Banal truth of the day: Movie stars - certainly big, mega-stars such as Scarlett Johansson - shouldn't really be on commercial flights at all.

 While I hate all generalisations (ho, ho), you don't have to be a mind reader to work out that travelling with the gawping, rubber-necked public is something that every movie star hates. The airlines do their best to take care of them - generally by sticking them up the front of the cabin. That way, the stars can avoid most of the blank, drooling stares offered by first-class passengers who are otherwise perfectly sensible and quite normal (whatever that means).

I spent the first half hour raising and lowering my unread newspaper like a really, really crap secret-service operative.

But for the star it's still another performance. She knows she's being watched - what's she reading, listening to, eating? What's she reading (a script?) - and is she drinking? Is that water really water – or is it a shameful vodka-breakfast habit?

So, as you may have gathered, I found myself in prime, drooling-zombie position, just a few yards from a perfectly charming young woman who simply wanted to get to New York – but whose job was so high-profile that she had to stick a brass 4x4 tyre rim under her nose to escape the attentions of… well, at the time I’m describing, people like me.

Just like me, in fact. Diagonally across from the poor girl, I spent the first half hour of the flight raising and lowering my unread newspaper like a really, really crap secret-service operative in an even worse 1940s B-movie.

Actually, that bit about not reading the paper wasn’t quite true. Ms Johansson had just cut a CD showing off her skills as a blues-cum-torch singer, and there was a grudgingly positive review, which I read in between moments of sticking my head over the black-and-white parapet.

Her boyfriend – or music producer (difficult to say which – he was an older guy with a rucksack shaped like a banjo) – came up from steerage or business and sat next to her. I contemplated him for a while. He was in a difficult position – being the Star’s Companion made him an object of anger and envy for about one third of the heterosexual men on the planet.

It was obviously quite a day for fits of moral rectitude - I had my second one in the space of a couple of hours.

He would be able to do no right in most men’s eyes. A little bit like Prince Charles’s missus for fans of the British royals (mind you, being Diana’s “replacement” – a different thing entirely - can’t help much). I sort of pitied him (yes, really) – and if I ever get married to a well-known woman, I’m sure I’ll find out what the CWAD* syndrome is all about…

Likeyou care. So – here’s the gossip. Scarlet said she likes girls with big noses – which obviously makes sense. She ate and drank what was put in front of her – about half. No alcohol.

And – she was really, really tempted to buy a pianola. Not just any pianola – a pianola that played Rachmaninov. Whoever was selling it wanted $40,000. Scarlet knew this was a lot, and was hesitating. Was this was because of her acute awareness of the starving millions in the world who could eat quite well on forty grand?  Or maybe she simply suspected there was a special movie-star price structure in the Rachmaninov-playing pianola market. It’s difficult to tell. Anyway, the boyfriend/producer was telling her not to feel bad if she wanted to treat herself. Yes, good advice is the advice people want to hear – or at least it is if you’re a lawyer (a profession I escaped from long ago), or the companion of a mega-star.

It was obviously quite a day for fits of moral rectitude, as I had my second one in the space of a couple of hours. I cleared up the drool from my chest, got out a book, put some earphones on, and left them to it. You may never grow up – I certainly won’t – but there are times when you just have to method-act being an adult, and hope that after a while it will come naturally.

It seemed to work – but only up to a point. As the pilot announced that New York was just a few minutes away, the boyfriend/producer had to return to his seat. Now was my chance…

The man has been CWADed, or treated like something or other With A Dick.

“Scarlett, sorry to intrude. But I have a copy of this, my first extended work of fiction – and I wondered…”

Yes, you’re thinking, not as funny as the Runaway Bride line. Cringe-making, in fact. Fortunately, I didn’t have a copy in the cabin, so I didn’t have to work on improving it. I just opted for method-acted indifference. I said nothing, acted cool.

Until, that is, we were getting off, and she almost bumped into me (definitely not the other way round). And (with apologies to Barbara Cartland) our eyes met once more. It was time to go. Now or never – and, thanks to the absence of any copies of Meltdown, no chance of my turning into a snake-oil salesman.

“So,” I said. “Do you really want to know what it was I did?”

That look.

“OK. So what did you do?”

“I wrote a best-selling novel.”

