It can be difficult to maintain a sense of modesty as a statue in Trafalgar Square. Particularly after the reviews I have received from tourists, students, a passing nurse and one rather anxious police officer. Even after an hour of standing on my wind-blasted plinth in Nelson’s shadow, I climbed down with the warm sense of self-assurance that comes from knowing that one is an important work of art.

The fourth plinth is currently occupied, so I had acquired my own from a large warehouse in West London: a column of fibreglass wrought to resemble an ancient pillar of stone.

At first, nobody paid me the least bit of attention. Some glanced up furtively as they passed and nodded to themselves, as if I had confirmed something they already suspected. It was cold, it was wet, the pigeons were edging ever closer. I began to shout at people. “How do I look?” I said to an elderly lady. She turned and smiled. “You look lovely, dear,” she said. Then she hurried away.

Just as I was beginning to despair, an Israeli tourist approached and asked if she could be photographed standing at my feet. Libby Shamir, 30, from Tel Aviv, felt that, in many ways, I was better than the other statues. “I can talk to you and find out who you are and what you do,” she said. “Instead of just seeing your name and the year you were born on a plaque.”

Yes, yes, but was I art? “You might be Post-Modern,” she said, after a pause. “It’s thinking outside the box.”

After 20 minutes an officer from the Greater London Authority approached to tell me that I was not permitted to pretend to be a statue in that part of the square. I would be allowed to stand at the top of the steps, however, in front of the National Gallery.

There, though I say it myself, I attracted quite a crowd. A policeman approached. He seemed minded to remove me, but after I had persuaded him that I was in fact an interactive work examining the place of the global citizen, he relented. “I see all sorts,” he muttered as he walked away.

Everyone else was very positive. All agreed that I was extremely lifelike. Like any great work of art, they saw something new every time they looked at me. One moment I was on the phone, the next I was trying to look like Michaelangelo’s David. The only problem was that they found it difficult to assess me objectively as a work of art, as they did not want to hurt my feelings.

Eventually, Will McCaffrey, 20, from London, told me bluntly that I moved too much for a statue.

“Try putting some more meaning into it,” said Shan Quan, 24, a student from Beijing. I wasn’t sure how to do this. Otherwise, she was very supportive.

But my biggest fan was Brittany App, 28, from California, a photographer for various tattooist magazines, who spent nearly 20 minutes staring at me. “I think you are Surrealist,” she said. “I still think I might be having some sort of strange dream.”

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