Why I carry no torch for the bloke at border control As wonderful as this was, it did make me question what other information is stored in my passport. Did the bloke from the UK Border Agency know that I was overdrawn, that I sucked my thumb until I was 25 and that I had 3,256 points on my Nectar Card? "I see, Miss Gordon, that you have 'liked" One Direction on your Facebook page," I imagined the passport man saying. This is inappropriate behaviour for a 31-year-old woman and as such is considered a crime involving moral turpitude. I called the Home Office and asked why this information was stored on my passport, and what other random personal data the Border Agency was privy to. Despite pestering them all day, they couldn't tell me. How typical that after all the prying questions governments ask us, they can't actually answer one themselves. While away, I called up Interflora to order flowers for Mother's Day. I asked for white roses. None of those in stock. An orchid, perhaps? The man asked me if an orchid was the same as a lily, as he thought he had some lilies. But it turned out they had sold out of them, too. Then he helpfully advised that I buy a "bouquet." What would be in that bouquet, I asked? He couldn't tell me. "I'm not really an expert on flowers," he explained. Desperate, I purchased the "bouquet." "Are these flowers for Mother's Day?" he asked. I told them they were. And when would you like them delivered? I wish I were making this up, but the phone call, recorded for training purposes, proves otherwise. Earlier this year, I wrote a column about John Terry, whose face mysteriously appeared on cigarette packets in India as part of the country's anti-smoking drive. The Chelsea defender asked his legal team to investigate, but I can report that his picture is still very much plastered across fag packets on the subcontinent. There is only one conclusion to be drawn from this: that smoking does indeed turn you into John Terry. Which is more of an incentive to give up smoking than the ever-increasing cost of it.