Consternation and ridicule have greeted the news (on The Spectator's blog) that Gordon Brown is looking for a new career as an after-dinner speaker, and hopes for $100,000 for a night's work. (For $20,000 more, Sarah Brown will come too, either to hand out prizes or stand around looking supportive, like Linda McCartney in the line-up of Wings, but without the tambourine.)

It's piquant to discover that Mr Brown asked a top speakers' agency to find him bookings in the Middle East and Asia, rather than in, say, Hackney or Glasgow, where he might receive a less enthusiastic welcome. What's the impulse behind his new ambition? Can it have anything to do with the news that Tony Blair has been paid £240,000 for a 20-minute speech in Japan?

But I'm all in favour of Gordon seizing this chance to reinvent himself, because I know he's rather an amusing talker. You think I'm kidding? Not at all. I remember his appearance at The Independent's 20th birthday celebrations, when he discussed his ambiguous feelings about nature. How, before new Labour took office, he used to write an economic policy document of utter brilliance, release it to the press and open the Indy next morning, expecting either praise or some intellectually robust criticism. "Instead," he said, "the front page would be filled with some vital enquiry like, 'What's become of the common lapwing?'" The crowd was convulsed.

I saw Mr Brown at the Hay Festival (where Bill Clinton, coincidentally, came to deliver a $100,000-for-an-hour speech when he'd just left power) where he was interviewed by Mariella Frostrup. He was chatty and forthcoming, and deployed that after-dinner staple, Famous People I Have Met (he told a funny story about Nelson Mandela and Hilary Benn.) He tried out a version of that cornerstone of Richard Pryor's stand-up routine, Things That Puzzled Me As a Child (a sober-minded kid, he read about Edith Cavell "and wondered how anyone could kill a nurse.") And he amused the audience with tales of The Wacky Jobs I Had Before I Got Serious – in his case it was editing a books programme on Scottish TV, on to which he invited Anthony Burgess and Hugh McIlvanney. He was terrific. Then – disaster – someone asked him about politics. His eyes became hooded. His hands went into their chopping-onions gesture, and he went back to being boring, opaque and self-righteous. So welcome GB, the after-dinner smoothie, provided he can be kept off certain subjects. Like being a prime minister, say.

drive from www.independent.co.uk