Here are three hotel-based stories that are designed to make us think about the nature of identity.

In other words, ‘who are tha when thar at ooam?’ Well, to be honest, I know who I am when I’m at home: I’m the man who gets up very early for a stroll and then falls asleep on the settee in the evening. That’s who I am.

Hotel-based story one: I was staying for work in a hotel in a seaside town once and the people who were employing me had paid for the room but I had to pay for the extras.

I promise you I hadn’t raided the minibar and I hadn’t had room service. All I had was a phone call home which (and this will tell you how long ago the incident happened) cost 50p.

As I checked out at the crack of dawn to get the first train home the night porter, a lad who looked like he should be in his first year at secondary school, said ‘and you’ll have to pay the extras, sir… that’ll be 50p’.

I admit to you, readers of the Chronicle, that I was hoping he’d let me off, but he didn’t. I looked in my wallet and I had no change so I offered him a £20 note. He looked in his till and he had no change either.

There was a momentary change-based stand-off. Again, I was hoping he’d let me off but he was a determined boy.

‘You’ll have to pay with your credit card’, he said, with his voice breaking a little. So, although it seemed daft to pay a half-a-quid bill with plastic, I got my credit card out and handed it to him. His eyes blazed and he grabbed me by the wrist. ‘Got you now’ he said, like a junior detective. I looked blank, as I often do.

He pointed to a framed photograph on the wall. It was of a man who looked nothing like me. Under the portrait was the caption ‘Ian McMillan, Hotel Manager’. ‘You’re the bloke who pinched our gaffer’s credit card!’ he said, indicating my name on the card.

I said ‘well, if I’d pinched his credit card I wouldn’t go and stay in his hotel, would I?’

He took some convincing, I can tell you. But eventually he let me go. The nature of identity, eh? I’m a hotel manager at the seaside.

Hotel-based story two: I’m staying in a hotel in a northern city. My room is on the fifth floor but, like anybody who wants to stay fit and healthy would, I ignored the lift and took the stairs.

My thighs seemed to be on fire. At the fourth floor a cleaner came through a door and started to walk downstairs. ‘Aren’t you talking then, Frank?’ she asked. I looked round. ‘I thought it was your day off anyway, Frank?’

I had to give her some bad news: ‘I’m not Frank’ I said. ‘Well you look like Frank’ she replied. I asked her who Frank was. It turned out he was the hotel maintenance man. ‘You’re his double’ the cleaner said. ‘You could be twins, I’m telling you...’

She walked away shaking her head in wonder. I’ve stayed in that hotel a number of times and I’m sorry to say I’ve never met Frank; I guess it would have been like walking into a mirror. The nature of identity, eh? I’m a maintenance man in a city hotel. My name is Frank.

Hotel-based story three: I’m sitting in the almost deserted bar of a hotel in London. I like the quietness of hotel bars; there’s often hardly anybody else there and they come round filling your bowl of nuts up every few minutes.

In this particular bar there was a man at the far end who kept looking at me. He was a shortish chap with grey hair. He put his thumb up to me and wandered over. ‘Is it Ian McMillan?’ he said. I couldn’t speak because my mouth was full of free nuts so I nodded.

‘Well, everybody at my work says I look just like you so can we have a photo together? They’ll think they’re seeing double!’ I swallowed the nuts and agreed, waving the barman over to be the photographer.

‘Where are you from?’ I asked the man. He answered ‘Rochdale’, in a broad Lancashire accent.

‘My mates will never believe this!’ I have to tell you, though, that he looked nothing like me. Nothing at all. Ah well, that’s life. The nature of identity, eh? I’m a Lancashireman with grey hair.