And so, with a picture of Kylie stuck to the inside of my ringbinder for companionship, I left the sleepy village primary for the cosmopolitan charms of secondary school. Suddenly there were 150 girls in my year, better still, their mums did not know my mum, they had not seen me magically reproduce my corned beef sandwich in the dinner hall and they did not know of my 3-hour charity skip-a-thon (which I still maintain was done to get out of afternoon classes, rather than because of my love of skipping. And anyway boxers skip so it's manly).

Despite an obvious adoration of Abby, the latest curly blonde angel to grace my boyhood (and in a year of 300 I was even further down the pecking order for a shot at the prettiest girl) I embarked on an ill-advised relationship with Isobel.

My suspicions should have been raised when Richard, who had just dumped her told me that she was really nice and fancied me. I decided to give it a shot, and thus arranged my first snog behind the PE equipment hut, a sloppy salad cream flavoured encounter.