1.  I won a 100% case in marine law against the head of the Maritime Bar Association. The day before the trial ended he leant across and shook my hand. He didn't turn up the next day.

    2.  My middle daughter and I used to sing to the melody of the traffic news on the way to work.

    3.  I boarded Ted Heath's yacht, "Morning Cloud" on a trip to Australia.

    4.  From the top Meikles Hotel in Harare I could see all the paths in Cecil Square.

    5.  I nearly wrecked an Admiral's Barge by doing a Stern Fetch.

    6.  I once repaired a canoe with leek and potato soup.

    7.  Despite being an ARINA, I had to go back to college to check my stability calculations.

    8.  My former employer, P&O, once paid a 7 figure sum into my personal bank account. I should have paid off my mortgage - but didn't.

    9.  We once disabled an Admiral's Barge.

  10.  When I saw all the other officer cadets getting off the train in uniform I almost got back on.

  11.  On my first parachute jump I managed to land exactly on the target.

  12.  I took the wheel of a yacht sailing out of Plymouth whilst the rest of the crew reefed the sails in preparation for an incoming storm. The boatswain shook his fist at me as he staggered past.

  13.  I made a "flying trapeze" in my garden.

  14.  BT once tried to charge me for the exhibitors' telex bill at the Farnborough Air Show… until a BT call handler spotted that the dates on her printout had been Tipexed and amended.

  15.  I was once a bridesmaid.

  16.  I had a trolley load of baggage when I arrived from the ship at Gatwick Airport. Lots of beer and the third engineer.

  17.  Two of us were allowed to spend our summer swanning round the Solent in the college's yachts.

  18.  Some of the cadets I was at college with did very tacky things.

  19.  I provided a slot at conferences and seminars I used to run for Diana Lamplugh (the mother of Suzie Lamplugh) to talk about women's safety.

  20.  I won a bottle of Champagne in the Undercroft below where Charles I was executed.

  21.  I was the School of Navigation Judo Champion

  22.  I had to use the back door of the Salisbury Club in Harare because I was accompanied by a woman.

  23.  I left a colleague holding the 'baby' and abandoned him as I went to call the police.

  24.  I dated a lawyer in Australia. She was the most straight forward lawyer I have ever met.

  25.  I almost ended up as a calendar boy.

  26.  I like Joanna Lumley and Dawn French but I am not a great fan of "ab fab".

  27.  My mother was a Captain in the Territorial Army based in India in WW2.

  28.  I once hired an Ilyushin IL76 (and Boeing 707) because the Khamsin had wrecked the port's cranes.

  29.  I did a double act at conferences with a Major from the Royal Corps of Transport comparing cargo operations in Mozambique and the Falklands. His solutions often involved the words, "I called up a Chinook!"

  30.  I won a contract to tip about eleven containers over the side of the ship.

  31.  I had the Cadet Captains running reound the Cadet Block like headless chickens.

  32.  I smuggled a machete airside at London Gatwick Airport.

  33.  I nearly got pulled into a cage by a gorilla that had hooked my leg with a branch.

  34.  I got into trouble at college because I threw a bucket of water over my divisional officer's wife.

  35.  My wife and I had to be rescued from a train in Boston, Massachusetts by men with pickaxes.

  36.  A swan attacked my daughter and I as we led the Devizes Westminster Canoe Race.

  37.  I could almost sense my PhD supervisor drop his head into his hands during my viva as I tried to explain to the examiner what I thought his Myers Briggs personality type might be.

  38.  I sent my wife to a war zone as the USA launched an invasion.

  39.  I qualified as a canoe instructor at the age of 16 and taught my fellow pupils.

  40.  I had to call the ship I chartered "Gerran's Bay." I have never found out why (I have included this because I hope somebody will tell me).

  41.  My first job as a punch card operative I may have been a little liberal with the magnetic ink.

  42.  I attended a Christmas works' dinner in a suit of armour - it was a safety thing!

  43.  I have a grandson called Huckleberry.

  44.  We were bush bashing across Africa, my wife and I, and our 3 month old (breastfed) baby. "I need a cup of tea," my wife said. I offered her the fly-covered, porous water bag from the front of the Land Rover.

  45.  I once watched the ground engineers using a club hammer to repair the engine of a Boeing 707 that had failed on take-off… before taking-off again… with me on it!

  46.  My first and only rugby lesson was at the Harlequins training ground.

  47.  I fell out with my agent in Dar-es-Salaam because I hired a 300 tonne mobile crane as he could not get me cranes to work my ship. Many years later we became firm friends at Cardiff University.

  48.  Presenting the heartthrob award for gurning.

  49.  The little girl died in my arms. The ambulance would not come out to us…

  50.  I caught the Prime minister of Djibouti with his trousers down (literally).

  51.  I sold my wife at an auction.

  52.  Driving across Zambia, my daughter was sick down the front of a police officer's bemedaled tunic as I tried to find a danger triangle I knew I didn’t have.

  53.  I am an Associate of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects.

  54.  I was a Member of the Materials Handling Association.

  55.  I refused to get back on an aeroplane because I was exhausted from having two consecutive  New Year's Eve's.

  56.  My favourite film is Home Alone.

  57.  I did some work on the roof an elderly lady's house. She told me that was where she used to sunbathe. Later she asked me to buy a book of poems she had written off E-Bay.

