You meet lots of interesting people in my line of work and after a thoroughly pleasant encounter with US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson last year I got lucky with the Yanks for the second time.
My mission the other day was to Get Carter — or to get as close to former US President Jimmy Carter as I could, to be precise.
Mr Jackson kindly complimented me on my pinstripes when we met, so I knew I was suitably dressed as I waited for Mr Carter outside the Randolph Hotel in Oxford.
The lobby was buzzing with secret service bodyguards and it wasn't long before they checked me out.
But after discovering my identity, they allowed me to remain outside the entrance, where I stood next to hotel staff.
As Mr Carter, a sprightly 83, got out of the black people carrier and headed towards the steps of Oxford's grandest hotel, I thought I should do the decent thing and welcome him to the city.
He seemed delighted to meet me, grinned and shook my hand, no doubt believing I was the manager of the Randolph, or from the Skoll World Forum, where he was giving a talk to social entrepreneurs.
My work complete, I retired to Heroes in Ship Street for a coronation chicken on ciabatta and then headed for Gloucester Green's open-air market, where there are a number of superb second-hand bookstalls.
I spotted a copy of Kipling's short story collection The Day's Work for £5 but it was a rather unwieldy edition, so I reluctantly left it.
A more attractive proposition was a slim volume of Kipling's Traffics and Discoveries, which I found in the Oxfam bookshop in Stert Street, Abingdon.
The leather-bound pocket edition contains the renowned short story Mrs Bathurst and I look forward to reading it at some point, when I have finished Stephen Robinson's biography of evergreen reporter Bill Deedes.
After calling in at Oxfam, I popped next door (well almost) to my favourite independent, Mostly Books, to pick up a copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. My lads, seven and four, seem totally hooked on Hogwarts.