RICHARD BRANSON

I got an email today with an intriguing subject:

"Matt, Richard Branson is looking for your advice."

I rubbed my hands together gleefully. Oh I've been waiting for this day. I always knew, in the end, that the billionaires would come rushing to a part-time musician and technical author for some sound advice and practical wisdom. It was only a matter of time.

In fact I'm quite certain that Richard Branson (sipping a pina colada on his Caribbean island, dreaming about transatlantic balloon flights, airliners and building a space rocket) must have tilted back his expensive sunglasses and thought to himself, You know what I need...

And I don't suppose he'll be the last either. Oh word will get round the one-percenters, it always does - soon Bill Gates will be on the phone from his glassy mansion, asking me for that bit of wisdom that only a man with a tiny kitchen (and unreachable windows) can provide.

Then there'll be Abramovich, a couple of those sheikhs from Dubai and that orange fella who's running for President - they'll all be round won't they, lining up outside my creaky front door, asking me for my legendary input into their impossibly luxuriant lives and ornately complicated business ventures.

Zuckerberg will want in. I'd tell him to change his t-shirt. Then I'd tell him what I think of flunkbook and he, clearly respecting the opinion of a man who got 40% in a programming course in 1998, would immediately retreat inconsolably, vowing to change his ways.

And what about Murdoch? I could give old Rupert loads of advice. Surely, having heard the stellar wisdom I sent Richard Branson's way, he'd be telegramming me immediately to find out how he could be a better citizen of this great planet. After all, I did once shake hands with TV's Mr Motivator.

Anyway, there's no call from Branson yet, following up the email he politely sent me via the advertising pixies at LinkedIn. Perhaps he's off discovering more buried treasure, or building a moon-base or something.

Anyway, I'm right by the phone when you're ready, Richard. Right by the phone.