  58.  As a junior executive in a shipping company I achieved notoriety in the board room because I loaded some large project cargo in a fishing port in order to get round a UK dock strike.

  59.  I almost died painting signs for a school fete.

  60.  I owned a Suzuki GSXR painted with yellow and pink spots. My children called it my "Mr Blobby Bike."

  61.  I was very fed up when the ship docked in Melbourne the day before my 21st birthday … and there was no mail waiting for me.

  62.  The kitchen in my auntie's house flooded due to heavy rain. At the age of 7  I said sagely, "I thought God told Noah there weren't going to be anymore floods…" Genesis 9:11

  63.  My work colleague lent me his Ford Granada and said, "Don't drive over any elephant dung, that is where they hide the mines… and stay at about 100mph".

  64.  I built my own canoe.

  65.  I once had to fly a marine surveyor from Jeddah to Djibouti and back because the brass plate on the foghorn of the ship I owned was missing.

  66.  I had to find an atlas after I was told by the MD that I was being sent to sort out problems in a port in Africa that I had never heard of.

  67.  I was a Member of the Chartered Institution of Logistics and Transport.

  68.  I ran the London Marathon in an Ape suit.

  69.  I was looking round a deserted colonial fort on an Indian Ocean Island. I was the only person there and it was very spooky. In a small tower there was a box on a table - the only furnishing in the fort. I lifted the lid of the box...

  70.  Presenting the Webb 'Feet'  Ellis award for changing the rules of the game.

  71.  On the Malawi/Mozambique border we were fined about 200 meticais because we attempted to pay the immigration fee with local money "we must have illegally exported."

  72.  I felt humbled when an economics professor once apologised  to me because I highlighted an error in the analysis in a book he had published. He had done the calculations long hand. I had used Excel.

  73.  I was once refused a pint in a pub because the barman thought I was George Best.

  74.  I used to carry centipedes and other creepy crawlies around in the pocket of my bush jacket.

  75.  I met my wife because of a case of beer at Tilbury Dock (lucky break).

  76.  I was accused of organising a 'Rave' in the Surrey Hills.

  77.  On a morning run in Archangel I had to keep going back to make sure my bodyguard was alright.

  78.  I used to play reveille at college.

  79.  My colleague threatened to fire me if went to the aid of a guy being tortured. I wish I had had the courage to lose my job.

  80.  I mimicked a cake lady.

  81.  I had to be a dummy patient when my mother examined Girl Guides for their bed making badge. At the age of 12  I did not enjoy the experiences.

  82.  On New Year's Eve I climbed one of the fountains in Trafalgar Square.

  84.  Haring the CAMRA Hash at Dark Revolution for the Haunch of Venison, Salisbury Plain Mountain Rescue Club H3.

  85.  I refused to participate in a meeting about safety at the company's mines whilst a window cleaner balanced on a ledge outside the window of the meeting room without a safety harness.

  86.  I was very jealous of my girlfriend as she had shot the Colorado Rapids.

  87.  I was the odd job man for a church. They called me their carpenter. I thought this a pretty cool.

  88.  I shot 'Shotgun' Falls.

  89.  I climbed the Via Ferrata above Zermatt.

  90.  My girlfriend didn’t believe me that the roof on my MGB Roadster was a "bit" leaky until she sat in it going through a car wash.

  91.  I helped to reduce Russia's nuclear arsenal… I shipped depleted uranium from the UK to Russia and enriched uranium back.

  92.  I once had to be duty boatman with a broken arm because I refused to be designated "Classes Only."

  93.  I served on the National Committee of the International of Cargo Handling Coordination Association (ICHCA).

  94.  I blew up Guy Fawkes.

  95.  I was weightless, not in space but at sea level.

  96.  I made the mistake of telling my personnel manager that I wanted to get experience on a conventional ship.

  97.  I once hitch hiked a lift in the middle of the night and ended up in a car chase with the police.

  98.  I was arrested for illegally entering the Russian Port of St Petersburg.

  99.  I stayed in a brothel in Assab because there was no room at the inn.

100.  I once said to a woman at party, "What do you mean you have no idea what your daughter is called."

101.  I once did a 14 hour round trip from Vladivostok to Rudnaya Pristan with a Russian fighter pilot

102.  It was a wet holiday in a caravan when I was about 7. We were doing spellings. Hatchet was on my sister's list. "That's easy", I said, "Spell HAT… now spell _ _ _ _."

103.  We blew up our study table.

104.  My sister's boyfriend interviewed the Beatles. I think it made him a lot of money and he bought the worst football player in the school a pair of state-of-the-art, Italian football boots.

105.  A manager of mine used to answer the phone, 'Diarrhoea.'

106.  My mother painted about 2,000 petals on our dining room wallpaper to match the upholstery on the chairs.

107.  I won a sumo wrestling competition.

108.  By chance, I learnt something from Captain Angus that many years later helped me pass my exams.

109.  I had to appear in an identity parade.

110.  I once played cricket against the Malawi national team. The photo of me walking out to bat and walking back in are about 30 seconds apart.

