This is not a diary, but a week that begins with a 1.30 am encounter with armed police and ends with the Sunday Times, bless them, according me the status of “one of the finest chefs in Wales” demands to be marked in some way.

Looking back, it would all make so much more sense if the two events had occurred the other way around. That way it might suggest that I’d been arrested at gunpoint in relation to fraudulent claims of culinary genius. If that were the case, I’d ask for a string of other offences to be taken into account; this has happened before and much to my embarrassment it will probably happen again. Believe me, this is in the face of repeated protestation to the point where I feel like very much like Monty Python’s non-messiah Brian (perhaps I need my mother’s help - “he’s not a top chef he’s a very naughty boy”). Futile though it seems to be, I’ll say it again; I’m not one of the finest chefs in Wales, in fact I’m not a chef at all. I can with varying degrees of legitimacy be described as a former restaurant critic, a practising restaurateur, an occasional food writer, a regular food broadcaster, even a food “expert” whatever that means. If you must, you can call me a “cheerful hamster in glasses” as one wag did on a message board somewhere. All of these descriptions have at least a grain of truth in them. But I am not, never have been and never will be, a chef, let alone one of the best in the country and once again I apologise to all the genuine chefs out there, especially the ones that can really be called the finest in Wales.

Just to confuse matters further I spent much of this bizarre week helping other people cook in front of the cameras. Not, you’ll know by now, as a “chef” but as someone who knows a bit about food and is a semi-competent home cook, encouraging other folk to eat nice things reasonably cheaply. This was a great deal of fun but doubly exhausting given that I had no sleep after 1.30am on the night prior to the first day’s shooting. Which brings us neatly back to the armed police who were outside my door fiercely demanding that the occupant of room 17 give themselves up immediately.

Once I’d gathered my thoughts from the fog of panic I checked my key which confirmed I was in room 15, across the corridor from the bedroom of their interest. This was at least some reassurance because until then I had wondered whether I’d been mistaken for somebody else (maybe a villainous chef, perhaps even the one who cooked my steak earlier that night, who clearly needed shooting). Once I’d heard them raid the room opposite and find it empty I decided it was time to emerge from under the duvet and step out into the corridor, heart still pounding at what I suspected to be an unsustainable rate, to be met by armed coppers kitted out in full ninja turtle style. They seemed surprised and rather irritated to see me, having apparently been told by hotel staff that this small wing of the hotel was free of any residents other than the suspect they were pursuing.

Downstairs in the lobby the receptionist was being admonished for her mistake “there could have been a fatality” the officer in charge told her. “That would be me then” I thought, and a headline flashed in front of my eyes “Police Shoot Dead Top Chef in Hotel Blunder.” Dreadful, and I wouldn’t even be around to apologise - no wonder I couldn’t get back to sleep.