I go to various shops that sell spying equipment, for Time Out. And then they made me have my identity changed.

Spying is always portrayed on film and TV as being a glamorous and sexually rewarding activity. Men in black with beautifully chiseled features move around deftly, being consistently “crack” and invariably “elite”. The reality, however, is that the majority of spying is generally done incompetently by gormless members of the general public, waddling clumsily, peering around corners and noisily knocking things over, fuelled by a heady mixture of paranoia and neurosis. There’s a clutch of shops in London which offer products to assist us in our attempts at covert surveillance and so, thrilled at the prospect of owning a gaudy tie with a camera mounted in it, I went to visit them armed with a list of people who I suspected of doing things they really ought not to be doing. I was going to catch them out with my new gadgets. Then they’d be sorry.

The website for the Corner Spy Shop [020 8202 4777] invites us to visit them in Hendon. The subterfuge began immediately – it’s not on a corner, and it isn’t a shop. Instead, a small sign proudly proclaims “Manufacturers Of Surveillance Equipment. Private Investigators. Suppliers to HM Government.” At this point I decided to remove the small microphone which I’d blu-tacked to the side of my bag in order to record the conversation. If anyone was going to notice it, surely they would. I was buzzed through a brown door and ushered upstairs into a tiny room with a long trestle table, at which sat five people hunched over soldering irons and surrounded by circuit boards and masses of black cables, working unhappily to the strains of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2. On the website they refer to a “showroom” – surely this couldn’t be it? I was introduced to Brian, an affable man in shorts, and another man whose name I didn’t catch as he was staring at me with a most unnerving intensity. I explained that I was locked in a bitter dispute with my neighbours over a parking space, and that I suspected them of making crank calls to me at all hours of the day and night. Could they help me find out for sure? I was shown a Twin Speed Telephone Recorder (£59), a modified Sony machine which starts recording whenever the receiver is lifted. Brian used it to call the National Lottery line so I could get an idea of the sound quality, but I really wanted something that would catch the neighbours perpetrating their prank – not merely give me the opportunity of spending depressing hours re-listening to the harrowing calls I had received. What I was after was something I had seen in their catalogue which bore a hilarious resemblance to a stethoscope and would enable me to listen through walls, appropriately called a Listen Through Wall Device (£135). But just as I was broaching this subject, a woman appeared and called Brian away urgently, possibly on government business. Rather than spend any more time being stared at by his colleague, I thanked them for their help and made my way over to Walthamstow.

The Lorraine Spy Shop [020 8558 4226] is more welcoming, with big cheery blue letters on the façade and more of a showroom feel within. While sitting on a sizable leather sofa waiting to be attended to I looked around, and immediately noticed my sweating head on six television screens. This was slightly unnerving as I couldn’t see any cameras. A well groomed gentleman eventually took a seat beside me and asked how he could help. I told him how I suspected my babysitter, a daughter of a very close friend, of “getting up to stuff” when we were out, and I felt the need to make certain of my suspicions before confronting either her or her parents. “What kind of things do you suspect her of doing?”, he asked. “Well,” I replied gravely, “I can sometimes smell marijuana in the living room when we get home.” “Anything else?” “Um… I just think she’s a bad babysitter. And I think her boyfriend is using our shower. I mean, we pay her six pounds an hour…” I said solemnly. Lorraine offer a range of items which would certainly do the trick, but be warned – spying is an expensive business. The first option was a camera which can be concealed in an existing infra-red alarm system, setting a VCR going whenever movement is detected – for instance, inhaling deeply from a bong, or undoing the trousers of a spotty youth while spread-eagled over a coffee table. But the price tag for this Covert Video System is £1000, and I’m after something cheaper, and certainly more cheerful. So I was shown the six cameras which had been trained on my every movement since I entered the building. There was one cunningly concealed in a bottle of Glenfiddich, although on reflection it should have piqued my curiosity why a single malt would take pride of place on their shelves. Another was buried in a vase of flowers, another in the centre of a clock face. These Mini Cameras go for a more modest £350, plus a bit extra if you would like one to be mounted in a mantelpiece knick-knack of your choice.

