Now it seems I'm Ben who?

It was just another typical Monday night for me when I was told the bad news. I was at the International Stinging Nettle Eating Championships in Dorset, happily chomping on my ninth stem, when my mobile rang.

A sombre voice informed me that I had been dropped from Tatler's 100 Most Invited list - which was itself launched with a celebrity-packed party earlier this week.

Oh, the pain and humiliation of it. I had nose-dived from number 13, down to the oblivious realms of nothingness. Tatler, after all, is practically family as, before the BBC's Castaway series, I was the picture editor of that very magazine.

I had already suffered the indignity of disappearing from its most-eligible bachelor list last year - I had once been a very desirable number four - and now there was the added blow of this latest disgrace.

The worst part about it was that I had been replaced on the new list by a Canadian upstart called Bryan Adams.

I felt a rush of hopelessness and disappointment as I realised I was a social pariah. But at least I'm not alone - joining me on the relegation bench are the likes of Stella McCartney, Matthew Freud, Hugh Grant, Charles Saatchi, Kate Winslet, Sam Mendes, Gwyneth Paltrow and Zac Goldsmith.

All of us united by our fall from social grace. Replacing us, the social no-hopers, are the eminently more invited likes of Liz Hurley and Arun Nayar, Ben Goldsmith, Damien Hirst and Fritz Von Whatshisname.

What had they done that I hadn't? How had I let this happen? I have myself to blame.

If only I had gone to that make-up launch party instead of spending the evening with friends, and what had come over me to choose a quiet weekend in Scotland over the do for the new FrostFrench undies range, with a hundred people I didn't know?

According to the new list, my socialhierarchystealer, Mr Adams, deserves his entry because he "pens as many lyrics as RSVP cards". I recall all those invites to book launches, restaurant awards, summer parties and, of course, Most Invited parties crowding my mantelpiece, gathering cobwebs.

A tear welled in my eye as I munched through another stem of nettles. That's it, I thought: no more free champagne, canapés and polite conversation with strangers for me. No more limp handshakes and cries of "Daahling!"

Hugh, Kate, Zac, Gwyneth and I will have to find something else to do in the evenings. I'm going to ask them all to Yorkshire next Saturday, where I'm taking part in the One Man and his Dog sheep trials.

If we're lucky, next year we'll make it onto a very different, but much more fun A-list - for Farmers Weekly.

Ben Fogle presents Death by Pets, tonight on BBC1 at 8pm.