Arriving in good time for the meeting, I came across Sharm El Sheikhs beautiful people, miraculously transformed from dive bums into erstwhile sophisticates, with the exception of one guy who’s taste in shorts left something to be desired. To calm my nerves I proceeded to aim an unstoppable tirade of my best sarcastic wit in his direction. Fortunately, he had a sense of humour. I say fortunately, because he turned out to be the director, and directors are not renowned for their sense, especially in the dress department.

Possibly out of spite, the ladies in the wardrobe department proceeded to dress me in a beige blazer, flannels, pink shirt, purple tie and, to cap it all, a panama hat. They murmured something about white balance and my follicularly challenged pate before sending me off to join all the other beautiful people to meet the man in the shorts.

We proceeded to be filmed and photographed from all angles and then were asked if we could swim. Could we swim ? We’re all diving instructors for heavens sake. Would we jump off a boat into the sea ? Not a problem. Do it every day. Actually it’s a platform 5 metres above the sea. Ah, well, 5 metres, how high is 5 metres ? Well, I guess I could. OK, sign here.

Arriving on the jetty the following morning I spied our boat. Actually, I spied a wooden platform built onto the back of a boat and it looked rather high. We sailed off into the sunrise and moored up in the pretty little bay of Marsa Bareka. It was all very exciting, cameras and wires everywhere. People talking into radios and mobile phones, all looking very important. At first it seemed quite civilised, just hanging loose, talking and being filmed. Not without experience of hanging loose at parties, I fell back into my best method-acting mode and suggested that a glass of Martini might not go amiss. ‘Later’, I was told.

After a lunch break and a few moments relaxation to recover from the ardour’s of hanging loose, we were sent back up on the platform to hang loose again. Then the shorts whispered in my ear ‘ we want you to jump off when we give you the nod, so that we can catch the surprise in everybody’s faces ’. It seemed a fine idea to get this jumping business over and done with, so upon the appropriate signal I removed my panama and hurled myself majestically over the side and down, down, down. Ouch. It hurt. I surfaced to a respectable applause, climbed back onto the boat and was immediately set upon by two young ladies who forcibly ripped the wet clothing from my body. I began warming to my new life as a film star. Within minutes it was dried, ironed and ready to be worn again – most impressive. By now, the rest of the cast had begun lemming wise to throw themselves into the sea. I rejoined the group on the platform, happy in the knowledge that I’d done my bit, and requested a glass of Martini. ‘Later’ I was told. ‘First of all you’ve got to jump’. But, I just did! What was the problem? Didn’t they capture my graceful descent on the first take? It slowly dawned on me that I was expected to spend the next three days continuously launching myself into mid-air. Now I definitely needed a glass, or possibly two, of anything.