I’ve just got back from a mad weekend at Camp Bestival. Bestival takes fancy dress very seriously, hosting what must be the world’s biggest fancy dress party for the last five years. Last year in the Isle of Wight, I witnessed a divinely surreal moment when, headlining act, The Beasty Boys bounded across the stage and hollered, ‘All the pirates in the house say ‘yo’!’ And about 20,000 pirates returned the call with gusto.

Camp Bestival, (son of Bestival, held in deepest, darkest Dorset) continued to wave the flamboyant flag with this year’s theme based on Alice In Wonderland. Elliot (my eight year old) and I took our brief very seriously and so, all last week in-between client meetings and planning sessions I was scuttling around the West End purchasing bunny ears, spotted hankies and large time pieces, bizarrely encountering a city acquaintance in the same shop asking if it stocked any blue frocks and white knee socks suited to his 6ft 2in burly frame…

And so, after hours of titivation, there we all were in our fancy dress best, 10,000 Mad Hatters, Alices, Tweedle Dums and Tweedle Dees, whole packs of cards, very large mushrooms and very round cup cakes - all flaunting it. And what did the, oh so clever, Sunday Times do?

It set up a Style Tent and into the fields of preening populace, sent out a roving snapper and asked people if they would mind being papped?

Mind?

These normally bashful Middle English types were only too delighted to be forever immortalised as a doped up caterpillar or a super-size tea pot. Each of us was then given a card with a unique reference number so we could log on to www.timesonline.co.uk and see our photo mocked up as the front cover of Style Magazine – genius.

Back at base, before I even thought of running a shower and I really did need one, I was checking in to check myself out.

So now, not only has The Times inflated its online audience by several (albeit, slightly eccentric) thousand, in terms of promoting the brand, some may even go so far as to say it’s The Cheshire Cat’s whiskers…