Knowledgable Michael Crick. Photo: Shayan Barjesteh van Waalwijk

THE trouble with these journalist know-alls is that, as they age, they feel the need to endlessly chip in with soggy anecdotes which nobody has asked for. [Have you read your own column recently?, ED]

So it might be said of writer and journalist Michael Crick, a master of the trade who we all used to enjoy watching chasing duplicitous figures around car parks.

I only wonder because a desperate father turned to Twitter this week to explain that his teenage son had accidentally left two years of A-level artwork on the bus.

“He can’t get his A-level without it,” the man explained, as people shared his appeal to hunt it down.

Mr Crick saw the note and replied: “Lawrence of Arabia famously lost the 1,000-page manuscript of his great book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom in the refreshment room of Reading station. It was never found, so he had to write it again, poor guy. Who knows? Perhaps it was better, second time round.”

As fascinating as the anecdote was, perhaps readers can guess the reaction, as people explained that the student would hardly have time to do his coursework all over again by the deadline.

“If that doesn’t cheer the poor chap up, nothing will…,” said one response. Another added: “What a smart alec tweet to send in reply to someone whose teenage child will justifiably be devastated.”

As is the way with social media, others were more blunt, including the tweeter who told Mr Crick: “I lost my virginity in an alleyway opposite a pet shop. Sadly neither Lawrence’s or my loss will help with the missing art folder.”

Twitter can be a forum for ill-timed anecdotes and angry responses, but it does have some uses: the appeal led to the return of the portfolio, which was found in a depot – to which Mr Crick later celebrated: “Brilliant news, that’s so cheering.”

If only TE Lawrence, the archaeologist and army officer played by Peter O’Toole in “the film”, had been equipped with social media.

That said, if we wind back to 1997 and the discovery of another draft of Seven Pillars in Chichester, you’ll find experts wondering aloud if the Reading train station thing was all a hand-me-down myth anyhow.

Maybe it’s just a story that sounds better with a second retelling.