UK readers may vaguely remember the name of Major Charles Ingram, the man who was disgraced for cheating his way to a million pounds on Who Wants to be a Millionaire (see this BBC link for the excruciating word-for-word process of his stumbling on the name for 1 followed by 100 zeroes with the help of a cough or two).

I can’t say I had any great enthusiasm for the man, especially when he managed to become a minor celebrity on the back of his notoriety. However, this all changed yesterday.

I was in Borders bookshop in Swindon, and there was Charles Ingram, attempting to peddle his new book (‘a thriller’ according to him). He was being shown little interest by the shoppers, even resorting to wandering around looking at the other books occasionally.

What made it particularly sad was that I’d done a signing at the excellent Science Museum bookshop the day before, and had a lovely time. I had a comfy chair, lots of room for my books and was plied with coffee and sweets. Poor old Charlie had to stand, had a tiny table and probably had to fetch his own from Starbucks. Sic transit…