Larry Death's post reminded me...
Not mine but my mummy's.

My mum lived in Subi when Julie Bishop was the local MP. They met and struck up a few conversations at a couple of the local cafes.
As two high achieving and strongly driven women of a similar age they struck up a friendship. I met her a few times at my mum's place.

This woman is truly fucking scary. She's only just a bit smarter than Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne. At least she's smart enough to know when to keep her mouth shout.
In the few months that she's been the Foreign Minister she's managed to totally mishandle the "Spying on Indonesia's president" scandal and nearly prompt an international incident with China over their recent re-jigging of their no-fly zone. The really scary thing is - I'll bet dollars to cents that she's angling to be Oz's next female prime-minister.


Julie Bishop ladies and gentlemen.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Mon 9 Dec 2013, 4:30, 5 replies)

jerry springer, and others...
i live in west london and see b-list types about now and again, i spoke to ant or dec, they were both in the pub for an england world cup game. john leslie used to drink in a pub near me, and then suddenly disappeared for some reason. pretty much the same thing happened with justin lee colins, who had no compunction about cavorting with various young birds despite the fact it was well known he was, at the time, married with kids, as he wasn't shy about talking about it on tv, and this was at the height of his fame. but my favourite tale is one that i didn't personally see, but several friends, who are reliable witnesses, did.

jerry springer walks in to the pub with a young petite blonde hanging off his arm, in a tiny dress and towering heels. they are followed by a 6ft+ black bodyguard who is bursting out of a shiny suit as he is nearly as wide as he is tall. jerry goes to the bar, gets two drinks for him and his bird and they find a table. the muscle tries and fails to lurk inconspicuously, sans drink, near them. within seconds of them sitting down pretty much everyone in the pub starts chanting very loudly "JER-RY, JER-RY, JER-RY". they scarper almost immediately, having been in the pub for probably less than four minutes, to the sounds of the chant and hysterical laughter.
(itilliterate, Mon 9 Dec 2013, 3:03, Reply)

Not sure 'celebrity' is the right word, but it all panned out pretty well in the end.
I was outside a Brixton venue, maybe The Fridge before it was The Fridge, waiting with a friend for the doors to open on a The Cult concert one hot early 1980s evening.

An effete chap walked up and down the line talking very softly to a few random lads in the queue, and soon came to us. "Do you want to come back to my flat for a bit?" he asked, I noticed a toothbrush sticking out his shirt pocket, assumed it was one of those gay codes for something or other, something or other I'm not supposed to know unless I'm part of the scene. We both politely, and wordlessly, declined his invitation. Both of us were as embarrassed as each other to have been propositioned by a man (we weren't homophobes, just naive teenagers who hadn't been around long enough to recognise our fears were indoctrinated ones) and we never spoke of it again.

Not even a couple of years later when our interviewer's very memorable fizzog was plastered over all the papers and TV News, it was Dennis Nilsen.
(J H Christ began in Afrika ka ka ka ka, Mon 9 Dec 2013, 0:01, Reply)

I was lucky enough
to be the meat in a Jedward sandwich.
A friend 'won' 2 tickets for their gig complete with a meet and greet beforehand.
Wondering what the fuck we were doing, we got a slightly bit tipsy beforehand then met the other lucky winners at the venue. It was a lovely young man escorting his nephew who was about 8 and ever so excited. The manager came out to meet us, and fair enough being met by two 40 year old women stinking of fags and booze wasn't the most exciting thing ever, but he was a complete cunt to us all, including the 8 year old kid. We were ushered backstage...
Kiddie was BESIDE himself at this point...then they came out. Bounding out of the dressing room all ready for the show covered in make-up and weirdly dressed and jabbering on at a million miles and hour. They gave the kiddie loads of attention and posed happily for pics. I asked them to say 'potato' and they did! They didn't want to but I made them! They also gave me a Jedward sandwich kiss on each cheek. Poor buggers.
Then cunt face manager blustered and shoved and pushed cameras away and insisted that time was up, and threw us out the door.
As I was the last one out, one of them shouted after me "do you have the goggles'? (kiddie had pics taken with their ski goggles on)
Erm...no. sorry.
Then I ran off.
We meandered to the bar, kiddie almost too stunned to speak.
As I was about to order a drink, my mate pulled her bag open and gave me the *look down* eyes. There, in her possession, were a pair of Jedwards ski goggles. She had lifted them from the uniform rail.
It was NOTHING to do with me. We then kind of panicked at our terrible crime and decided to not go the gig for fear of being arrested, but carry on getting a bit more pissed elsewhere.
After a while we decided we DID want to see them sing so went back for the second half.
It was HIDEOUS. Just awful.
Although, we were sat behind a row of girls, who wet themselves at the sight of a stage prop from a Jedward show.
I will never forget being pissed, watching the finale of them doing 'Ghostbusters' with only one of them wearing goggles, while some 14 year old girl grabbed them off my mate so she could 'smell the strap'.
( Herb Alpert's Taxi Driver I have very beautiful lips, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 23:24, 7 replies)