111.  I thought it a bit cheeky when the guy on the other side of the desk questioned the reliability of my company… as his Mumbai office was suspended by a makeshift wire 6 storeys above a building site.

112.  I almost got the directors of the organisation I worked with killed when the aircraft I had chartered came under fire over Mozambique.

113.  I was very ill over the wall of a police station in Mogadishu - the police watching me were not impressed.

114.  I went to see the film "Sink the Bismarck" with my mother. I never got it at the time even though my most likely apogee at that point in my life was a "Killick" in the Royal Navy.

115.  I once had a tent which challenged the Great Wall of China for its visibility from space.

116.  My boss told me it was alright to hire a witch doctor instead of a security guard as long as it didn't appear on my expense account.

117.  I used to beat the editor of a national newspaper at Scrabble.

118.  I once swapped the telephone lines over from the public phone box of a ship to the ship's office so that I could speak to a fellow-officer's girlfriend.

119.  I once (metaphorically) arrested Lenin's wife.

120.  On my last bridge watch at sea before coming ashore, a Russian tanker failed to give way in a collision situation and the control for the steering on my ship failed.

121.  I caused a panic on an aeroplane by shouting out, "The engine's on fire!"

122.  Despite working the night lines for a drug care organisation, I once carried drugs on an aircraft for a government minister.

123.  I tortured my brother-in-law with hot sauce.

124.  I was the Officer of the Watch when we rescued all the crew of a distressed ship in the Bay of Biscay.

125.  I once got a meteorology prize despite the fact that my drawing in the Marine Observer's Handbook was a complete fiction.

126.  I was warned that some work associates were going to be arrested in Mozambique but I did nothing to save them.

127.  I would have stood a better chance getting through this road block if I'd been a limbo dancer.

128.  My first conversations with a little princess was on the Royal Princess.

129.  I once returned a gift to someone because she had fallen out with my mother. I reconciled with her after my mother died. I hope my mother forgives me.

130.  In our second house I knocked a hole in a wall and built a bar hidden by a bookcase. It was called 'The Caved Inn'.

131.  I hung my girlfriend's bra and panties at the top of the mast of the college training vessel on April Fool's day.

132.  I was accused by a school master of painting yellow bananas pink.

133.  Bondage: I tied some people together at a "Who Dunnit Party" with a reef knot and some with a thief knot.

134.  I am a BSAC Ocean and Sports diver.

135.  By a quirk of circumstance I had to get dispensation to examine my former teacher for his Advanced Canoeing Award.

136.  There was an  800 seater opera house built in the woods behind our house.

137.  I couldn't parachute out of a plane in Mozambique because there were not enough parachutes.

138.  I appeared in a newspaper after hashing with the Tokyo Ladies and watching Superbowl at the American Embassy. I have no idea what the caption said!

139.  As Officer of the Watch of a ship doing 21.5 knots (with no lookout on the bridge) I managed to get myself locked in the loo.

140.  In 1970, during the Tall Ship's Race, a guy called "Tweet" (he made a noise like a phone) and I had various crazy "races", the last of which almost killed me.

141.  A French fisherman once showed me how you could stick lighted matches on the callouses of your hand. You can but your skin tends to come off on the water skiing handle the next day.

142.  I went round the world in 37 days aged ten.

143.  I took my sextant on a cruise recently as my mate told me they don't even teach astro-nav in college anymore.

144.  I was chasing sheep with a Duchess. "If that young lady escapes again I am going to have to expel her." Roedean education for you.

145.  I explained to the captain I expected fog because of the Eckman Spiral. I think he thought I was talking nonsense… until we hit the fogbank.

146.  I got 100% in my security guard examination.

147.  The crew and I had a great party on the poop deck.

148.  Buying raffle tickets almost turned out to be fatal.

149.  For my 50th birthday I cooked "Rack of Lamb" with three whole sheep on a school railing.

150.  I was disconcerted to find two people being photographed with me despite not having competed in the charity event. My wife explained to me afterwards it was Flavia and Vincent.

151.  On my first trip to sea as a cadet I dunked the harbour pilot in the roads off Fremantle.

152.  I told my colleague to fill the car up with petrol. It cost me 69p.

153.  I was stopped by the police and threatened with hotel (brothel) arrest because I had travelled the wrong way round Ethiopia/Eritrea than the direction stated on my visa.

154.  I was once "jumped" by a fellow cadet from a lifeboat.

155.  On holidays in France, I used to slightly overload the car with children and croissants.

156.  I carried a chainsaw with the blade protruding from a holdall on the London Underground.

157.  I was rugby tackled by my son.

158.  I told the doctor, "Rip open his shirt." It didn't work. We lost him.

159.  I climbed the "InPinn" (Inaccessible Pinnacle) with a crazy Scotsman.

160.  My answer to a question from the captain of a ship in the Mississippi  was, "You are off hire until you are moving again but I strongly suggest you break your cable rather than put all the lights in New Orleans out!"

161.  I once surveyed the  bedroom of Edward and Mrs Simpson.

162.  I asked a colleague if it was safe to fly with this guy. "Of course," he said. "His take-offs are perfect… but I've never landed with him."

