Am distracted from maniacal pursuit of David Beckham by the sound of wolves howling at the door, followed by the doorbell.

Pursuit of Beckham not teenage obsession, suddenly developed in thirties, but on orders of editor of Sunday supplement who wants interview with him.

Beckham, of course, is not playing ball - metaphorically I mean. We all know he is not playing ball but only editor, who wants cosy at home with type feature about the boy, does not seem to realise he is still training in the hope that he will play real, actual football again one day.

Anyway, the call of the wild was a welcome relief from fruitless task - so I opened door, to be greeted by eight dogs of varying shapes and sizes held loosely together by friend Tim.

"Fancy a walk?" he said, trying desperately to hold on to the assorted leads and look as if it was he making the suggestion of a walk, rather than the dogs which were forcing him off on one.

"I'm trying to work," I shouted, in effort to make self heard above noise of the pack, gesturing at computer screen behind me.

"Well, you're not trying very hard," said Tim, also gesturing towards computer screen which from where we were standing appeared to be blank (though I knew that I wrote the words DAVID BECKHAM across the top of the page about half an hour ago).

"What's more it's a lovely day," added Tim, ignoring the fact that below the noise of the howling of his pack the wind was making an almost equally audible call.

"It's actually blowing a gale,' I corrected. "Where is that lot taking you?"

Tim said he was heading for Hollingbury Hill which, I reasoned, was only a shortish walk and would clear my head for the day ahead's work, plus give me an opportunity to catch up with this oldish friend who I hadn't seen much of recently, as he had been rushed off his feet (literally I could now see) setting up his new dog walking business.

So, how's Gareth?" I asked, referring to Tim's latest (but possibly longest-term) partner, for whom Tim had given up commuting, and his job as a web designer in London, to spend more quality time with.

"I'm worried he might be seeing one of his clients,' confided Tim, as he began to unleash the varying dogs so they could roam in their alarming pack around the park.

We sat on a bench to watch the dogs and I began a bit of therapeutic unravelling of leads while Tim told me of his suspicions that Gareth, a sports physiotherapist, might be secretly seeing an Italian accountant, with a five-a-side knee injury.

Since Tim's fears seemed mostly to be based on dissatisfaction with the inequality in their relationship i.e. he now got to spend his day with a load of dogs while Gareth got to spend it massaging sporty men, I told him not to worry.

"God help me," Tim yelled, seemingly ignoring my advice, and began running across the park. I thought it best to follow and realised he was no longer seeking help of the relationship advice kind, but of the dog control variety.

The dogs had surrounded, and were demanding something with menaces from, a tiny Jack Russell who was mouthing off but looking frightened.

Tim and I stepped in, tried to tie up the dogs and resolve the dispute, which was getting noisier and more aggressive by the minute, when my mobile rang.

Beckham's agent, calling me back, but whatever she said was drowned out by the howling of the wind - and wolves ...