HIGNFY
10ish years ago when I was still a student Paul Merton came to sign his new book at the uni book shop. He was doing ads for Imperial Leather at the time so I thought it would be amusing to put two bars of soap on his seat before he arrived.

When he arrived he was nice enough to sign them for me and I also bought a signed copy of his book for my Dad as he is a big HIGNFY fan. My dad appreciated the gift but thought the book was terrible. So a few years later I noticed Ian Hislop was down to do a book signing where I was living in London. I've met him twice and he's always been a really nice bloke. He agreed that Merton's last book had been a bit crap and signed a copy of the Private Eye annual for my Dad with "Hope you like it better than Merton's book, Merry Xmas, Ian". Top bloke!

Have also met Richard Herring twice off of fist of fun. First time I played poker with him in Bristol as some sort of promo thing for a poker magazine. It was quite a laugh as we kept getting moved on by officious security guards near the waterfront. He almost had a bit of a run in with one of them. I met him again walking down the street in Edinburgh during the festival, I said "Hey I played poker with you in Bristol!" thinking he would remember the amusing episode with the security guard but he just said "Oh that's nice" in a sarky voice and scowled at me. So now I think he is in fact a bit of an arse (although to hand it to him he did beat me at poker).
(Dread Pirate Roberts, Sun 11 Oct 2009, 20:38, Reply)