1999 Comedy Awards . . .
I clocked 8.6 Seconds of airtime as Jerry Springer interviewed Neil Morrisey & Martin Clunes at the 1999 Comedy Awards. . .Since, I've clocked up my 15 minutes by being broadcast all over the planet dressed variously as Dracula, Santas' Elf, a wine waiter and some sort of eye candy for the female viewers . . .

Never work with primadonna directors blog . . .
( 42 Loves Teh Funphenschnaffles, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 15:13, Reply)

Jenny Powell's fanny
They came to our school to film No Limits once and somewhere in the archive is a shot of the (very) lovely Jenny Powell talking to camera with me being pushed violently into shot by my mates, who can be heard off camera shouting *muffled noises*TOUCH HER FANNY!!.

I didnt but the sound man tried to kick me, twat. Jenny Powell was lovely though.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 15:09, 2 replies)

Airport Security
I was nineteen and working airport security at Stansted. At the time I was sitting at a little desk keeping an eye out for passangers trying to get back into the Baggage Reclaim (which is technically a restricted zone.) I had been briefed that a film crew would be in the terminal filming stock footage of staff going about their business so when I spied the big camera pointing at me I did my best to act nonchalant (all the while thinking 'YAY IM GONNA BE ON TV!')

A couple of years later there was a security breach in another part of the airport with someone from the Daily Mirror getting into the cockpit of a parked plane with a flamethrower or something... another security company was at fault.

So there I was, sitting there watching the news report with my girlfriend and flatmate. The reporter's voice over saying something like 'calls for an inquest into this incident are underway after this embarrassing breach in airport security ' all the while showing the stock footage of me smiling vacantly.

'YAY I'M ON TV!' I shouted
(catbrain likes the hairy scratchings bestest, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 15:09, 1 reply)

The Queen and Prince Phillip
It was July 31st 1997, I was one of the original members of Blue Planet Aquarium's team or 'Presentersaurus's as they decided to call us all.

This was the day my Granddad died, it was also the day the Queen and her other half opened BPA, if you've not been to BPA then, they have 2 rock/touch pool's on the ground floor in which there are all manner of British sealife and quite possibly a Presentersaurus telling you all about them too.

The day the Queen was coming to officially open the place it was my turn to be in the pool, I was searched etc and briefed how to behave so I didn't fuck it up, like i would!

Anyway the Queen came round and stopped in front of me. I must have looked like a right cock, bright blue dry suit, diving gloves and a fuck off big shore crab in my hands! To be fair, she was really nice (the Queen, not the crab although i'm sure it was really) she asked me how I was and what it was that I was holding for her to look at.

On the way home later I popped into my local to a loud round of applause and the replay on the big screen of me looking like a tit being interviewed, they had it from Sky news, BBC news and also ITV.
No escaping that one then?
Still it gave people something to talk about at the funeral.


Ps, i wrote this on my phone and in the process found out that if you write Queen with predictive txt on then by the 4 letter you've spelt puff!
(Kip, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 15:05, 3 replies)

How BBC1 used me as a free consultant.
I've managed to get my name onto a couple of rolodexes at the BBC as rent-a-gob. A couple of weeks ago, I got a phonecall from the producers of a programme that was going out on BBC1 about assisted suicide in the wake of the ongoing Debbie Purdy hearings and the publicity around Dignitas.

Now, assisted suicide and euthanasia are things on which I've published, and are well within my areas of research interest, so I said I'd be happy to help.
"Great," said the producer. "Would it be OK to have a quick chat with you now to see what sort of position you'd be taking so that we can see how you'd fit into the programme?"
Yeah, sure.

So we chatted for about half an hour about what the law says and what the law ought to say, about Joffe's recent Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill and its shortcomings, about lives not worth living, about voluntary and non-voluntary killing, and so on. It was quite fun.
"That's really interesting," said the producer person. "I think it'd be good to have this sort of perspective on the programme."

Then there was a slight pause.
"There's just one thing," she resumed. "We'll be making the programme in Southampton, and I assume you'd be coming down from Manchester?"
"Yep..."
"Well, you see, that's quite a long way. Can you think of anyone further south who'd be able to take that sort of position instead of you?"