I was in The Ben Johnson in Weston on the Green
when Prince Charles walked in with two minders.
They had a pint at the end of the bar and I ran home to tell the wife he was there.
She wasn't interested and by the time I got back to the pub he'd gone.
He'd been to the local airfield learning parachuting prior to becoming a pilot.
( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Sun 8 Dec 2013, 22:31, Reply)

I used to work with Paul Newman
not that Paul Newman. He went to visit a customer one day, went up the receptionist and told her his name. To which she replied "You're Paul Newman? - I'm Tina Turner. We're both famous!"
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 21:47, Reply)

Rachel Reeves MP
Met her twice socially. She is without doubt the most horrible cunt it has ever been my displeasure to be anywhere near.

She may well be PM one day. That thought terrifies me. She is a sociopath.
( Larry Death Anger Pain Fear Aggression, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 20:58, 3 replies)

My dad has better stories. He is quite friendly with everyone's favourite cheerful scottish gum chewer Alex ferguson
As a teenager I'd quite frequently come into the family room and he'd be there having a whisky with my dad. More than once he'd look at my skirt and say, "you letting her out like that then?"

V nice man with a very quiet and dry sense of humour.

He also had a young Mark Owen working in his bank as a clerk. He was extremely crap, so dad sacked him, telling him to "piss off and be a pop star". Nice work dad... It was quite amusing when "just 17" did an article on him and one of the pics he picked was an old bank football team shot. And there was my dad, gurning away in the magazine. Unfortunately Take That were so lame in Manchester that it did not help my street cred when it got spotted at achool.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 20:46, Reply)

I've been living in Central London since I was 18 and I've never ever had a good celeb spot
The closest I've got are: the guy who played Lionel in "brush strokes" (he was also the dad in "vicar of dibley" I think), whom I see in my local tesco from time to time... SCORE.... and about 3 times in the last 12 months I've found myself sitting at the next table to Stephen Fry in various restaurants/theatre shows. He always looks less excited about it than I do.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 20:44, 13 replies)

I was at sixth form with Tanita Tikaram
and at the same college a friend was a contemporary of Liz Hurley (a pink-haired punk in those days) and my sister was in the same year as Sarah Beeny, she of the many houses and comedy-sized norks.
(rogerzilla, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 20:37, 1 reply)

Whilst living in Chelmsford I was briefly a member of the same gym as used by the Essex country cricket team.
I can now inform you all the reason as to why Darren Gough always seemed so angry. His winky is TINY.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 20:25, 8 replies)

Eric Bristow
My uncle played darts against him, said he was rude and cocky.
(kitescreech still here, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 19:32, 1 reply)

I once stood next to Stirling Moss having a pee in the gents at a race track.

( notoolsovernight you're all luvvly an' 'orrible, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 19:26, Reply)

family connections
There seem to have been a few random connections with famousness in my family.
My Cousin's godfather was, apparently, Gerry Anderson, and another somebody's godfather was Arthur Waley, whose translation into English of the classic "Monkey" from the Chinese paved the way for my favourite childhood TV program Monkey AKA Monkey Magic.
My mum's friends were hiding Salman Rushdie when there was a fatwah out against him, my Aunt was mates with Geoff Capes and had an affair with the Dalai Lama's PA, and my mum's best mate sold a chair to Prince Charles.
One of my great great uncles or something was the Archbishop of Capetown a couple before Tutu and campaigned against apartheid, leading to the confiscation by the government of his estate when he died. Another ancestor of some type is buried in Peterborough Cathedral, in one of those things with a lying down statue with hands pressed together in prayer. Oh, and a great grandmother or something was the personal singer for the composer Brahms.
And, of course, as I mentioned earlier, Saddam Hussein took my granny out for dinner.

My family are, by the way, quite odd and incredibly dysfunctional. I ended up in care, most of them aren't talking to each other and I'm fairly sure a few suicides have been hushed up. I saw very little of my family as a child, and I've only recently managed to track a few of them down. I have a few vague memories, such as calling in to my Mum's friends and them whispering that Salman had gone to hide in the bedroom when he heard the doorbell.

