I AM well known for the countless mishaps that have befallen me over the years. Basil Fawlty and Frank Spencer have nothing on me for outrageous calamitous stupidity.

So I am flattered to learn that the Star sub editor who looks after this column every week must be so impressed by my behaviour he is now making a bid to emulate me.

Small shoots perhaps, but Sony Koleth did me proud last week, and caused much hilarity in our offices, when he hired a chap to do some work in his home in Wycombe.

He gave the man his (only) door key and told him to leave it afterwards in the letter box where Sony could stick his hand inside and grab it when he arrived home.

The workman did exactly as he was instructed and things would have been fine had the letter box and Sony’s home not been inside a secure housing block which required a separate key.

This separate key, of course, was on the chain inside Sony’s letter box, so when he arrived home that night he was unable to gain entry and had to prowl outside for ages waiting for someone to let him in. After much embarrassing time-wasting, he eventually found someone to let him in. It was a miracle he wasn’t arrested for loitering and he was dreadfully embarrassed by it all, but he is only a novice in the Steve Cohen School of Stupidity.

I have done far worse and am happy to share my escapades with you, except there have been too many.

The worst one perhaps happened several years ago when Mrs Editor’s Chair had to spend a day working in Aylesbury for her then employers.

I happened to be off work that day and walked her to High Wycombe train station.

When we got there, she said hello to a couple of fellow workers on the platform and then nipped to the ladies because there was at least five minutes to spare.

I was horrified therefore when I saw a train pull up on our platform. I knew we must have mixed up the times so I rushed into the ladies and grabbed her, pulling her on to the platform and pushing her into a carriage.

Phew, I thought, as it rolled off, I’d saved the day.

But then I glanced around and saw the fellow workers still on the platform. And then I saw the Aylesbury train pull up.

And then finally the penny dropped: I had pushed her on the wrong train – the one going in the other direction.

It was the days before everyone had a mobile phone so all I could do was to run back to my house, pick up my car and rush to Beaconsfield station.

There I found a furious Mrs Editor’s Chair who could barely bring herself to talk to me. I had to drive her in rush hour traffic all the way to Aylesbury where she was an hour late.

Somehow she got away with it at work, and somehow our marriage survived.

But hopefully this will prove to Sony that his keys-in-the-letter-box escapade is just amateurish compared to me. I credit it to the common sense bypass operation I had shortly before I entered the world of newspapers.