And that is how BBC1 used me as a free consultant. Tightwads.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 15:04, 5 replies)

NOT how you want to be seen on TV
Apologies if posting a link is taboo, but it seems relevant enough for this QOTW. I was watching this live at the time!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4hpa4xQHl4
(Lythium deals in lead, my friend., Thu 11 Jun 2009, 15:02, Reply)

Games Master! Welcome welcome.
Ahh the memories, oh the humiliation.

A fair few years ago when I was a Crap Young Monkey I was a member of the Games Master fan club. Sounded great but all I got a couple of magazines and an invite to be in the audience of the new show.

The new show had moved from a dingy church to a dingy power plant. I was so excited to be going. When I got there it turned out that there was only 4-5 other people who had turned up for the morning shooting (there was alot more expected for the afternoon shoot) so, after they shot a couple of games we were given a quick tour of the place and left in the "warm up" room to play with the gamers that had, after alot of hard work and effort managed to be accepted/invited to appear on the show. We had fun and I managed to humiliate a Bomberman champion 3-0 (purely beginners luck I might add) But old Dominic whopped my ass at tennis.

So I'm chilling out backstage at Gamesmaster, having alot of fun and my mum walks over to me and asks if I want to appear on Games Master as they were ahead of time and had a slot for a filler game. ofc I jumped at the chance and was given a 5 minute explanation how to play this game and 15 minutes to practice.

Then the moment came. I was guided to the top of the stairs and was given my 1st view of the assembled crowd, much much bigger than this morning. All the balconies full of expectant children waiting for the enxt combatant. Then, the Mighty Dominic Diamond called forht my name and I began my decent towards greatness. Unfortunatly, about 1/2 way down the stairs something inside me went eep! and my brain decided to take a nice little sprint out the building, down the road and all the way back home, leaving the rest of me to be greeted by the DD.

There I was, the lighting burning my eyes, sweat pouring off my like a pedo in a clown suit, the quite murmer of 1000 school children gazing down on me (maybe not that many but it felt like it) Dominic greets me with a warm smile and a huge microphone.

Words come out of DD's mouth, these words seem familiar but I just can't seem to comprehend their meaning. The 1st word is running around my head trying to get itself recognise, my mouth tests it out once, then a second time trying to recognise it's meaning and my appropiate response to no avail. This results in this conversation:


DD: "Welcome."
Me: (in full brain locked panic mode) "..... welcome, welcome?"

The rest of the conversation was a complete blur, thanks to panic having set her snares deep.


Needless to say I didn't do too well at my challenege. I did manage to reach the end but messed up on the Boss. I can't even remeber what hapepned once I had lost or how I got home but I do remember I managed to run off before taken into the clutches of the "diver" (someone dressed as a diver that took failed gamers away to gamers hell, was in fact a fit model woman)

There was 1 consolation though. My screen time was only a filler and it was highly unlikely that it would ever see the light of day.

That is, of course, until the day my Dad told me that the guy he shares an office with was going out with Dominic Diamond's mum and that he had passed the word down. Crap.

Ever damn week I wat hed and recorded Games Master hoping and praying that I would and wouldn't appear in equal measures. Just when it looked like I was going to be left off the hook the day came when I missed an episode. Can you guess what happened?

The next day I went to school like any normal day. The journey there was completly uneventful, waslking into school and to my classroom was just as bland and then.... I opened up my classroom door and was greeted with an enthusiastic roar of:

"GAAMMEESSMAASSTTEERR!!"

That's right, evey person in my class had seen Games Master last night and had recognised the shy kid who had a sever case of stage fright.

For the rest of my time at school I never managed to live the nickname of "Gamesmaster" down.

P.S. I bet you can't guess what my dad gave to me a couple of weeks afterwards? The unedited tape of my TV debut disaster. He thought since I'd forgotten to record it that I would appreciate having a copy of my humiliation so that my sister could show it to my friends whenever I pissed her off.