TLDR My family are a bit weird and know lots of famous people. I don't though.
(teasus likes tea, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 14:21, 1 reply)

Bananarama's house
When I was about six or seven, my Mum's friend was looking after me. She did a bit of cleaninga and took me with her when she went to clean Bananarama's big London apartment. I have a very vague recollection of a huge bannister that looked like a lot of fun to slide down, and um, that's about it. They weren't there, and I didn't like their music, so I wasn't really that impressed, even at that age. Neither are you probably.
(teasus likes tea, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 13:43, Reply)

George Harrison and Michael Caine at college
At college, my Tutor and Chemistry teacher was George Harrison, but not that one. And Michael Caine was a mature student in my class, but also not that one. So not really anything to do with celebrities I suppose. Sorry (not that sorry).
(teasus likes tea, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 13:38, Reply)

Afternoon tea and farts with Prince Charles
Well I don't usually rub shoulders with anyone of celebrity status however I had been formally invited to my grandads private knighthood ceremony with Prince Charles. Normally Prince Chudders doesn't get involved with this malarkey but he was a big fan of my grandad and wanted to give it to him personally especially as gramps was getting on a bit, they also wanted to give a big public event a swerve especially as he was a liability when put in a public setting. I wouldn't have dared put my grandad in a room with the Queen, he was toooo unpredictable.

So we arrive at St.James Palace all smart in my Asda smart price kiddie suit. Met an officer from the grenadier guards who gave us a the low down on royalty meeting protocol. "When his highness enters the room you will bow and address him as your royal highness"

We where ushered into a room that looked like it had all the props out of zulu adorning the walls, obviously some throw back to days of the empire. So we have me, my two brothers, mum and my grandad. Enter Prince Charles, my bum released a nervous fart. It was pungent. I'm sure he noticed as he was introduced and shook my hand. His face curled up to look at me as if i had just urinated on his crown.

So anyway tea is served and I'm drinking steaming hot tea out of some kind of fine china cup that's probably worth more than my entire action man collection. I'm shaking like an epileptic in a strobe lighting shop. The I hear in that famous prince chazza voice "so young man are you at school at the moment?" FUCKSOCKS he's talking to me. I wasn't prepared for this. "yes sir" My brain is running through a list of words not to use in this conversation. "Do you play any sports young man",

"Well I try and play rugby sir" I feel a rumbling, my rectum is becoming a pressurized vessel until it gives way and pppprrrrrrrtttttt Shit I've just farted within 3 foot or royalty again. This one was definitely audibly because I saw the grenadier guards officer stifle a giggle. Now Chudders face is visibly scrunching up and he looks hes just been told Harry isn't his. That's right, chew on my anus gas you bastard, part of me was proud and part of me was dying with shame.

My conversation ended pretty rapidly after that with him and i went to go and stuff my face with custard creams in shame. They took some press photos and that was that. Fun times. I don't get invited to meet royalty anymore.

Length: second fart was at least 3 seconds.
(bumless The man with the hole in the middle, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 12:34, 2 replies)

Doctor Poo
Around 10 years ago I was in the backstage area of the Ashton Court Festival in Bristol. We'd been hanging around in there for around 3 hours, swilling beer and regularly pissing in the conveniently located Portaloo as a consequence.

At approximately piss number 6 I stood up, ready to unleash more urine into the Tardis-like surroundings of the aforementioned portaloo (short for portable loo I guess) but noticed the convenience was occupied. I waited a minute or two, bobbing from side to side to ease the pressure on my swollen bladder when the current occupant completed his business and exited the lavvy. And who, you may be asking was that occupant? PAUL MCGANN. COMING OUT OF SOMETHING THAT LOOKED LIKE THE TARDIS.

We gave each other the cursory "man nod" and went about our respective business. I then had a minute long piss in a portaloo surrounded by the warm air of Paul McGanns turds.

So whenever I see Paul McGann on telly (including seeing his image on the end of the recent doctor who) I tediously remark "I've smelled his shit" And then recall the entire story I've just described,

It's one of my favourite stories
(Noddy Hodler, Sun 8 Dec 2013, 0:26, 9 replies)

zermatt is just the shot
Back when I had a bit of cash, I used to spend a week or two every winter season in Zermatt. I'd gone out to take a few snaps and found myself in bright winter sunshine enjoying the wonder of nature (or having a spiritual experience, but, as this is B3ta, that won't cut any ice at all). I had a halfway decent camera and was making a mess of getting some winter shots but thats cos I'm not a photographer.

Just as I'm minding my business I'm asked if I will take a photo of someone with his girlfriend. No problem I say. I should have noticed then that he was very particular about how the shots were set up.

