I say.

"Of course!" he says. "I didn't recognise you."

That, I think, probably owes less to the two stones of excess weight I'm currently carrying and more to the fact that I've just been cleaning the lavatory bowl.

My face is flushed and sweaty, my hair lank and greasy and I am dressed in clothes reserved for cleaning assignments, clothes that have had a stay of execution but are just one step away from being consigned to a black bin liner.

"Sorry," I say. "You've caught me in my muck."

This is a Yorkshire colloquialism which roughly translates as: "Sorry, you've caught me out. I wasn't expecting company."

And indeed I wasn't, though I was expecting a small parcel, which was why I'd opened the door, thinking it might be the postman.

Had I known it was a local dignitary I would have stayed hidden away in the bathroom, clutching the lavatory brush and silently mouthing: "I'm not in."

There is a law, of course, Sod's Law, that decrees that whenever you are at your worst, physically or mentally, you'll bump into someone who, at any other time, you'd be keen to impress.

Shortly after getting divorced, and emotionally at a very low ebb, I bumped into my former history professor.

Although an academic high flyer, he was also a jovial father figure. He put his arms around me and hugged me. "How are you?" he asked kindly.

This show of concern for my well-being threw me and I burst into tears. Even today I blush at the memory of my emotional collapse in Churchill Square.

Equally memorable was the time I was sitting on Brighton beach, smeared and shiny with sun tan oil and squeezed into last year's swimsuit, now several sizes too small after a winter's gluttony.

"Well, if it isn't Vanora," said a voice from above my head and looking up I saw a former colleague who had gone on to much greater things at the BBC.

In tow she had a celebrity, an actor I'd often admired (fancied rotten really). She introduced us and as I stood up I realised that an ice cream I'd been eating had dribbled all the way down my front.

Standing in the cruel, bright sunshine I wanted to disappear, rather like the seat of my swimsuit had done, vanishing between the cheeks of my bottom.

Which is probably why I make an effort when I have to, especially when I've been forewarned that I'll be mingling with the glitterati.

During May's Brighton Festival, for instance, I went to meet an author at one of the literary events. He gave a talk, we, the audience, asked questions and then came the opportunity to shake the Great Man's hand and have our copies of his book signed. He was charming, as I told The Mother afterwards.

"Were you dressed like that when you met him?" she asked.

"Of course," I said. "This is Marks and Spencer's finest, my very best trouser suit. Why?"

"Because your flies are undone," she said.

There are times when all you can say is: "Aaarrrgh!"