LAST week saw me stuck outside baguette stall on Victoria station with tall, blond, but balding, paunchy Tom, after case of mistaken identity.

Initially, I believed Tom to be the tall, blond Matt who had answered my mobile phone, after I left it on train, and promised to deliver it to self at baguette stall.

In the end Matt and phone failed to materialise, after leaving message with baguette shop owner about great previous night party after which he'd failed to go home and therefore failed to get train to work as planned.

This left me being offered compensatory coffee by Tom which, as am total coward when it comes to turning down offers, I ended up accepting.

Since Tom is regular commuter, have now forged link which undoubtably will involve getting into mind numbing conversations about his work in local government, whenever I happen to bump into him.

Called the missing Matt (who was rapidly going down in my estimation) as soon as I reached work and received profound apologies and promises to be outside the baguette shop at five to six in the evening - did that suit me?

Thinking about it, decided it suited me better than original plan.

That involved Matt (who after phone call in which he was funny and charming had gone back up in my estimation) handing over phone and rushing off to work.

New plan meant him handing over phone and then being forced to travel on same train as me, while keeping up humour and charm as I in turn charmed and entertained him.

Tried to spend day thinking of ways in which to do this while meet 5pm feature deadline.

Neither task was easy to complete as it happened to be 'Take Your Daughter to Work' day.

The fact that most of colleagues' offspring were pre-school age and unlikely to be inspired to take up a career in women's magazines seemed to have escaped them.

So, spent most of the day trying to extract marmite sandwiches from the fax machine and retrieve work from the computer which disappeared after two-year-old Maddie decided "I do my work now!"

Glad to escape mayhem at end of day and reached rendezvous with Matt to discover his description tall and blond did not entirely do justice to his stunning, though mature good looks.

Joy at this slightly marred by presence of equally tall, nubile blond standing beside him who, when she turned around, revealed herself to be not much more than 13 years old - surely too young to be a girlfriend?

"You look like someone who's missing a mobile phone," Matt said grinning as he handed it over and after a brief heart-fluttering chat, "I presume you're heading for the 18.16? Shall we travel back together?"

Seemed too good to be true and indeed it was.

As we set off he turned round again.

"Are you coming Anna?" - to nubile blond - and then to me, "Sorry, I haven't introduced you.

"This is my daughter Anna. She's been at work with me today.

"I expect she'll tell you all about it on the way home."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.