deeply profound and intellectual reason that it's Michael Caine's character in The Italian Job . ('Michael Caine' itself, of course, being a pseudonym. The man born Maurice Micklewhite had for a while been acting as Michael Scott. But during a call to his agent from a Leicester Square phone box he learned that there was already one of those in Equity. 'You've got to change your name again,' said the agent. Scott looked up to see that the Odeon Cinema was showing The Caine Mutiny . Decision made.) For a very brief time it felt strange, thinking that a book I'd written (even one as slight as a football-based tome aimed at the cistern) would hit the shelves with a different name on it. But then I came to see it as fun, a game, a bit of a jape. After that, as Charlie published more loo books, the conceit began to feel a little more -- though only a little more -- substantial. Croker became ... well, not a real person, rather a real way of denoting that this was a different side of the same person. Denoting to myself, that is; it was a useful discipline in planning the books. Broadly speaking, Croker publishes short books of trivia, while I publish longer books that are essentially trivia too, just linked together with pseudo-intellectual waffle. Charlie's latest offering is I Didn't Get Where I Am ... (available in all good bookshops, and quite a few ropey ones too). It's