I have had cause to write of this before but I had one of those days, the other day and so thought this worth repeating.

You can imagine the sort of day I’m talking about. You manage to put on mismatched shoes, the keys you take aren’t for the front door and the debit card in your wallet is the one that expired yesterday and the new one is safely in the drawer by your bed. I was contemplating the lack of any ability to catch the train I needed to catch to make the appointment I’d fixed when a woman stood up from the seat and headed for the incoming train, which I was destined to wave away. As she did so her left leg seemed to lag behind and then remain lagging as she pulled at the unexpected inertia. The train doors were now open and a certain panic had set in. For some reason her leg was refusing to leave the bench. With one final heave she kicked her leg and it freed in a very respectable arc, were she to be taking a goal kick.

Sadly that was not her plan and the result was a yawing tear and her tights ripped in ways I doubt tights do very often at 8.17 on Crystal Palace station. Just before the doors closed I caught her eye. She was mortified. She may have been carrying a spare pair but for the whole journey and a bit beyond she was going to be channelling her inner punk without the spiky hair and piercings, naturally.

Which made me think, of course that, most of the time when you think things are bad for you they are probably worse for someone else.

Which then made me think about the times when that was patently not true.

And as I stood on the platform, there, on the horizon was an immediate memory trigger for one such terrifying disaster and a salutary lesson if ever there was one, which was…

Do not, ever, let me bid in an on-line auction.

Especially if it involves an Olympic torch. Or anything really.

Back in the early days of 2012, as we headed towards the glorious summer that was London’s Olympics, I was working at LOCOG – the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games as a lawyer. By this time the Olympic flame had been lit by the rays of the sun on Mount Olympus in Greece and flown to the UK to begin it tour around the four corners of the nations that make up Great Britain. Every bearer of the torch got to keep their own version but, naturally, spares had been made to ensure they flamed at the appropriate moment. By now there were quite a few such spares and the powers that be decided to auction them off. Some were signed by celebrities to increase their attractiveness.

So it was that one warm afternoon, in about March 2012 that I was sitting at my desk and I had this mad urge to bid. A neat souvenir, I thought.  I looked at the latest available torch – signed by Jonathan Edwards. They were timed auctions and this one had about 25 minutes left. The price was somewhere around £2,200. The last couple, not signed, had gone for about £2,000. So I thought, you know, I’ll spend a bit of cash here. I registered, I thought about my bid and decided to go in at £2,750. I’d knock out the competition. I  remember being very careful where I put the decimal place – after all I didn’t want to bid £27,500 by mistake, did I? I clicked ‘bid’ and a short message appeared on my screen.

‘Congratulations Geoffrey. You have bid £1,375,491.72. Keep an eye on the  bidding to see if you have been successful. There are 15 minutes left.’

I shat myself. I couldn’t have done that. I hadn’t typed that. There was a mistake. A MISTAKE. I banged the Esc button, I tried to go back. I ripped the cables out of the machine and rebooted. How on earth could I stop this happening? By now I was pouring sweat. I’d just sold the f*****g house to pay for a sodding torch. ‘Hello darling I’m home. Shall we pack now or after dinner?’ I hunted for a contact number. All I found was an email.

Dear sir. I have just bid – I could barely put in the number – but I didn’t. I couldn’t have. I withdraw. It’s clearly a mistake. Please. Call me.‘

I gave my mobile number. The message was full of typos but off it went and I sat back. Of course, nothing happened. I stood. I prowled the floor. I worked in an open plan office and no one was aware of the humongous catastrophe that was about to rip the nadgers from me in less than the time it takes to make a decent cuppa.

I had a moment of inspiration. We were the body in effect selling these torches. Someone had to have a contact number I could call. With as much sangfroid as I could muster, I found that person, I calmly asked for the details, trying not to pool sweat into their key board as I lent over their shoulder to read what came up on screen and hurried to find a private space to call them. Less than 5 minutes to go.

‘Hello, is that [name withheld]? Can I just check about the current on line auction for the torch?’

‘Jonathon Edwards? Yes it’s going really well.’

{Groan} What is the highest bid? I think I may…’

‘Two thousand four hundred.’

‘What? Have all the bids come through to you?’

‘Yes we have instant updates.’

It turned out they had me registered but no actual bid. Shaking somehow I explained what had happened. My new bessie laughed. No one bid that sort of money. I tried to join in his gaiety and failed. He rummaged around his site but found nothing indicating I had bid the national debt of Latvia. He laughed again. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll clear your registration. But sorry, you’ve missed Jonathon. Still, David Beckham is coming up. You can go for him.’

Oh sure I was going to do that again. I had already been informally self-defibrillating off a uplighter I’d yanked out of the wall for the last ten minutes. I slunk away. I went home early. I sat in a dark room with the lights out. Every time I watched another inspiring image from the torch relay my left eye twitched much like Herbert Lom in the Pink Panther films.