163.  My mother worked as a tea lady for a book publishing company.

164.  We carried a heavy engine spare as cabin baggage by sewing it into a sailcloth carrier bag.

165.  I never learned to dance because of taking down the Christmas Decorations.

166.  We were motor sailing into Portsmouth Harbour in severe weather when the engine failed. Whilst I was fixing the engine I heard my shipmate shouting at the ferry bearing down on us "Power gives way to sail!" We had both just passed our First Mate's exams!

167.  I will always regret choosing to help deliver a strategy paper to the Overseas Containers (Holdings) Board as my mother lay in bed dying.

168.  I got a ticket for driving over yellow cross-hatching to a parking space.

169.  The second mate of a ship I was on threatened to tie up the whole fleet if the company did not pay me according to my rank.

170.  My grandmother did not quite live to one hundred but she did get a telegram from Elizabeth and Philip.

171.  I ran up Water Lane into the middle of a battlefield.

172.  I opened my presntation at an ESRI conference by demonstrating a mine sweeper… and walking backwards.

173.  We listened to the South African Airforce pilots talking to Mozambique air traffic control as they made their bombing run on an ANC base. 

174.  I set up a tape recorder in a mine shaft to convince the front runners somebody was stuck down there.

175.  The first time I climbed Table Mountain I went up the wrong hill.

176.  I rescued a swan from the middle lane of the M25.

177.  The people who interviewed me would not believe we navigated containerships with sextants…

178.  I had a work colleague that never stopped smiling… even when she wrote off my car.

179.  I flew a Spitfire with Tom Cruise - well, a Tom Cruise look alike, anyway!

180.   On a tourist lifeboat I mentioned to my wife I had just seen a red flare go off. Of course, we had to respond… busman's holiday.

181.  When I was second mate, the captain was very irritated because I used a Sinclair calculator to reduce my sun sights. He told a wife on board it even had a button to tell me whether to turn left or right at Gibraltar.

182.  My father appeared on the Antiques Road Show - after he was dead.

183.  I did one of the first bungee jumps for charity.

184.  I watched the Queen in private preparing herself to meet the waiting dignitaries at Cardiff  Train Station. She completely ignored me.

185.  My colleague and I were surveying the crypt of a church in Kent. There was a small crash and a yelp of dismay from my colleague. The side of a coffin had fallen off and a clothed skeletal leg was poking out.

186.  My signature dish is Spider Omelette.

187.  I once had to get back on an aircraft (with my wife and child) that we had evacuated three hours before because of, "… a security threat aimed specifically at this aircraft." It was an uncomfortable flight to  Nairobi.

188.  The 2012 London Olympics "safety" boat doing about 20 knots on the River Lea almost sank our survey vessel.

189.  Had to lay first WH3 Hash from the Bat and Ball using a Range Rover as was just about to have leg surgery.

190.  I almost got a tattoo.

191.  At the age of 63 I survived numerous capsizes (I Eskimo rolled) on the legacy white water course at the Lea Valley Olympic Venue.

192.  I "Threaded the Needle" (on a number of occasions) whilst London Bridge was being dismantled to be shipped to Arizona. But I did not do it in a "Flat Iron".

193.  The Captain told me a towed "Cherub" log could not be deployed from a ship doing 21.5 knots - Oh yes, it could…

194.  I once chauffeured Molly Kaye, author of "The Far Pavilions", to a BBC interview. We had some interesting conversations!

195.  I devised an Alice through the looking glass treasure hunt.

196.  The second mate of the SS Orcades, the ship that sunk with my father (not) on board, taught me meteorology. I let him down.

197.  I am a registered alcoholic in Pakistan.

198.  I got caught by a Nigerian money scam - It cost $50,000.

199.  In 1985 I flew an RAF relief flight doing air drops.

200.  I pointed out to my boss that the ship he wanted to charter could only load eleven containers if it left the hatch covers off.

201.  I probably had one of the best seats in the house to watch HM The Queen open Sydney Opera House.

202.  I bottled out of a diving competition because somebody had taken the plug out of the pool.

203.  I was recruited to be a witness at a wedding in Fremantle between a Japanese fisherman and an Australian girl.

204.  I was the boatman for the other three men in the boat.

205.  First voyage as watchkeeping officer in the middle of a fishing fleet doing 21 knots. Panicked, phoned the "Old Man" who rushed up to the bridge, looked in the radar, turned the range from 12 to 3 miles and walked out again...

206.  I have never understood funny mishap programmes until my colleague was nipped by a horse and jumped into an electric fence.

207.  I have known my mother-in-law (sadly) a lot longer than my mother.

208.  We were standing, watching the screen picture during the national anthem before a film in Malawi. The President, Hastings Banda, unexpectedly blinked and a visiting businessman with us burst out laughing.

209.  I jumped from the cab of a locomotive because another train was coming towards us on the same track.

210.  I was presented with a baseball cap by a running club in Scarborough.

211.  Having worked with the CFM (Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique) previously, when I returned years later they threw a banquet for me.

212.  Our lodger was accident prone and used to cook sausages one at a time to avoid burning them all at once. One night he cooked for his girlfriend and found a bowl of cinders in the oven.