My next stop was the West End. Many of these shops are collected around, appropriately, Bond Street. In Communication Control Systems (020 7629 0223) I planned to tell them that I suspected myself of sleepwalking, that items in my flat were getting broken and moved around during the night, and that I wanted proof that I was the culprit and rather not an assortment of poltergeists. But I reconsidered my plan on being greeted by the suave Mr Cunningham, who was dressed in standard Mayfair spy shop attire (polished shoes, braces, quizzically raised right eyebrow). It was a silly idea, in any case. There are easier ways of knowing if you’ve been somnambulating, such as strapping a paint-sodden sponge to your ankle before going to bed. I asked if I could look around the place, which is a paranoiac’s paradise. They sell items such as the Child Guardian (£25), a “multi-function child alarm, security monitor and locating system”, which comes in an orange box featuring a grinning, highly strung mother and her terrified child who no doubt has a transmitter taped to its wrist. Nightspy (£395), which replaces the time-honoured carrot-eating tradition with technology which allows you to “Own The Night… whether on surveillance or on safari”, or presumably both. A Voice Stress Analyser (£3,000) assesses whether people who phone you are telling the truth – very useful for those last minute dating blow-outs – and most impressively, there’s a 12 volume spying information resource called Knowledge Is Power (£200), that shows you how to “survive and prosper in the 21st century.” I was relieved to have found this.
They also stock counter-surveillance and personal protection products, such as the book Revenge Is Sweet (£15) and the AL-2Z (£195), a torch which “gives off a blinding bolt of immobilizing light, stunning your victim but leaving no lasting damage.” I asked Mr Cunningham about the legal implications of owning this equipment. “No problem at all, it doesn’t cause any physical harm. A stun gun, however, would be more difficult to justify.” What about the rest of their stock? Do the police care that I might be buying items to spy on my babysitter, my neighbours, my friends? “Generally not. Our privacy laws are nowhere near as stringent as in the USA, and it always comes down to individual responsibility. For example, you could easily buy a hunting knife, which isn’t an illegal object as such, but if you saw one in a shop window you’d be thinking ‘my god, why would someone need that?’ The only thing that doesn’t operate in a legal grey area is telephone tapping, which certainly is an offence.” But what about cellphone jammers, which I’ve seen for sale today? These items block all mobile telephone communication within 100 yards, surely that would only ever be used for malicious reasons? “There are legitimate uses. Theatres might want to use them, for example. But at the same time they might block a call to a doctor from a seriously ill patient, and that could be seen as a malicious act. Legislation always tends to follow a bit late for technology, and what is construed as an offence is rarely defined clearly.”

Up the road on Portman Square is Spycatcher (020 7486 3885), where I tested the assistant’s knowledge with the no doubt common problem of a boss suspecting employees of misusing their computers. I imagined them downloading swathes of jaw-dropping pornography the minute I left the room, of indulging in marathon chatroom cybersex sessions, and obviously I was very keen to know how to do it too. They have the perfect solution, a tiny 2-inch long Keystroke Capture Device (£145) that plugs in between the keyboard and the computer and records every password someone may enter, every expletive they may type. For the even more bare-faced snoop, there is software such as Spector (£99) which can be used not only to record keyboard movement but also monitor email and internet activity. I can’t help but giggle at the testimonial of this software: “After 11 years of marriage I finally find a product that confirms what I have suspected for many years: that my husband is a cyber-pervert of the first order.” I was tempted to scrawl “Thank you, Spector!” after it. I took more of a look around Spycatcher, avoiding the suspicious gaze of more men in braces and shiny shoes. The cabinets full of black boxes, transmitters and tape recorders had started to become a little mundane, but there was one area in which this shop scored highly over the rest: a display of various items of food packaging, modified to contain cameras and microphones, giving off the evocative air of a badly stocked Streatham grocers.

My last stop was at the imaginatively named Spy Shop [020 7493 4007] on South Audley Street. The window features cute little signs hanging down from strings, but instead of the usual “Only £24.99″, “Bargains Galore”, “Buy Now Pay February”, these are designed to strike fear into your very soul: “Conspiracy”, “Theft”, “Infidelity”, “Deception”, “Disloyalty.” Emboldened by a swift vodka and tonic in the pub over the road I sought out an assistant, and with a despairing tone told the tragic tale of how I suspected my partner of cheating, and that I was extremely keen to find out where she was going every night. Ideally I would like to put a device in her bag or her clothing which would allow me to plot her movements electronically. “You know, like radar,” I added. The assistant replied with a mixture of disbelief and sheer pity. “If you ask me, her location is not going to tell you what you want to know, mate. You’re better off bugging your living room with this transmitter when you’re both at home, making a big deal about popping out for 20 minutes, nipping round the corner with the receiver and see if she makes any phone calls. Odds are she probably will.” How this lifts my spirits… But how much will this Transmitter And Receiver System set me back? £1,000, with the recorder extra on top – a hefty investment for a product that you’re probably only going to use once, and will invariably be the bringer of bad news. I decide that my partner’s infidelity needs to be investigated with good, honest, old fashioned stalking. I make an appointment to go to make-up specialists Charles Fox. With a new identity and a pair of See-Behind Sunglasses (£35) which would allow me to see everything going on behind my head, I’d be poised to make the sting of the century.

But, on the other hand, there’s nothing less likely to bring two lovers back together than one confronting the other with a loud “AH-HA!” whilst wearing a wig and a false moustache in a busy restaurant on a Friday night. Maybe that’s why personal spying is essentially doomed to fail. Perhaps sometimes it’s better not to know. So for now, I think I’ll stick to honesty and openness, and leave clandestine duplicity to better looking people on the telly.

Charles Fox started making wigs 125 years ago. Before long he’d branched out into providing costumes and jewellery to the theatre. Today his name is synonymous with make up, with a thriving wholesale business and a shop just south of Covent Garden market.

My disguise is coming on a treat. Fake stubble, moustache, eyes set back. I finally get to see myself and find the resemblance to an ailing and overweight Kris Kristofferson rather appealing. There’s no way my partner could spot me looking like this. Could she?