My most embarrassing moment (of many) at Leeds University still makes me cringe. On a 56 bus into the university, my best pal and I were boasting to a couple of women students about the party we were planning in our rooming house – to which they were invited. Knowing that I lived in the attic and that my pal was in the very damp basement, the women asked where the party would take place. "Oh, it's fine," I said. "We're borrowing the front room. That's Peter's room, that hermit. We haven't asked him, but he'll be away." Whereupon the guy in the seat in front of us turned round. It was Peter. I wound my scarf around my face and hoped I'd sink through the floor of the bus.