My head hurts. Just like it did when I took the test last week. Mensa, the self-styled 'High IQ Society', want me to join them - and I'm still trying to figure out why. It all began when the Herald's news editor decided that one of his reporters should cover the organisation's 60th birthday.

Plymouth residents were being given the chance to test their noggins in an IQ test, and he wanted a volunteer to sit it too.

It should have been a routine feature article. Sit the test. Muck it up. Chat to some clever people. Write the story.

Instead, I now find myself in a dilemma, resistant to (but admittedly flattered by) the coquettish advances of a bunch of eggheads.

All because I scored 151 in the IQ test, which apparently puts me in the top two per cent in the country.

If that makes me a genius, then I'm a flawed one - for this must have been a flawed test.

When it comes to the affairs that matter in life, I'm of little use to anyone. Let's look at the evidence.

I couldn't tie my shoelaces until I was 11 - about a month after I passed the 11-plus. I didn't want to go to grammar school wearing shoes which did up with Velcro, and things looked dicey for a while.

I'm afraid of heights. Terrified. That's a problem when your job involves meeting council officers in the Civic Centre.

I'm squeamish. Many of you will have hid behind the sofa when Doctor Who was on TV. I used to do the same, only my Mum was watching Casualty at the time.

And I'm mad. I've trudged into work with rings around my eyes for the last month, just because one country is playing another at cricket.

With a resumee like that, I'm hardly fit to take my place among the UK's elite.

Yet, according to Mensa, I am - providing I cough up the £45 annual membership fee.

With membership comes the chance to meet new people, wear a collector's medal, sip specially-produced malt whisky and sample all the pleasures that other 'Mensans' enjoy.

These other Mensans include Sir Clive Sinclair (he's honorary president), Sir Jimmy Savile and Carol Vorderman.

But not Carol Smillie - she got thrown out in 2003 after she admitted she cheated in the test. Tut tut.

I've already met one Mensan. Her name is Hazel, and she oversaw the IQ test, which was held at the University of Plymouth last Saturday.

She wouldn't tell me her IQ, but she seemed really clever. She took her Mensa test in Spanish - so she's got a sense of humour too.

Three other people took the test along with me - two men, and a girl, whose parents were waiting outside expectantly at the end.

One of the guys was chirpy and seemed to think he'd done quite well. The other was 'in the zone' throughout and didn't speak a word.

I looked like an academic - but only because an apple pasty I'd bought 10 minutes before the test had exploded after one bite, showering me in pieces of crust.

After the test, Hazel told us that every Mensan (or wannabe Mensan) is different. We were living proof.

"It's nice to meet people who are on the same wavelength as you," she explained, in a verbal slideshow on the benefits of joining the society.

"At the weekend, I'm going to walk my dog, and lots of other Mensans are bringing their dogs too."

Hazel has a point. Even if there's no secret handshake or even a secret Santa, members of this exclusive club must be on the same wavelength.

Since receiving my invitation to join, I've already developed a sixth sense for identifying fellow-Mensans in unlikely places.

Within an hour of learning my test score, I found myself in the queue for the 'Basket Only' checkouts at Sainsbury's, Marsh Mills.

In front of me was a man with a trolley, seemingly oblivious to myriad signs about baskets.

I bit my tongue, and I'm glad I did: for then I realised he must have been a Mensan too.

Because I didn't have a basket either. I was cradling my salad bowl and bottle of Lucozade in my arms and, hence, ignoring the signs too.

This chap must have been a Mensan. He'd seen me without my basket, quickly reasoned that the signs weren't to be obeyed, and took his chance with an air of nobility.

For it surely hadn't escaped his notice that 'Basket Only' is an anagram of 'Takes Nobly'. We Mensans see these things.

Now, thanks to a clerical error at IQ HQ, I have the chance to meet people like him for dog walks, organised trips and games of chess.

Where do I sign?