Note to self: Turning up to a date in a suit and flip flops is a bad idea.

I have been on a lot of first dates, I have been on very few second dates...

Twas a lovely balmy Summers day and my good friends Thomas and Penny kindly opened their house and garden for what was a great social event. Everyone bar myself was drinking socially and responsibly and although I was not a total mess, there is no question that I was heavily intoxicated.

I was staying in my old room at my Mums house and in my drunken stupor trying to put a DVD on in my room I twatted my head on the corner of a shelf. If that wasn't bad enough, in doing this I knocked an old money box off the shelf which then proceeded to land sweetly on my big toe.

This money box is made of what I believe to be led and was full of foreign coins (apologies for my crap childhood hobbies). Weighing a tonne it did a nice job of bludgeoning my toe and left my nail clinging on for dear life.

However being pissed I was impervious to pain, so went to the toilet and promptly went to bed. I woke in the morning to a throbbing pain, finding my mother (a lady in her 50's) down on her hands and knees on the upstairs landing scrubbing my blood out of the beige carpet.

'You're 24' she said, explaining that I was too old for this sort of tomfoolery.

'I'm sorry' was my only reply.

The nail came off completely with little persuasion, leaving my bloodied toe fully exposed. At this point I realised that my foot modelling career was over. In full throttle mothering mode, my mum swiftly produced one of those plastic thumb guards and instructed me that it was paramount that I wore it on my toe to prevent infection. I am old enough to know that Mother does know best, so followed her instructions.

I had to wear flip flops to work with my suit and the first colleague I came across enquired as to why I was wearing a condom on my toe. At this point I realised I needed to get it professionally dressed by someone with medical experience.

My job is predominantly desk based, so in all this scenario would not really have been too bad if it had not been for the fact that at this party it had been brought to my attention that an attractive lady had expressed some interest in me.

Being a real man, I cowardly got a friend to give me her e-mail address so that I could get in touch. How did people get laid before text and e-mail, can you even imagine going back to having to call a girl to set up the first date? God bless technology.

Anyway back to the matter in hand, we arranged to meet up near where she lived which is some way from London so I had to head there straight from work...in my suit and flip flops.

Looking like a Miami Vice reject, I made the decision to nip the situation in the bud and I explained my attire straight away which unfortunately meant going through the whole episode.

Already I could tell she was thinking, I'm on a date with a guy in flip flops and a suit and clearly he has the maturity of a six year old to have gotten into this situation in the first place. Being on the dating back foot it was paramount that I put in a Man of the Match performance.

Unfortunately having eaten the meal, which was very nice, the only options available was local pubs all of which are pretty horrible. I chose the best of a worse bunch, but it transpired that Liverpool were playing in Europe that day and the pub was screening the game. My desperate attempts to exude charm and wit, fell on a audible background of Chav football observations,

'That was never a foul you c*nt' and so on.

We parted with a kiss on the cheek and I have not heard from her since. I do however hear that she is dating a young gentleman with excellent taste in footwear.