213.  My parents made me eat an omelette with chopsticks because I wouldn't t eat the fish from Aberdeen Harbour.

214.  I almost capsized a 27,000t containership.

215.  An almost fatal attempt to acquire coconut milk for one of the wives' Pina Colada.

216.  I lent my schoolboy son my pickup truck that had a slightly quirky starting mechanism… you had to start it with a spoon. My son drilled a hole in the spoon and put it on a Porsche key ring. 

217.  Convincing a running mate to drink Pishsalver so he can get at the whiskey in the jar.

218.  I used to wake my children up with a fusillade of cannons.

219.  If I had gone into business with this man I am sure he would not have been the first (and only, I think) UK director to be convicted for corporate manslaughter.

220.  I  had two railway wagons crash into each other to see what happened.

221.  I failed to get a hand on our Sherpa as he fell past me whilst trekking in Nepal. If I had, I think we would both be dead.

222.  The skipper of the vessel I was on embarrassed me Infront of the passengers.

223.  It takes some doing to pursuade a board to invest in a ship called the Arctic Service to operate in the Red Sea.

224.  I impersonated a French Policeman in order to clear a traffic jam.

225.  Ten minutes before a conference I organised I was asked to take the "Chair." As I started speaking to open the conference chaos reigned.

226.  I was visited by Interpol because my ISDN phones had been hacked. Their most salient question was, "How did you manage not to pay the £23,000 BT bill?"

227.  The censors in Malawi modified the Bond Girl in a bikini by cross hatching her legs. I think the effect was rather more erotic than they intended.

228.  I once had to pay to have my staff qualify to drive a boat at Gatwick Airport. Waste of time!

229.  I was once quizzed by the  London Times' Africa correspondent about Mozambique because, "It's far too dangerous for me to go there."

230.  I was responsible for shipping the Mass Transit Railway to Hong Kong. After the first shipment was discharged I got a telex from the surveyor asking how the local people were expected to reach the emergency handle.

231.  After watching "Jaws" some of us went night swimming off Fremantle beach. I swam under water and grabbed the 2nd Engineer's legs... He didn't stop running until he got back to the ship.

232.  I once worked for the same company as President Ronald Regan.

233.  Whilst in a heavy legal dispute with Rio Tinto the company secretary wrote to thank me for administering first aid to a shareholder that had collapsed at the AGM.

234.  I am a member of the British Library.

235.  My master's dissertation was on the human factors dilemma of keeping pilots in the control loop of aircraft. Brian Trubshaw was not impressed.

236.  He told the Master at Arms if the School of Navigation ever collided with anything, he would take full responsibility.

237.  Whist riding 'shotgun' on a train, we were invited to lunch by the local station master. We had to abandon the lunch when we heard them 'marshalling' the train. 

238.  I fell through the elevated section of an emergency exit of a theme park ride.

239.  I came across a sign in the bush in the middle of Africa which said "Zambian border, do not pass beyond this point." Of course, I had to find out what it said on the other side!

240.  In horrendous weather conditions  off the coast of South Africa we had the majority of off-watch crew in two containers fitted out as stables trying to keep the quite expensive race horses upright. 

241.  I got taken out by my workmates wives as part of my 21st birthday celebrations. Never try to upstage the person with the mike!

242.  The hotel wouldn't lend us a knife because of health and safety… so we used a machete.

243.  I decided to investigate what happened to a 

244.  The water in the town had been off for days. In the hotel I had to resort to drinking water from the loo cistern.

245.  A retired major from the SAS blagged me into the Stewards' Enclosure at Henley Royal Regatta in sweaty running clothes.

246.  I gave my children (and wife)  entries for  Tough Guy for Christmas. One of the most cherished moments of my life was my daughters' stoicism and my son looking after them

247.  I had to "Seagull" in New Zealand when I ran out of money.

248.  My brother-in-law did not appreciate my training regime.

249.  I have a perfectly shaped head.

250.  I, together with the crew of a ship I owned, unloaded 300 tonnes of sugar by hand because we refused to pay a $3000 bribe to the port director. We began to look like toffee apples…

251.  At the age of fifty I stayed in a flat in the YMCA in Barcelona with two young Chinese girls I had never met. At breakfast I was puzzled to find I was the only man there.

252.  We both won our landmark harassment cases but the difference between Russell Brand and I is that he was a plaintiff (and somewhat unbelievably) I was a defendant.

253.  I failed the qualifying time for climbing the Matterhorn.

254.  The insurance company said our ceiling falling down was an act of God.

255.  I was once reprimanded for leaving the bridge of a Leander Class Frigate without first seeking permission from the Officer of the Watch.

256.  The crew of a ship I owned had a car accident. When they went back to collect the car the next day it had been completely stripped for spares.

257.  I built a model aircraft carrier out of balsa wood and paper aged 8. I have no idea why I painted it yellow as Paul McCartney had not even been to Greece by then.

258.  Whilst in Mogadishu, the port director told me that his colleague in Berbera wanted a word with me about poisoning a large proportion of the population of northern Somalia.

259.  Whilst Grand Master of Surrey Hash I had to intervene when a member was being admonished for causing a major security alert at Portsmouth Dockyard.