*EDIT and I have absolutely no clue to why I said "Welcome welcome" to DD. The mockery this moment has brought me has left me doing my best to avoid that word as much as possible.

*EDIT2 Have added spelling and made the story read a bit better.

*EDIT3 The video: I'm sorry. I am not sure where my viedo of this event is. If I can find it I will post it. (video recorded onto DVD imported to PC) but please remember that this tape is something I did my best to keep hidden away out of sight where my sister couldn't find it. I'll look and see if I can post my humiliation.
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 15:01, 3 replies)

My legs illustrated the credit crunch on BBC News
I used to do video work for the Halifax and had to shoot a load of general 'wallpaper' shots, so I spent a day in 2004 shooting signs and branding etc. There was a nicely lit up desk that I filmed with the words "Halifax Bank of Scotland - Welcome" on it. I decided to give it some movement I would walk through the shot. It worked nicely. I put it in our library and never thought of it again.

Cut to March this year, Halifax is being bought by Lloyds. BBC News at 10 and Huw Edwards introduces the report by Robert Peston. First shot - MY LEGS WALKING PAST THE SIGN IN SLO MOTION as Peston asks 'What's gone wrong with the banks?" Someone in the media team must have found the tape, sent it to the BBC for useful shots, they looked through - found said shot and used it.

I have never been so surprised to see my own legs. Thankfully I was on digital so I was able to rewind and record. Every time I see them now, I wonder if they might have been the cause of this entire economic meltdown.
(B3tatimolsky, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:52, 1 reply)

Not me but...
Years ago, watching the local evening news, there was someone being interviewed about something in the town centre. (Either that, or they were doing a vox pops thing. Memory is a bit fuzzy now.) When, all of a sudden wandering across in the background was my gran. Completely oblivious.
(williamthebloody, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:52, Reply)

I was on the big breakfast.
It was one of those 'tour' things, basically Lisa Rodgers was doing a showcase of some guy round our way who collected railway signs. I only took part because it got me out of school for the morning. My mate and I were sat near the front of the bus, and she started doing her link and thrust a mic into my face and asked me if there was anything good in Bromsgrove, I was half asleep and all I could muster was 'Yeah', you could see the look of despair on her face and then she asked my mate, who managed to come out with an eloquent description of all the (mostly shite) attractions.

As a side note, I saw a mate at school who used her telly as an alarm clock, she said waking up to see me on telly was one of the scariest things that has ever happened to her.
( Slippery Mick ‏, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:48, 1 reply)

My career's in ruins
For a couple of years, as a post-doc,I was the Research Associate to a celebrity TV archaeologist - a lovely man of whom I am very fond, but the biggest mediawhore to walk this earth. He has the uncanny knack of wringing a televised snippet out of every bit of research we ever encountered. I'm quite sure I'm in the background of many a chortling, arm-waving, overexcited piece to camera about whatever lump of mud was partiuclarly fascinating that day. Alas, there were no free range hookers or Fair Trade coke so I feel I didn't truly experience all that the BBC has to offer.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:47, 7 replies)

Let's get it out of the way, then...
University Challenge.
Twice.
1996. I was a fresher at Hull and managed to get on the team.
2000. By this point I was at Bunglingham. Not only was I on the team, but because everyone else refused more quickly than I, I was captain.

We didn't shower ourselves in glory on either occasion. Being left in a room with wine may have contributed on the second occasion. We weren't supposed to drink it until after filming.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:35, 1 reply)

I will never talk to a journalist again
A few years back I was wandering around the shops in the centre of Bristol during my lunch break when I was stopped by a man waving a microphone in my face, “Excuse me sir, do you know what ‘APR’ stands for?” To which I replied “Annual Percentage Rate”. The man who I now recognised as one of the reporters from the local news team then followed up with “but do you understand the difference between ‘nominal APR’ and ‘effective APR’?” I explained that the ‘effective APR’ took into account the monthly compounding of interest whereas the ‘nominal APR’ did not. The reporter gave me a withering look and finally asked if I thought the average consumer understood such terminology, to which I replied “I have no idea, but probably not”.

