I WAS helping the police with their inquiries the other day.
Fortunately, this was not as bad as it sounds.
It seems that a woman I'd never met, in a town I'd never visited, had 'stolen' my identity off the internet and written emails purporting to come from me.
I'd like to think her deception was part of a misguided attempt to bring my talents to a wider audience but the reality is more mundane.
She is locked in a dispute with her landlord and thought that threatening emails outlining a potential news report on his failings - apparently coming from me - would somehow help her cause.
Bizarre or what ?
My first reaction, after being contacted by police to check the emails' validity, was to gasp at her cheek.
The second was to consider suing her.
Then I realised that any person desperate enough to use my identity to fight battles with their landlord probably wouldn't have much in their kitty worth pursuing.
But it also got me thinking about the consequences of her silly scheme if, rather than attacking her landlord, she had - via my identity - made some witty terrorist threat or other.
I can too easily imagine the congenial telephone conversation I had with an officer from a South West police force being replaced with a kicked-in front door and a CIA-orchestrated one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay.
However, there was a surprising upshot to all this.
While trying to track me down, police had stumbled on my recent Bucks Free Press blog about the threat to young people from former Home Secretary David Blunkett's downgrading of cannabis.
Apparently, they enjoyed it.
So perhaps some of the South West's finest are now regularly logging on to this website.