Every journalist craves the compliment of a follow-up - the professional doffed cap implied when a rival news organisation reports on a story you have broken. But those of us who don't lunch with ministers or receive late night calls from detectives have to find our kicks elsewhere. Me, I find them wallchart spotting.
It's sad, I know, but a juicy sighting of one of the hugely popular charts we have distributed with the Guardian in recent months will keep me cheerful for hours. The other day I spotted Apples (a bit of a personal favourite) in the window of a north London health food shop and could talk of little else for days. Friends deftly avoid the subject now; they've seen too many late night conversations descend into a debate about the relative merits of cheeses and lobsters.
Readers of the Guardian have been more obliging: they've sent us photographs of Kenyan schoolrooms decorated with Butterflies and Garden Birds, entire bathrooms papered with Shark and Fungi and even a link to an online furniture catalogue in which Freshwater Fish is just visible on the wall of a child's designer bedroom.
Thrilling as they all are, none can match the frisson delivered by the latest, deliciously contemporary, manifestation of the wallchart craze - a video on Youtube. In it, an appealing chap, who I think is the presenter of a Channel Four web video show, professes his love for wallcharts - to the tune of Rossini's Barber of Seville. The libretto might not be quite Beaumarchais, but it's poetry to my ears:
Though I work on this web show Sometimes I think the internet can just piss off But there is something that heals my pain Since the summer time and time again Itís just wallcharts, I like wallcharts Newspaper wallchart, Lots of wallcharts
The film shows him on a bus with Cheeses, at a bistro table with Crabs and Lobsters, with Trees in the loo, and finally marrying a chart which looked a lot like Crabs and Lobsters. In final scene, the camera zooms in on a piece of the confetti being tossed at our wallchart fanatic, and then the look of horror crossing his face. You can guess why . . .
Now with my professional hat on I'm delighted to see something produced by the Guardian so rapturously received, but I'm far more excited to have found a new friend. I don't know for sure what his name is but I think it may be Donal. So Donal, if you're reading this, how about a little spotting trip soon? I can show you Apples in the window of a north London health food shop. And if you play your cards right I might even give you a preview of Sheep and Goats . . .