Afterward he asked if he could use my camera to get some shots of me and I said "fine". I rarely get chance to break the lens with my "great face for radio". I swear he did things with that camera that I have never been able to repeat and the speed over the controls was incredible.

After about 20mins he stopped and gave me his business card. The shots were amazing. On checking him out later, it appears he has taken portraits of Federer, Yasser Arafat, Madonna and Michael Jackson. It seemed terribly ironic that in order to get a picture of himself with his girlfriend it required the help of a random passer by.

www.rolfneeser.ch/
(gearanach #wankwankwank, Sat 7 Dec 2013, 23:22, 1 reply)

New Orleans Saints
Back in the 80s I used to follow the Birmingham Bulls Brit American Football team. One of our regular opponents were Leicester Panthers, QBd by Sean Payton, who is now a Super Bowl winning coach with the Saints. I also got Trevor Carthy's autograph.
(kitescreech still here, Sat 7 Dec 2013, 21:14, 2 replies)

I
went on the piss with Christopher Biggins.
( social hand grenade I was a lurker before you were a lurker, Sat 7 Dec 2013, 20:50, Reply)

I once had an argument with Brian from big brother because he condoned beating a child.

( Peej, Sat 7 Dec 2013, 20:37, 2 replies)

I've
met Mick Jones (Clash/BAD), but I don't have an amusing anecdote about that occasion.
( social hand grenade I was a lurker before you were a lurker, Sat 7 Dec 2013, 20:04, Reply)

One chilly october - 2003.
I witnessed the passage of a celebrity.
Namely - I heard the last flight of Concorde from Edinburgh to London.
It was only a rumble in the distance - of failed dreams.
(speedevil, Sat 7 Dec 2013, 17:14, 11 replies)

On a plane home from LA in 2005
after a long trip away travelling around and spending about a year's savings on an entire month getting drunk and sleeping on couches, I found myself next to a Brit for the flight home. After a month in Sherman land I was grateful to have a chat with someone sane and we were soon talking bollocks and enjoying the complimentaries.

Poor guy really seemed to be having a crap time of it, bless him. He was investing pretty much all of his time in a band that wasn't doing brilliantly well - possibly because, as I told him, they'd chosen a blandly forgettable and mildly pretentious name for it. Curious as to how an umemployed "musician" could afford to fly halfway around the world I asked what he'd been up to in LA.

"Visiting my wife and kid," he said.

"Shit, I'm sorry," I said. "Did you guys break up?"

"Oh no," he replied. "She's over there working. Recording a new album."

"Interesting," I said. "She must be doing alright! Might I have heard of her?"

"Maybe," he said. "Sophie Ellis-Bextor?"

Heard of her?! I briefly kept photo of her, clipped from the NME, in my wallet when I was 15! My companion was Richard Jones, bassist with The Feeling, mere weeks before the release of My Little World and subsequent chart-topping success. So you could say things worked out alright for him. Jones himself was a lovely bloke; he even wrote his own top trump for me.

Although I still think "The Feeling" is a bland and pretentious band name.
( pineapplecharm D d M Y, H:i, Sat 7 Dec 2013, 16:54, 3 replies)

My old boss
and several of our mutual friends once spent the duration of a train journey from Bristol to Bath hurling drunken abuse at the only other occupant of the first class carriage, the crap writer and whore-shagging perjurer Jeffrey Archer.
(cs1ca, Sat 7 Dec 2013, 13:07, Reply)

Saddam Hussein took my Granny out to dinner once.
She was a reporter, living in Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war, and he wanted to make her like him. It didn't work though. He also gave her, as birthday presents, a watch with a picture of him on the face, a bottle of (illegal) wine and £100. My cousin got the watch when she died. I hope he's still got it!
(teasus likes tea, Sat 7 Dec 2013, 12:03, Reply)

No one goes for the sport...
Through a mate we managed to get some tickets to the Cartier polo down in Windsor a few years back. Went a few times, each time making me feel more and more delightfully socialist amongst the chinless wonders and "celebs" who were there to be there, whereas we actually enjoyed watching the polo.

Prince Harry was there galavanting about on the field as usual and I found myself within "republican lunging distance" of him at one point. Barged past tara pamara Lara buck tooth (or whatever her name is, you know the skinny blonde (SH) "It" girl with no visible redeeming quality and the face like a punched bulldog) who were strangely queuing for the Gents bogs whilst they were shocked at the fact that someone they. Knew "had gotten a job? Why didn't she just marry?"
(Mr Joe Bangles, Sat 7 Dec 2013, 11:50, 1 reply)

This is a pretty rubbish qotw.
They all shit from the same hole.
(Pookie Bear had some very shiny foez, Sat 7 Dec 2013, 10:45, 4 replies)