Can you still be the boy next door and live in a Swiss tax haven?

So Lewis Hamilton, in a year when your earnings are reported to have exceeded £1m, what is it that attracts you to the tax haven of Switzerland? With the kind of bluster that sportsmen specialise in, Hamilton has cited press intrusion, rather than tax avoidance, as his reason for leaving the UK. "You lose your ability to go to places. You really struggle to live a normal life ... I can't go to the cinema. I go to the bathroom in a petrol station and people come in there for autographs. It's tough but I knew that was going to be the case," says Hamilton.

In Switzerland, it's different, apparently. "People don't go up to you - they give you your space," he said. So, it's just a happy coincidence that your new chosen home is a tax haven? "Higher taxes maybe interest the management but not me," he said.

Hamilton, pet, we know you're earning a big fat wedge, and we don't begrudge you a cent, but next you'll be telling us you're just a really big fan of cuckoo clocks.

I blame Hamilton's McLaren team mate, Fernando Alonso. Whatever he does, Hamilton feels the need to go one better. Alonso divides his time between a house in Oxford and another one near Lake Geneva.

It is hard not to feel a tad disappointed at news of Hamilton's plans. But why does it matter where he lives? The truth is that we all love Hamilton for being "one of us" - the dashing lead in a rags-to-riches tale of the boy from the council house who took the exclusive world of formula one by storm. His dual heritage (his paternal grandparents are from Grenada) marks him out in the pale world of F1 - it makes him a child of our multicultural times. If Hamilton moves to Switzerland, doesn't that turn him into just another obscenely rich sportsman?

Aware of how important likeable "normality" is to the Hamilton brand, he doesn't want to be labelled as a tax dodger, hence the "press intrusion" excuse. But he has only spent about five minutes in the limelight, and it has been an unadulterated love-in, so I think we can safely assume the press is, for once, not the culprit. Tomorrow: Wayne Rooney moves to Jersey because the milk is nicer.