And with that, I buggered off. Didn’t volunteer my name, nor that of the book. Just left, without looking back.

So in my fervid imagination she’s left, open-jawed, surprised but quietly pleased – yes pleased, even – that her siren charms couldn’t even elicit the name of a fellow passenger – and not just that, a writer, the lowest of the low. Oh yessss. Small punches of the air as I headed into the terminal. Doubtless, I would occupy some small corner of her mind, and on sleepless nights she would occasionally trawl the Net, wondering, pondering what might have been…

Now we all know this is bollocks - total, complete, and perfectly wrapped up in a pink, hairy, wrinkled bag.

But it was, I now realize, the perfect introduction to The Land Of Yes. Without even being there, just by heading for the place and bumping into a big player in Loy-Loy Land, I’d already become one of its inhabitants.

The imaginings are ridiculous, patently untrue – her people would have found me in a day if she’d been curious. But, in the absence of direct, crushing, oppositional fact, the idea became a kind of comforting fantasy – the special moment, the connection, the intuitive recognition of my special talent. Thus the fantasy becomes the truth. And the truth? The truth is an ugly distortion of the inner reality - the happy, special place where the sun always shines, where things are always really good, where “no” is a forbidden, bad word – because everything’s good and positive in the Land Of Yes.

And I hadn’t even got to New York yet. Boy, was I ever heading for some trouble.

*CWAD or CWAD syndrome – a well-known syndrome affecting male consorts of well-known people. A courting or married couple, where the woman is famous, often have to deal with the CWAD problem. This occurs when someone feels free to interrupt dinner or conversation or any private moment with a simple: “Excuse me, sorry to interrupt, just give me a moment.” The back of the intruder is then frequently turned on the man while the woman tries to cut the conversation dead with a modicum of politeness. The man has been CWADed, or treated like something or other With A Dick. No prizes for guessing the word beginning with c.

I've been looking for the path of righteousness on my sat nav - and I just can't find it. Guess I'll just have to be like everyone else and stick to selfishness and plastic narcissism (this blog is linked to a personal website, after all).

But there's a but - isn't there always? Occasionally I forget about the diffuse social pressure to think of oneself to the exclusion of all others - and end up appearing, at least, to be passably polite. It was as a result of one of these rare fits of moral rectitude - roughly translated as being nice to people without any ulterior motive - that I got to fly from London to New York with Scarlett Johansson.

The BA lady looked about as happy as a five-week-old lemon in an empty fridge.

As a result of that flight, some three years ago now, I know she's been trawling the Net in a desperate and fruitless attempt to track me down. Well, Scarlett, the wait is over. It's me - I'm the guy on the plane.

OK, so you've got the message: I flew to New York with one of the world's biggest movie stars, and she's been looking for me ever since. yeah, right. Pompous, vain - and palpably untrue, obviously. Except, just maybe not an outright lie... Let's go to Heathrow, in January 2008, and see.

The lady at the BA check-in wasn't just bored - she looked about as happy as a five-week-old lemon in an empty fridge. I, on the other hand, was really full of it - the wonderful thing about Tiggers, is Tiggers are wonderful things. Yes, that sort of bouncy, happy, puppyish irrepressibility which usually sits very badly with middle-aged men like me. Granted, I had some reason to be upbeat. Meltdown, my first novel, had just been published in hardback by Macmillan - the lead title for the first half of 2008. Hurray. The Milky Bars were definitely on me. I can't remember how the conversation over the check-out desk went, but the BA lady seemed to like it...

To digress for a moment, I think true happiness is very compelling, however it's expressed. It's a bit like total mastery of the subject in public speaking. If you really, really know what you're talking about, you're going to be a compelling speaker. That's why Alastair Campbell is so brilliant when he talks about the media. He may have - he does have - a political agenda, but he's the real thing. In his days at Downing Street, he knew every nut and bolt of the media machine - the hidden agendas of the scribblers, their foibles, their prejudices, how the publishers and business magnates tried to influence coverage - the lot. Even today, when things are necessarily different, if only because their are different bottoms filling news floor chairs, Campbell is a mesmerising speaker on media matters. When he talks about football, on the other hand, he's just a foolish, blinkered bloke in a pub - rather like me, on that topic, in fact.

The epithet "Scarlett Johansson" may not be an actual threat on a par with a hungry lion stalking a limping wildebeest, but it certainly raises the alert level.

