As mornings go, this one has been more surreal than most.

Somehow, I've found myself exchanging tweets with Jeremy Clarkson over fish, chips and pigeons.

Regular readers will know that me and Jeremy go back a long way, although he doesn't know it. As young would-be journalists in 1980, we went to the Grimsby Evening Telegraph to be interviewed for a job at the sister paper in Scunthorpe - and I got it.

I subsequently discovered that they'd meant to give it to Jezza but they got us mixed up. I very much doubt he'd have been able to cut it at Scunny anywhere - it was hard work and he's a bit of a luvvie.

Anyway, the Top Gear legend tweeted a picture of The Northern Echo this morning, in an apparent mickey-take of our fantastic, bumper value, free fish and chips offer.

James May then got in on the act and the retweets were flying everywhere.

Clarkson then tweeted: "Tomorrow, The Northern Echo gives away a free pigeon."

Oh, how he underestimates us - we did that years ago. We'd had an unsuccessful stint at racehorse ownership. Our syndicated horse, Northern Echo, proved hopeless, so we got a replacement. That one was killed on the gallops before it had even run.

A racing pigeon seemed a safer option. I did my research, found a pigeon breeder, who was a coalman in Cockfield, and negotiated the deal: we got a prime bird in exchange for a free advert for his coal round.

The pigeon raced under the name The Northern Echo - but it flew into a tree. When I say it flew into a tree, I don't mean it crashed headlong into one, I just mean it flew into one for a rest after a couple of miles and sat on a branch while the other birds headed for home.

Anyway, I don't suppose it's every day a mega-star with 518,489 Twitter followers plugs your free fish & chips offer. Quite a coo really.