That evening I was watching the local news and they were running a story about how evil credit card companies were using complicated jargon to confuse people and swindle them out of their hard earned cash. They then cut to their roving reporter who was asking the average man in the street whether they understood such terms as ‘nominal APR’. What followed was a montage of the usual carrot-crunchers they find for this sort of thing, furrowing their collective brows and exclaiming that they “hadn’t a clue”. Right at the end of this montage of Bristols finest minds was my very self, confidently stating “I have no idea”.

I was about to shout “Cunts!” at the telly, but my mobile started beeping away as text messages were received from friends and fellow accountants. Here is a collection of the ones I can remember:
“Don’t ask ME, I’m just an accountant”
“Me lose brain? Uh-Oh!”
“Ha ha you spacker!”
“Step into my office. Why? Cos you're fucking fired!”
“It stands for Am Probably Retarded”
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:33, 11 replies)

I was once in the Crowd of a football Match
Man United versus the Mighty Mighty Oldham Athletic

we got narrowly beaten 4-1, but I swear I was there in the crowd as the camera panned round
( bilbobarneybobs I'll be 14 in b3ta years soon., Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:30, Reply)

William G Stewart
first ever post... be gentle! Not particularly funny, just stupid.

Back at school I was always the kid doing stupid dares for no reason. I had snorted sherbert, jumped out of a 1st floor window, and eaten a polo that had been in someones pants. Basically I was minging, and doing all these stupid and unhygienic dares for a small piece of social acceptance.

The stupidest one occurred when I was 17 and in the sixth form. After school I was watching telly with some mates and we were waiting for Countdown (like true maths geeks) and enjoying the finale of 15 to 1. In case you don't know 15 to 1 is a quiz show with 15 contestants that are asked uber-hard questions and whittled down to 3, before a final playoff for the winner. There is no prize money and no kudos, it's just a geeky quiz show.

After the show ended there was an appeal for people to apply as contestants for the next series.

"I dare you to apply for 15 to 1 Jonny Power" said one of my mates.

Being a bit of a loon and never one to turn down a ridiculous dare, I grinned and sent an email requesting an application form. A few days later I had filled it in and sent it off and proceeded to forget all about it.

About a month later I had a shocking letter come through... I had got an audition! All expenses paid for a jolly up to London, get in! I told my parents who announced I was adopted and I bunked the day off school.

I went up to London and sat in a large hall near Putney where about 150 other social retards and geeks were all taking part in a round robin audition. Basically we were grouped into 15 and played a quick version of the game. All I remember was being asked 3 questions and getting the last one right. I was definitely the youngest there by about 20 years.

About another month later I received another letter saying I had been successful and would be recording in a few weeks. That's when the fear and embarrassment of the whole situation set in. I was a prety stupid 17 year old about to go onto national TV to take part in a superhard quiz show, for nothing more than a dare. There was nothing to gain and little pride to lose. All my friends knew I was going on, and so in the end the whole school knew. Going to a Grammar School even the head teacher mentioned it in passing, saying

"Make the school proud, Jonny_Power!"

I definitely didn't make the school proud.

I went up with my mate in the morning for filming at Channel 4 studios. We got there at about 11 and were told we'd have to wait 2 hours because filming had been delayed a bit. That's where we met a couple of Irish Lads who basically had done the same as us, dared one of them to enter and surprisingly managed to blag through the audition. We trotted off to O'Neills across the road and after 3 pints I was feeling a bit more optimistic.

Basically there was little prep, they went over the rules, stuck a bit of makeup on and then the cameras were rolling...

that's when God appeared.

The best part of 15 to 1 is that it's hosted by Colonel Sanders, if instead of making chicken he worked in a library. William G Stewart is a quiz show and student legend, and I was in awe.

He said hello to each of us and then we were on our way.

I got asked two questions, and my answers to both was "sorry I don't know".

My chance at glory was over, I had been eliminated straight away.

My Irish friend standing down the line wasn't any better, he was sweating like a paedo in a playground as he had the hangover from hell... he was eliminated straight away and like me was pretending he didn't care, but we were both crying inside.

