LAST week I found out just what a hypocrite I am.

On Tuesday night I lost my wallet. I had used it that evening before popping out, so I knew it was nearby, but rationalisation went out the window.

I liken the moment of realisation that you have misplaced something important to an acid trip, reality melting into a bizarre metaphysical world where anything is possible.... and Tuesday, 8.30pm was a particularly vivid example.

You scurry around, searching in places that would no more harbour a wallet than Lord Lucan.

Under what circumstances, for example, would I have put my wallet in the oven or freezer? or plant pots? Or underneath wine bottles? Doesn't matter – I must eliminate them from my enquiries, preferably in as haphazard and violent a fashion as possible.

After moving numerous fusty condiment jars and pots of onion relish, and uttering many oaths about lost debit and Nectar cards and that unused £5 WH Smith voucher I've had since 2007, the wallet was eventually found - in my car.

But during my hysteria there was a moment of clarity.

Sometimes I leave my wallet on the back of a chair near my front door, and I realised that an opportunistic thief could have seen it through the window, opened the door – which had been unlocked earlier, while I was upstairs – and grabbed it.

And how many times have I written about burglaries through unlocked doors and windows in the past year or two? Hundreds.

Spalding in particular is in the grip of a burglary wave unlike any I can remember since my time here, with TVs, medals, jewellery, laptops, Nintendos and lawnmowers all going bye-bye.

I even wrote a front page and a comment piece on it - and yet for 20 minutes that little bundle of leather and bills was as vulnerable as Ashley Cole's wedding certificate... I was furious.

Knowing my luck the thief would then have used my cards to purchase something truly ghastly like Celine Dion cds or Westlife tickets, thereby besmirching my good name and banking statements forever.

It's easy to jest, but it was VERY serious at the time, and I have tightened up my security since it happened.

So next time you are having a go about this or that, think about your own foibles and mistakes. I guarantee you will have a substantial list.

I have now vowed not to criticise anyone ever again about anything...wouldn't it be great if that was actually possible?

Post your comments below or email john.baker@jpress.co.uk with your views