Years ago when I worked on a national newspaper I remember getting a 'ring in' - a call from the member of the public - from a woman in Stoke, or perhaps it was Hull, or Swindon, who swore blind that Chris Evans, the then Radio 1 breakfast show host, was stealing her jokes.
Not just the odd joke you understand, but all her jokes, and doing so in a systematic fashion. He had, she assured me, parked a white van outside her house which was stuffed to the gunnells with high tech listening equipment.
Of course, I knew straight away that the poor lady was deluded, behind in her medication or just plain barking - and in the way of journalists I did the only decent thing. I gave her the number of a friend of mine on a different newspaper and suggested she tell him all about it.
"It's just not my kind of story," I said, "but he'll love this."
Flash forward to this week and I have a sense of what that paranoid woman must have been feeling. I've already noted that World Book Night is holding a poll to determine a top 100 favourite books for 2012. Well I've just noticed that the Herald in Scotland - the Glasgow Herald, as I knew it growing up - is doing the same for Scottish titles.
Well good luck to them. My own list will be out at the end of July - and featured in the Big Issue some time in August. In the meantime please send me your suggestions for your top ten, to be incorporated into the final 100. The replies have been slowly mounting up, but the more responses we get the better.
Post yours in the comment below.
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