260.  The camera with illicit photographs was hidden under my daughter's hat, on top of a basket of seashells. The border official lifted the hat and put it back down again without looking. 

261.  A Duchess used to let us pick mulberries in her orchard.

262.  I rescued barrels of beer from a marquee as it collapsed in a storm.

263.  I realised I had dug myself into a big hole in the Hole in the Wall pub opposite Waterloo Station.

264.  They did not wear swimming costumes in the pool I went to.

265.  My son has just been accepted as a member of the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) because my friends were sheltering under a tree in a thunder storm!

266.  I used to run the school lunch time gymnastics club.

267.  I built my own raft at about age 8. I don’t think it would have floated.

268.  I followed in the footsteps of Erin Brockovich.

269.  I picked up a newspaper in Australia to find out how my father nearly died on the Skeleton Coast.

270.  I once used bulldog grips to convert the ceiling fan in my hotel room to a clothes dryer

271.  Presenting the VorSPRUNG durch Technik award for party malfunctions!

272.  I walked down the middle of the road in Addis Ababa during curfew (as I thought it better to be obvious than to sculk and be shot).

273.  I was one place behind the winner of the London Marathon.

274.  I lost my daughter at the Farnborough Air Show.

275.  My daughter and I learnt how to ride a unicycle together.

276.  I used to give a joint lecture with the union convenor of British Aerospace on Unions and management working together.

277.  I had to come back from Africa to watch my Goddaughter playing Greta in the West End

278.  I have a gravedigger's licence.

279.  On the maiden voyage between Mumbai and Mombasa I had a stack of empty containers with the company's logo on loaded all around the outside of the ship in order to get a publicity photo. Today, of course, I would use Photoshop!

280.  My first attempt at ship ownership was a Thames Barge.

281.  I drove past about a dozen Houses of the Rising Sun as the sun was rising in New Orleans.

282.  I got told off after my first solo flight for not prefixing my radio messages with the words "Student Pilot".

283.  Lee Mack played in the woods near my house.

284.  I saw a motor car driving on the frozen River Thames between Chertsey and Shepperton.

285.  I learnt Luke Verses 2 - 13 off by heart. The blonde angel got the job - but I had two Marys

286.  My tent was impounded on Mount Royal by Constable Hyacinth of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

287.  I once owned an Austin 7 Ruby called Miller.

288.  I did an impression of a Polaris missile whilst retrieving somebody's sunglasses from St James' Park Lake.

289.  I ate the Queen's orange.

290.  I rescued a man with a false leg when our plane crash landed on Bazaruto Island. 

291.  I was once arrested at the Mardi Gras festival in Galveston.

292.  I had an anonymous phone call asking me if I liked my new job.

293.  Other than stacking shelves, my first job was on the checkout at Pricerite Supermarket.

294.  I once owned a rabbit called Smokey. It was housetrained.

295.  I got into trouble with the Chief Officer of the SS Cretic because he caught me tearing up lifejackets.

296.  I once lied that I was experienced driving a boat with an outboard motor.

297.  My wife may have been said to sing in Berkeley Square.

298.  I once broke the nose of the Chestnuts' hockey captain.

299.  Another man's wife ululated for me when I picked up my degree at Cardiff University.

300.  At dinner, I observed the girls giggling on the table next to me and asked my Russian hosts why they were laughing.

301.  I bought my Goddaughter the worst Indian meal she had ever had.

302.  I fed my nephews ants.

303.  There was such a thing as a free lunch at Hampton Court.

304.  I appeared in a newspaper after hashing with the Tokyo Ladies and watching Superbowl at the American Embassy. I have no idea what the caption said!

305.  I recently mended a puppet for Greta. It has only taken me forty years to get round to it.

306.  We parked our Divisional Officer's car for him.

307.  I have never owned a Marty McFly hover board but I did have a bespoke engineered motorised skateboard in about 1991

308.  I convinced a work colleague that was scared of heights to climb on a roof for me (properly protected, of course). 

309.  We arrived in Houston  from London and I left my colleague Village Apartments whilst I went to the office. When I returned later he was in the middle of a gun siege. 

310.  I can't tell you any secrets because I have signed the Official Secrets Act.

311.  My brother-in-law used to provide custard creams to José Mourinho.

312.  Somebody stole my cannon but I found it on Midsomer Murders.

313.  I was picked up by a woman in a mini that invited me back to her house for dinner.

314.  We packed eight people into an Austin A30 to go and see the Blackpool Illuminations.

315.  I am a Member of the Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors.

316.  I once made a barbecue out of two old-fashioned (defunct) shopping trolleys and an oil drum.

317.  My sister and I got mobbed in a bizarre in Bombay.

318.  I once killed a whale. It was a very sad a but more common accident than I knew at the time.

319.  When I was a Parish Counsellor I was accused of fly tipping because I left a television next to the horse trough in the village.

320.  I was suspended from school for starting a ferry service in the middle of a cross country match.

321.  I was once saved from being severely beaten up by a "Skinhead" I worked with.

322.  An Ethiopian man once fired a 12 bore shotgun at me at 1.5m range. Not one pellet hit me.

323.  I almost didn’t survive my honeymoon.

324.  When Aids was first identified in Africa the company I worked for made its employees carry bags of blood plasma with us in case we had a car accident.