Back at the BA check-in, the nice lady upgraded me from business class to first. Very kind. The principal difference between business and first on some airlines is the quality of the drink - Dom Perignon and Krug are offered in first by, I think, Cathay and Emirates. In BA, it's just better seating and more add-ons (yes, more of those things you never needed in the first place). But what sets first class apart in every airline is the attitude of the staff, who seem to be trained to burst into tears if you stop eating and drinking. I determined I was going to cause them as little trouble as possible - I was going to eat and drink everything that was offered, accept every foot rub, every complimentary glossy magazine, every pyjama suit...

So I was doing the chess problem in The Times and having my shoes shined when I heard the name "Scarlett Johansson". According to many behavioural anthropologists, the word for fire is universally comprehensible. It cuts across language barriers. A Papua New Guinean (sic) will get the message across in one word. Raising the alert is a behavioural gesture, not a semantic message. Well the epithet "Scarlett Johansson" may not be an actual threat on a par with a hungry lion stalking a limping wildebeest, but it certainly raises the alert level.

I deserted Boris Gelfand and Nigel Short for a moment - but a scan of the room revealed no movie star. There were a couple of businesswomen on their mobiles, quietly chiding husbands and child-carers, and a dumpy girl in a tan coat and a woolly beanie hat. The compelling thing about the girl was the large gold curtain ring she'd chosen to decorate her face with. It depended from her septum - an ill-judged piece of shiny obviousness that totally dominated her face. She looked like a hastily done Picasso sketch of a bull - a big circle and lots of strange lines. So, no Scarlett then. Periscope down, games page back up.

Two bacon butties later, the flight was called. Even in first class, they don't bring the plane to you, so we all trooped out. Security was tight that day, and as were heading to the gate randomly selected passengers were called to a table to have their hand baggage searched. I saw that Dumpy Girl had been called out. The contents of her voluminous clutch bag were spilled on the table - Versace small bits, D & G knick-knacks, glittery thingy-bobs. It looked like a big cat had gorged itself on designer accessories and coughed up a big Faberge fur ball. 

The guy next to Dumpy Girl was sent on his way just as I was shuffling past. I got the tap on the shoulder, and walked up to have my bag searched next to Dumpy Girl. I opened up the carry-on and handed it over.

"So what did you do?" asked Dumpy Girl. She gave me a clear-eyed, amused look.

Those eyes. Of course.

Once you looked past the giant piece of metal in the centre of her face, you saw the truth: it was Scarlett Johansson. The Scarlett Johansson. Golden mane of hair hidden beneath the beanie. Voluptuous figure masked by bulky, plain coat. No "I-Want-To-Be-Alone" shades that would only have attracted attention - just a piece of kit you could have used to tow a caravan stuck under her nose as a piece of temporary but necessary disguise. Brilliant.

Now all this hit me in an instant. And, I have to say, I came back at her without missing a beat. Remember that so-so movie "Runaway Bride", a Julia Roberts vehicle? I sort of riffed round a line from that.

"What did I do? I'm not sure. But whatever it was, I'm feeling pretty guilty about it now."

And she laughed. Like any writer, I was very happy to take the credit for someone else's work. If I weren't so lazy, I'd research it right now. The movie line comes from the scene were Roberts runs away from the altar again, and, in white garb - veil, train, the works - hitches a lift on the tail plate of a DHL delivery van. The guests, horrified, run out of the church to watch her make good her escape. One guests wonders where she's off to. Another replies that he's no idea, but wherever it is, she'll get there by ten o' clock the following day.

"Like, what are we going to have on us - guns, drugs, bombs?" said Scarlett, who'd recovered very quickly from the brilliance of my remark. The security guards looked up from the work.

"I wouldn't go on like that," I said. "You'll get us both strip-searched, and that will make an ugly story." Though you do have to wonder if that would be such a bad thing - membership of the tiny club of people who've been strip-searched with Scarlett Johansson.

Anyway, she got that I knew who she was, and that the guards would be pissed off if she carried on doing improv while they were just doing their jobs.

So she kept quiet, and we got on the plane - where I discovered that I was sitting diagonally opposite her, just a few feet away...

Part II of the Girl With The Golden Curtain Ring follows soon.