Feeling a little queasy? Thought so.

You may, at best, feel slightly amused or even relieved – who wants a hooter like that?

What you will not be feeling is terror. It's not the face to strike terror into the heart of man.

It barely strikes mild interest into the hearts of my children. Faint disdain in the heart of my wife.

That of course is just a photo. Meet me in the real world and, well, it's worse. I have all the physical presence of a crisp packet. Cheesy Wotsits. In the wind.

Which makes my recent police shakedown under the Terrorism Act a little disturbing.

My crime? Driving too near a railway station in my Corsa. Leeds railway station to be precise. I'd taken a wrong turn (not, I hasten to add, on my way to Sunderland's railway station, I was meant to be in Leeds). The police swooped.

And that's when it all went a little surreal.

I say the police swooped because I'm a journalist. Police are always swooping in the papers. They swoop, crack and raid. Usually at dawn.

They swoop on terrorists, raid drug dealers and crack cocaine rings. They probably swoop on their breakfasts of a morning. Police Swoop in Dawn Fridge Raid – Egg Cracked.

The two officers who saw me take the wrong turn ambled rather than swooped. They waved me in.

A female officer informed me that I was driving too close to the train station. I was actually about 100 yards from the station; she was the one who waved me to within 10 yards.

"I will have to search you in accordance with the Terrorism Act," she said, before taking down my particulars (and in full view of the public!).

Name, age, address… so far so predictable. "And what sort of shoes are you wearing?"

I'm wearing exploding brogues!

As weird as the question appeared, there was, of course, the case of the shoe bomber who boarded a flight in a bid to blow up an American Airlines plane. It could make sense, although to my recollection, he was not caught out by security asking such a simple question.

Security man: "And what sort of shoes are you wearing?"

Terrorist man: "Exploding ones, erm, I mean trainers… damn!"

Terrorist Richard Reid was actually caught when cabin crew spotted him fumbling with matches in his plane seat. He was trying to light a fuse attached to his footwear.

He was restrained by a combination of trolley dollies, plastic handcuffs and headphone extensions. It may have looked comical, but I doubt anyone was laughing.

In Leeds, the officer asked me my height.

"I'm five foot ten."

Hair colour?

"I don't know, what do you think?"

She looked. "I'll put down long and dark."

The colour of my hair has been a subject of great debate, usually among my mother, her pals and my girlfriends. The debate was at its most fraught for me during my school days when I was called a ginger nut.

Girls made it worse by arguing it wasn't ginger, but varying shades of brown. At 13 it's not a debate you want aired in public. My mother claims my hair's Titian. I settle for strawberry blond (purely because it sounds funny.)

On being told by the officer it was dark, my passenger (a woman) couldn't hold back. "It's not dark, it's auburn."

The officer reluctantly amended her notes. The other officer then came over to inform his partner that I was driving a Corsa.

I was handed my ticket and sent on my way. They didn't even check my boot. I think my passenger assured them we weren't transporting a bomb - that seemed to be good enough.

It was all very odd. Since when do you have to provide your own description to the police?

Maybe it's an equal opportunities issue. Perhaps the officer was short sighted.

I should have said I was four foot two, wearing wellies and sporting an afro. That ought to have ruled me out of any inquiries. Then again, they might have shot me.

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I had the pleasure of the attending the inaugural Ladies Night at Newcastle Racecourse last week (I think the long auburn hair got me through the turnstile).

It was sponsored by Sunderland-based cosmetic group Aesthetic Beauty Centre and included, among other races, the Breast Augmentation Handicap Stakes. (Please add smutty joke of your choice here).

The sponsors also raffled a selection of cosmetic surgery treatments. My wife bought a ticket for £2. And won!

She won £350 worth of Botox. I've never seen her look as surprised as she did when her number was drawn. And, given her prize, I doubt I'll ever see her look so surprised again.