325.  I was a blackleg.

326.  The first time I slept on a boat was at Teddington Lock.

327.  Mike O'Brien MP opened a conference for me in Kenilworth on hospital security.

328.  Neil Kinnock, the former leader of the Labour Party, was the warm up act for me.

329.  I went to a secondary modern school, have worked as a security guard, dustman and have a PhD.

330.  A minibus full of homeless people helped me recite "The Night before Christmas" to my daughter in New Zealand.

331.  As OOW on a ship doing 21 knots up the English Channel I used the VHF radio to phone the Matron of St Thomas' Hospital to obtain my future wife's telephone number.

332.  I counselled my sister-in-law about her job. 

333.  I once stayed in a mixed "Clothes Optional" dorm in California.

334.  I was once falsely accused in a national newspaper of providing erroneous information when delivering a river guide. It was, in fact, the politician Herbert Morrison that had been misleading.

335.  I got my first job as a deck boy because I went to the wrong address for the interview.

336.  I had to buy a round in a Naval wardroom because I was flying the wrong way.

337.  I met the captain of the England Rugby team at a gymnastics match.

338.  I was standing on the balcony of the Hilton Hotel in Addis when the barrage started. I thought the rebels were assaulting the city.

339.  I abandoned ship when it caught fire in Avonmouth.

340.  I have a bank account with The Bank of Transylvania.

341.  I bought motorcycle tyres for the agent in Beira… But he didn't have a motorbike.

342.  I won the Schermuly ropework prize at college.

343.  Somebody once sent me a 'blue movie' to my place of work. It was very disappointing!

344.  Climbing Table Mountain from Constantia Nek I gave half my water to a girl because I had been told there was plenty of water at the top. There wasn't!

345.  My wife and I shredded four tyres between Livingstone and Lusaka… but still managed to get there in time for The Royal Wedding.

346.  I was given a suspended sentence for contempt of court. I did not throw a glass of water over the judge.

347.  I made an unplanned dash from Gare du Nord to Schiphol in order to get back home in time for Sunday lunch.

348.  My company was a member of the Chartered Institute of Building.

349.  I got into the groove with a group of visiting musicians.

350.  I once sat on the patio of Victoria Falls Hotel drinking a G&T and watching sanction busting containers covered in tarpaulins crossing the Livingstone Bridge

351.  The Skipper and his daughter used to practice tic tac.

352.  I used to sleep on a boat tied up at Charing Cross Pier and sneak ashore to see the London night-life.

353.  I laid a marathon hash (a sort of paperchase run) in 2004. Only two people completed the trail until recently. Now it is three (but that has started a bit of a controversy)!

354.  I arrested all of Rio Tinto's borate stock in Rotterdam.

355.  I once skippered a yacht for a Hen Weekend. The girls were brilliant but the Stags on another yacht that crossed our wake never realised quite how comprehensively they had been stitched up.

356.  An old lady from Newcastle once described some sherry (about 20,000 gallons) I had shipped from South Africa as "cabbage water". She was right (but it was not the wine producer's fault).

357.  I had to investigate a Mondial crashing into a Testarossa in the Marenello's own workshop in Thorpe.

358.  I stood on the flukes of an anchor stuck in the hawse pipe of a ship and hammered it with a maul to get it free.

359.  I once put the mayor of Salisbury over my knees and spanked her.

360.  When I was young, I had a radio receiver that was not a wind-up but it had no batteries.

361.  I did not write the books "Fox Bat" or "Chopper".

362.  Following the referendum in South Africa I was told to spend two weeks in South Africa wandering around talking to local shipping business leaders about the prospects for investment.

363.  We stopped at this homestead where the men were drinking beer and teasing a lioness with a paper on a string whilst the wives cuddled her lion cubs.

364.  I lost my phone by leaving it on top of the parking machine at Gatwick Airport. My insurer, Lloyds Bank, refused to pay out because I had clearly been negligent… It paid in the end... Or, at least, sent me a new phone.

365.  I was asked if I minded having a woman sit on my lap on an scheduled airline because they had run out of seats.

366.  I pursuaded my friend that we could make more money out of containers than oil.

367.  I gave my sister-in-law a wet bum.

368.  I hold a  PFCo (Permission for Commercial Operations) licence with night flying endorsement.

369.  I once opened the emergency exit on a Boeing 707 in order to get more air into the cabin.

370.  Whan the captain of the ship relieved me all the off-watch crew were sitting in a lifeboat.

371.  I had a friend who served as PPS to a Foreign Minister in the Wilson government and as a Boy Scout attended the wedding of Elizabeth and Philip.

372.  I invited my work colleagues to a restaurant made of oil drums.

373.   I ordered an uninsured ship to sea in the Baltic on the night the Estonia sank.

374.  I was first mate of the Queen Elizabeth at 17.

375.  I turned up at a posh event at Windsor Castle in the wrong dress. I have never felt so naked in my life.

376.  In order to persuade the shipowner to carry my cargo I handled the uranium fuel pellets with my bare hands (white gloves on, of course). The next day I shook hands with the board of directors.

377.  I asked the Captain of the SS Orcades, the ship that sunk with my father (not) on board, if he could use a sextant. I say stupid things when I am awed.

