"Is that really enough?" The question was startling. I had just finished explaining to a respectable-looking gentleman at a party, a doctor, what I do for a living. "I write newspaper columns," I said, and I may even have lifted both feet off the ground in that subtle manner some of us adopt when we want to appear pleased with ourselves without appearing smug. It is possible I added to the overall effect by flicking an imaginary speck of dust off my shirt.

That's when his question brought me down to earth with what is generally described as a ‘thud,' although this sounded more like a ‘splat'.

Luckily he did not go on to ask what I really did for a living; you know how well some people speak in italics. But the message had got home.

There is a good reason why I am not filthy rich, and that is because no one can become filthy rich by writing newspaper columns unless one was already filthy rich in another field, like acting in movies or advising US Presidents. Then you are paid obscene amounts to appear foolish in public; my foolishness comes much cheaper.

There is hardly any violence in these columns (unless you count the occasional split infinitive), and worse, they are completely free of that three-letter word that begins with ‘s', ends in ‘x' and has a vowel in between.

As the sharp-eyed among you may have noticed, there is no politics either. I did once write about John F Kennedy and in his days of trouble did mention in passing about Bill Clinton that one swallow does not make a summer. But in general my political sagacity has remained untested.

My books sell steadily rather than spectacularly, and if Dan Brown wants to sell one of his many islands, I am not in the market for it. Of course, I once made it to the top 500,000 in the Amazon list, probably as a result of a sudden spurt of interest in my writing among the tribes of Borneo or among the bored in Antarctica, but I don't know if that's enough, to return to my new friend the doctor's question. What is enough?

Perhaps a Hollywood producer passing through Dubai will take a fancy to something I have written and decide that Tom Cruise is the ideal lead for a blockbuster based on these weekly outpourings. Mission Probable. Cruise could play the role of the questioning doctor and perhaps Daniel Craig could be the superhero who goes round the world destroying those who ask such questions.

I have no idea what they would do for that three-letter word beginning with ‘s', though.