Check it, Denzel.

You find out fascinating things at training days with your colleagues.

I learned that one guy has a buffet phobia, and this other girl has a fear of internal stairwells. I have filed this info away and will use it against them when they least expect it.

We had to play a stupid ice breaker where we wrote down four things about ourselves, one of which was a lie. We read our list out to the table and everyone had to take a stab at identifying the lie. After all the jolly japes were over and the mirth had died down, the guy running the show asked different tables what the most interesting true thing was they'd heard at their table.

"I was amazed to hear that the man we call Stan is a hermaphrodite."

"I never would have guessed that Sheryl is beaten regularly by her charming husband."

"Marjorie told us all she still wets the bed - at 58!"

You know. In that vein. Each revelation was met with a bit of a laugh and a smattering of applause. Then one girl piped up from the back of the room. She's a girl with some problems and I should know because I'm her manager.

"Well," she began, "the most interesting thing this table heard was something I said. I was at a video shop in Greenwood once and I realised I was standing next to Michael Jackson! I can tell you, I was very scared!!!"

As a few faces turned to me, seeming to say, "Aren't you responsible for her?", I could take some small comfort from the fact that, for once, the derisive snort that cut across the cold, dead weight that was the suddenly silent room, did not belong to me.