We both walked out after the elimination process, and went straight back to the pub. A few weeks later word had got around my friends, family and school that I was going to be on TV. I'm sure the whole school watched it... the next couple of weeks were hell. My new nickname was "sorry I don't know" and I had let the whole school down.

But I did get a photo of the episode signed by William G Stewart, which has pride and place above my desk.


Length - about 25 seconds (including opening credits)
(jonny_power boom chika wah wow, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:29, 1 reply)

Crash TV
In 1990 I witnessed an air crash (there's not much to do in the north of Scotland).

Local TV news cameras arrived the next day and interview me:

"It was very quick - there was a big bang and a fireball" I say

They interview my mum

"It was just like a sunset" she says, wistfully

They interview my dad (who at that time was a fairly well-respected local figure)

"I didn't see it - I was in the toilet" he says

My dad got top billing when it aired - I was last
( Mighty Nibus who dares gins | @nibus, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:25, 1 reply)

zero to hero
the tv show where some geek is made into a super hero ala scrapheap challenge... i'd bore ya with it but needless to say it wasn't like it said it was, i still have (bits) of the costume and was VERY drunk and drugged using powertools on TV. it was also the hottest day on record that year and in a sealed off top floor studio under lights. i was not very with it at all.

still wish they'd used my costume idea, but rather than the Predator thing i knocked up over lunch they went with a kind of fetish glam rock vibe.

I had a great time, not sure about anyone else :D
(DreddPirateBob has watched every scifi film ever on, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:18, 1 reply)

Surrealism
I was once shown on the national news, talking to a large and hirsute gentlemen about growing mushrooms on toilet rolls.

That is all (seriously).
(MattDP (Squiggle), Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:07, Reply)

Top Leer
Somewhere, buried in the BBC archives, there is footage of me, standing on St Augustine’s Parade in Bristol standing behind accident prone motoring presenter Richard Hammond. I’m bellowing into my mobile phone…

“Yeah, he’s even smaller in real life. I know, yeah, pocket sized. Bless ‘im…”

Oddly, that never made it to the final cut.

He is tiny though.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:05, 3 replies)

This is technically still going on, I still have two more days at this particular gig
But I'm working as a freelance production assistant on a new reality show, the first episode is being shot near Baltimore (yes, USA), hosted by Trinny and Susannah. I hadn't a fucking clue who they were, they arrived on set and thought maybe this was their first show and had as little idea what was going on as I did. Anyway, I doubt I'll have accidentally shown up in any shots (good way to get your head ripped off by the assistant director), just wanted to let you lot know what I've been up to this week, no one in America could give a rat's arse who these ladies are - they're actually delightful, especially Susannah, we've bummed cigarettes off one another and she taught me the proper way to pronounce "twat" (I thought it rhymed with "lot," not "bat").
( AgentMuu hentai coordination, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 14:02, 6 replies)

I've been on TV at least 7 times to my knowledge
When I was a scummy film student, we used to knock up jackass type shorts for You've been framed and get paid £250 each time. The best one was mountain biking across a gorge while drunk, everyone expecting the guy on the bike to fall in when the cameraman slipped on some dogshit and fell arse over tit down the 10ft slope and crashlanded in the mud. You heard a definite snap as he broke his femur in two places.

Ahh good times.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 13:57, Reply)

I once appeared as part of a choir, singing outside for Christmas
It was an awful day. We had to get a bus for an hour to get to the place, and it was the coldest day in history. Although saying that, the snow did make it look Christmassy, which was something. The barn we had to wait in for a few hours was less Christmassy. It was mostly just cold and rubbish. And the burgers they fed us for dinner had holes in them.

Anyway, we finally got to stand on a large, poorly constructed stage, and sing some Christmas carols. It really didn't seem like any good was going to come from the day. But then, a wondrous thing happened. We were standing waiting to sing, as the brass section of the band played the introduction to the next carol. About 3 bars in, there is an awful screech. We all look over, and see the amazing sight of a fat man with a tuba falling sideways of the stage. With a screech and a crash, he hit the ground. At this point, the day returned to it's previous boring state.