378.  They found a piece of metal in my leg. I have no idea how it got there.

379.  It was late at night in Northern France driving from Rotterdam back to the UK. I was very tired. A flying saucer was bird dogging my car. In the end, I stopped, got out and shouted, "Either beam me up or fly away."

380.  I once r incorrectly reported a gas leak outside my house.

381.  I have a friend that plays the trumpet by ear. I wish he would actually learn the Last Post.

382.  My first Trades Union subscription (Tugmen, Watermen, Lightermen and Bargemen's Union) was 1/6d per week.

383.  My new Exec. Assistant in OCL (an Oxford Grad.) demanded (and got) the first PC ever fitted in the head office.

384.  I almost got killed when I ran the timber trail down  Mulanje Massif.

385.  I almost killed my cousin by locking him in a trunk and then not being able to get it unlocked…

386.  Presenting the Tin Man award for best Dad Dancing!

387.  I once got fired because "I looked at the human resources manager as if she was stupid."

388.  I once walked into a men's toilet; there was a woman in there. I stuttered an apology, went back out and checked the graphic on the door and went back in again. "confusing, isn't it," said the woman.

389.  I once left about $200 for one of my Goddaughters in a Halloween pumpkin. It rotted.

390.  I actually knew the answer to the question put to me by the University Challenge quiz master, Bamber Gascoigne.

391.  My wife keeps on threatening to sew the words, "DEFINITELY NOT" above the "number" on the back of my rugby shirt.

392.  I once hid up the chimney in our house and fell down dressed as Father Christmas.

393.  I managed to survive in Mozambique for two weeks on carrier bag of lychees and one very small, anaemic fried egg.

394.  One night the Captain came up to the bridge to write up the night orders… He found me dressed as a clown and groaned.

395.  I wrote an MS Excel formula that calculated Great Circle distances between points on the Earth. I intended it to calculate 'tech. stops' for cargo aircraft. I should have used an elastic band!

396.  I posted the wrong letters to two girls.

397.  We didn’t have a Egyptian flag to hoist as a courtesy ensign through the Suez Canal. The captain told me to paint one - it was about as accurate as my South American locust.

398.  I once appeared in the Royal Courts of Justice before Lord David Steel in shorts and motorcycle leathers. He was not impressed.

399.  I once stood in a business suit and acted as a clothes horse for a Russian seaman dressed in full Hazchem protection unlashed cannisters of enriched uranium hexafluoride.

400.  I was admonished by the Minister of Transport in the Seychelles for stopping BA's direct flights from the UK.

401.  I once made an urgent business trip to Lagos and had not booked an hotel. On arrival I asked the taxi driver to take me to the Hilton Hotel - big mistake.

402.  Aged about 10, I used to help the lock keepers at Teddington Lock fill and empty the big barge lock. This, of course, somewhat predated the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act.

403.  Presenting the Pistoffen I Saw Dust award for best anchors!

404.  "Why are you getting my wife to cook python," a friend asked me. "I am so sorry," I said, " I forgot she was vegetarian. "No," he said, "that's not a problem,  she can't cook!"

405.  We once had a homing pigeon land on the bridge wing of the ship. We couldn’t assist it because of a Great Dane (called "Hendrix") that had decided to protect it.

406.  I organised the production of a eighteen ton ice lolly.

407.  I am a part-qualified accountant

408.  I was the warm up act for Barry Cryer.

409.  I told the recruitment manager I didn't know there were any other shipping companies than P&O.

410.  I shot the rapids at St Germans in Norfolk.

411.  A girl made me ride pillion on the back of a motorbike because she said facing forward would be too intimate.

412.  Miles from Anywhere in Africa, I covered the petrol gauge of my car with a piece of paper so that I would not run out of petrol.

413.  I was made managing director of our school radio station.

414.  I fed my mother and her friend water from the toilet bowl.

415.  My company was a member of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.

416.  I once went swimming in Lake McIlwaine (formerly Lake Chivero) in Zimbabwe without catching bilharzia

417.  The first time I sailed a mate was because the real mate was at the Isle of Wight Festival.

418.  I was a member of the International Association of Marine Economists.

419.  My niece thought my bar with pink elephant ice was really cool!

420.  Myself and another usher once gave diligent directions to guests to get to the Wedding Reception. They included, "Turn left at Auntie Maud's house." It turned out neither of us knew where Auntie Maud lived.

421.  I placed an advert in a newspaper disparaging game show hosts.

422.  I obtained an interim injunction to stop a theme part opening.

423.  I was once told by a German Captain, "You are at war!"

424.  I had to change the name of a ship three times because it was deemed inappropriate.

425.  On the Kenyan/Tanzanian border I was told my vaccinations were not in order but they could help me. I was taken to the next room where there was a Bunsen burner and glass syringe.

426.  I frequently appeared in Room 101.

427.  We rowed a gig to the Isle of Wight and back… we won both ways.

428.  I once almost blew my mum up.

429.  I didn't teach my brother-in-law to canoe.

430.  I now do the same job as three former American Presidents.

431.  I once told my boss that the CRM system would probably have worked better if he hadn't got so close to the consultant that installed it.