This shirt, it said, represented the latest in stain-resistant technology. "It sounds like a challenge but I'm sure you're up to it," chortled my colleague as she departed, this disparagement being the price paid by me for having the totally undeserved reputation as being the office pig.

It is true, I admit, that there have been occasions on which I have returned from a demanding luncheon engagement bearing the odd battle scar - here a dab of spaghetti sauce, there a splash of cabernet sauvignon.

A woman of my acquaintance once described me as a walking menu, a harsh and only partially accurate description. Food, sadly, is drawn to me. Within minutes of plates being delivered to a table, fragments of food will begin appearing on my shirt and tie.

I've tried the multiple serviette approach, swathing myself in table linen until I look like a heavily bandaged patient who, tiring of hospital food, has escaped to a restaurant for a reasonable meal. I have tried being painstakingly careful in my eating habits but inevitably there is a slip betwixt the fork and the lips.

Accordingly, my ties have a life expectancy measured in mere weeks while pale coloured shirts are consigned to the garbage within a month of purchase.

The stain-proof shirt, then, held some promise so I took it home, washed it and ironed it and wore it. I have now worn it six times and not so much as a molecule of soy or tomato sauce has graced its pristine front.

It's not that the stains wash off. Rather, due to the perversity of the universe, whenever I am wearing my stain-proof shirt I don't spill anything. I've sat at tables waiting for a splosh of sauce to impact all over my pink stain-proof shirt but I remain stainless.

I wore it again last week and after a stainless sandwich eaten at my desk, wandered off to buy a cup of coffee, sliding my hand into my pocket in search of change and feeling a moist spot as I did. "That's odd," I thought, withdrawing my hand. "My fingers have turned blue."

Looking down, I noticed a small blue spot on the outside of my pants which was rapidly becoming a large blue spot. "Joy of joys," I thought. "It's the old exploding-blue-biro-in-the-pocket routine."

The pants had cost me $90 and had been worn twice. Why didn't I put the biro in my shirt pocket like I always did? Because I was wearing my stain-proof shirt and my non-stain-proof pants.

My bachelor skills may now extend to preparing simple meals but the art of stain removal remains foreign to me.

I remain unsure as to what I did wrong. I may, I suspect, have used too much water. Perhaps the soap I used was particularly unsuited to dealing with ink. Maybe it's all to do with the scrubbing motion of the hands. An anti-clockwise motion is best, perhaps.

As the stain spread, I descended into panic and applied more water and more soap. It was hopeless. The stain engulfed the legs and spead to the crutch. I now had a blue groin.

How could such a small amount of ink devour an entire pair of pants? I threw the pants into the bath and retreated before the stain spread to my body and I turned bight blue.

The experience left me feeling rather dejected if for no other reason than it meant I now had to go out and buy another pair of pants which meant shopping, an ordeal which invariably left me in ill humour.

So I went to work the next morning and clicked on my email and saw one marked Urgent which read as follows: "As you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me because I believe everyone will die someday.

"My name is Shadak Shari, a merchant in Dubai, in the UAE and I have been diagnosed with cancer and have only a few months to live.

"I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone but my business. Though I am very rich, I was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for.

"But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world. I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul, so I have decided to give also to charity organisations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth.

"The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of $12 000 000 that I have with a finance company abroad. I will want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatch it to charity organisations.

"I have set aside 10 per cent for you and for your time. You can contact me via my personal email: shdkshr@netscape.com. God be with you. Shadak Shari."

How timely. All I have to do is forward my bank account details to poor old Shadak and I'll be better off by $1.2 million. I'll be able to pay someone to buy me a hundred pairs of new pants and a warehouse full of stain-proof shirts.