When it was shown on TV, they neglected to show the part with the tuba man falling over, which made me sad. You could see on at least 4 separate occasions though. Score.


So, there ends a rather dull story, in which a fat a man fell over, and I didn't die from eating crap meat. Sorry for wasting your time. Honest.
(PenguinOfDeath is Scottish, and most likely angry, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 13:57, Reply)

The back of my head is famous
It was the Queen Mum's birthday (gawd bless 'er) and I and my family were invited to a bash at Buckingham Palace because a cousin was in a choir that was to perform there. My gran (gawd bless 'er) couldn't walk very well so I was given the task of running on ahead to nab a seat for her. Hence the sight on that evening's news of my spectacular mullet bouncing away from the camera as I jogged into Buck House's inner courtyard.

When I was working as a computer games journo, I was on L!ve TV late at night with Kate someone-or-other who went on to become famous in something. I think that we and the production crew outnumbered the total audience by some margin.

Earlier this year my son was part of an early-morning Channel 5 kids' show, and I appeared in one episode standing on a pier catching crabs (the swimmy kind, not the itchy kind).
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 13:50, Reply)

New York City - Early 90's
Having recently relocated to the rotten apple with Mrs Bathtub the first, we found ourselves, courtesy of MBT1st's shiny new PR Job for Jive/Zomba, attending loads of gigs, promo events and the like. Managed to get to see Duran Duran several times at private events (I was a new romantic in the 80's before discovering Dylan and Gram Parsons), 6th row seats for the Dylan 30th anniversary gig at Madison Square Garden (best.gig.ever) and so on. One evening we had a mysterious invite to a private party in a brownstone in midtown - we attended, faces looked familar, beer was drunk, pool was played and as the alcohol flowed though my system I lurched off in search of a bathroom. Opening a likely door, I found myself in a narrow plywood corridor filled with cables and containing several large sweaty technicians with cameras and sound equipment.

So my seven seconds of TV fame came from walking across the lounge of the original first season MTV Real World house and accidentally opening (off camera by this time) the door to the tech/camera area much to the annoyance of the producer. Good party though..

bathtub
(bathtub has renounced CS3 for paint.net, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 13:37, Reply)

Twice...... and 1 which was never broadcast
Many moons ago I went to an eatery in London. The Beefeater Dungeons or something it was called. Basically you drank mead, shouted "here wench" and serving staff and generally had a good time. There was a juggler of sorts on and we were banging our flaggons on the table when we noticed a camera pointing in our faces. Transpired that they were making a documentary about eateries or something and it was with much excitement that we sat down to watch said program.. Note in the Margin I think it was called, when the presenter proudly said "and even in the olden times, there was the classic, original Lager Louts...and then we appeared on screen banging our cups. Not only that but they then showed it again in slow motion. We had only been there 20 minutes and had only just finished our first.. We were fucking annoyed!!!

Then we had a documentary team in our company filming about stress in the workplace. I was in there quite a bit, I was even on the trailers.. yay :-)

Finally I am a scambaiter (for those of you who dont know what that is or even care, check out www.scamorama.com ) and C4 were making a program about it and I was going to be the star. My own program... my name in lights, stardom beckons... and after several months of filming, interviews ( I did get to go and spend a day in a pub with a couple of mates getting bladdered on them) C4 decided it was too risky because it could be interpreted as illegal.. sigh. The bubble of stardom disappeared.
(scowners shagged his mum on, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 13:35, Reply)

I made it
Onto the Big Breakfast. It was the day Denise Van Outen and Johnny Vaughan made their big comeback to the show. I was attending thanks to my sister nominating me for the belching competition.

I turned out to be a rather surreal day. Sandwhiched on a sofa between David 'I am not a movie starrr' Ginola and the dwarf bloke that used to do britains bounciest weather on 'Live TV'.

My turn came, and along with 3 other wannabe belchers we took stage one at a time. The thing about the setup was this: There were two mics mounted on a table, one a decebel reader and the other a standard mic.

