LIKE A COSTA IN MIDDLE EARTH

Nothing quite prepares you for that feeling when you arrive at work to see your former colleague on the telly.

Reception have a big screen that (for some reason) plays ITV all day. As I disconnected my headphones and strode in through the doors, I saw Lee’s massive head talking animatedly on Good Morning Britain. The words “Is St George’s Day Toxic?” flicked across the chyron at the bottom of the screen. Lee is normally a presenter on an afternoon travel show. He was clearly drafted in to discuss.

There would have been a time when I came into work to see his massive head nattering about less divisive matters - traffic, for example, or how unfair council tax is. I had sympathy for him, and he also used to make me laugh. He had perfected the comedy rant.

That being said, he looked pretty angry on the big TV today. I still don’t know which side of the debate he was on - that telly’s on silent.

“Quite a tale of how our paths diverged,” I whispered to myself; me still arriving at an office, him on ITV. There’s no way I’d switch though - that studio’s a bear pit and I’d rather sit down to a quiet computer, if I’m honest.

There must be thousands of people out there who vaguely know a celebrity. There must be millions more who are fed up with them going on about it, or who can’t quite comprehend the weirdness of seeing someone you know get famous. It is weird though - like overlapping a distant fantasy world that doesn’t seem real, with the world you live in, or seeing something very familiar suddenly in a place it doesn’t belong - like a Costa in Middle Earth.

But there it is, anyway - belonging, holding its own, arguing about St George’s Day on a loud Wednesday morning in front of millions of people.

I sat down at my desk and switched on my computer. I was the first one in. Emails and slack messages awaited me. I smiled and listened to the hum of the plasma lights and the gentle whirring of the distant coffee machine. Perfect.