We had to belch into the decebel reader and the loudest won...

I went last.

After a massive gulp of fizzy pop, I was built up and ready to burst forth.

As I was releasing, Denise motioned I was going toward the wrong microphone (I wasn't), so I turned towards her at the point of no return and belched FULL ON into her face!

The look of pure horror as she recoiled backwards will live with me forever. Any chance of wooing the lovely Denise was now well and truly off.

She was not so good looking in the flesh anyway.......
(never-right -getting it wrong since '78, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 13:30, Reply)

Wac-a-day, again
I acidentally paid good, cash money to watch an exhibition football match at Wembley Stadium: England vs The Rest of the World. In fact, about 80,000 people bought the hype and bought tickets for this game, and ITV shelled out half a groat for the live TV rights.

As anybody who has ever been to a football friendly will testify, these games are complete shite, with not a tackle to be seen and the game completely wrecked by a million substitutions.

So, there were 80,000 people inside The Venue of Legends, and it was like a morgue.

So I started a chant. Just a few of us to start with, a few snifters from a smuggled vodka giving us Dutch courage.

"Wac-a-day! Wac-a-day! Wac-a-day!" we shouted, and before long a few others had taken up the mantle as the superstars tapped the ball about on the pitch.

"Wac-a-day! Wac-a-day! Wac-a-day!" - pretty soon much of Wembley's tunnel end had picked it up as another highly paid player pulled out of a tackle.

"Wac-a-day! Wac-a-day! Wac-a-day!" - The WHOLE stadium. For about five minutes. Live. To an audience of literally dozens on ITV.

"WAC-A-DAY! WAC-A-DAY! WAC-A-DAY!"

Then, Maradona came off the bench for a cameo appearance, and the chant changed to one regarding his masturbatory habits, and my fleeting moment of fame had gone. I've still got a VHS of this match, but no video recorder to play it on.

Post Script: I met Timmy Mallett in the staff canteen a few months ago and told him this tale. Despite a look on his face that clearly read "What a nutter", I got two thumbs up from the man himself. I did not see his Pinky Punky.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 13:26, 4 replies)

John Major visited my primary school
later that night on national television was a bbc news report that quite clearly showed me "flicking the V's" at him in a PE lesson.

My dad, who was a violent twat, who beat me for any reason he could think of, said "good lad"

Its the only time I can ever remember him praising me.
( Peej, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 13:26, Reply)

Not me, but a friend
Back in the days of student apathy, I lived in Halls (High Hall, Birmingham Uni) that was a short walk away from BBC Pebble Mill. At the time (mid 80s) there used to be a daytime show broadcast from there - Pebble Mill at One, if memory serves - that was shown on national BBC.

It got canned and on its last day, some of my mates went down to join the crowds outside seeing the show off. Using pillow-cases, they made amusing "T-shirts" with marker-penned slogans.

Unfortunately for the interviewer going through the crowds getting their thoughts on the closing of this national institution, he stopped right in front of my mates.

"So" he said on live TV, "why have you come here today ?"

"Show them your T shirt, Troy" said my mates, and interviewer-bloke was stupid enough to say "Yes, show us your T shirt".

The legend "Get your tits out Marianne" appeared on screen for a few brief seconds, Marianne being one of the presenters on the soon-to-be-defunct show.

The interviewer did a double take, said:

"I think he meant 'get your hit records out, Marianne'" and then said the immortal words "and now, back to the studio".

[EDIT]

This is actually on YouTube. It wasn't my mate Troy, but another mate called strangely enough Phil Collins:

You can see it here in the first minute:

the incident in full
( I_Was_Mordred, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 13:25, 1 reply)

Don't know if it ever got on TV
But friends and I used to annoy the Hollyoaks filming crews when they were trying to film in Chester Station. Pulling faces, dancing round in the background.

Occasionally someone would get really angry and once they threw us out. I missed a train that day. =( Hollyoaks is shit.
(pharmatron Death or Scunthorpe? CHOOSE!!, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 13:23, Reply)