I recorded my second appearance on "Have I Got News For You" this evening (I was on it first
just over a year ago). I was really glad to be back so soon and even more pleased that this time I didn't have a toothbrush moustache. Out of all the panel shows HIGNFY (as all the cool kids call it) is still the big one and if I stop and think about it it is rather intimidating to be participating in this 20 year old national institution. Luckily I didn't really stop and think about it until afterwards.
I had been for a massage in the afternoon. Thankfully no babies were involved, either receiving or (even more perverted) giving the massage. It was a grown up woman, who seemed astonished by how tense and hard my back muscles were. I guess I have been a little stressed, but worried that if I got too destressed that I might be useless in the evening and fall asleep at the desk. And although I nearly fell asleep on the massage table, I left feeling energised and happy.
When I got to the London Studios the place was abuzz because Lady Gaga was in the building - not to appear on HIGNFY, but on the Graham Norton show which was recording in another studio. Her entourage was anything from 50 to 65 people according to the gossip and she was in the next but one dressing room to me. Another dressing room was full of outlandish costumes, none made of meat as far as I could see, and the corridor piled up with boxes and suitcases of props and trolleys with food and drink. People were surrounding the building in the hope of seeing the pop star. I was surprised there was this much fuss around her. I was told that she arrived at the building on stilts, and it's nice to see her taking it all so seriously. If she arrived without make-up in trackie bottoms and a hoodie no one would recognise her, so it took some kind of commitment to get dressed up for the people waiting and to arrive in such an ostentatious fashion. I doubt she was on stilts in the show. There were no cameras documenting her arrival (at least no officially) - she was just doing this to keep up the myth. I take my pork pie hat off to her (I say hat, but it is just a pie).
John Torrode and Gregg Wallace from Masterchef were co-hosting tonight, the first time a double act has presented the show and Samira Ahmed from Channel 4 News was the guest on Ian's team and as last time I would be with Paul (which is a delight for me, as he has been one of my comedy heroes since I was a teenager). I had been at Oxford at the same time as Samira and wondered if she would remember that I had once asked her out. It turned out she did as she brought it up at the end of the recording (after we'd finished the show, but when the cameras were still rolling, so it might make it to air). It was back in the first year at college where my seduction technique was to attempt to ask out all the attractive girls and hope that one of them would say yes. It was a bold, if somewhat desperate initiative and was totally unsuccessful, though Samira did recall that when she had rejected me I had said something along the lines of "Well, it was worth a try," before heading off to ask out someone else instead. And if nothing else she still remembered the incident 20 years on, so it was at least remarkable.
I think I did actually get one date based on this "throw enough shit at the wall" technique, taking a young lady to the theatre - no doubt she was impressed by my directness and thought I might be cool and interesting. But at this early stage in my dating career I had nothing but that initial bluntness and was shy and lost for words and awkward on the date. She did make me a cup of coffee in her room afterwards, but rather pointedly left the curtains and the door to her room wide open to ensure I didn't make a clumsy lunge at her.
I am amazed in retrospect that I was this brazen as I remember myself as being shy with women at that stage, but I guess I was trying to overcome that shyness and come to terms with this new life at University. It's not a technique I would recommend to any youngsters reading. It didn't work and everyone thought I was a knobend. Luckily I quickly met some other knobends who liked where I was coming from and I calmed down a bit.
Although there is a quick meeting just before the show, where you are given a small indication of some of the stuff that is coming up (like the picture caption round) this is not a show where you are given the questions and a sheet of possible jokes you might want to use. It's better that it is genuinely spontaneous, just letting some witty and well-informed people have a funny chat, but that does make it a bit nerve-wracking and right at the start with a first question about Nick Clegg I found myself sitting back and spectating, with nothing to say, worried that I might just clam up for the whole night. But fortunately I managed to spit out a few remarks and then relaxed a bit and actually ended up enjoying it massively. Paul Merton is the effortless king of improvisation and it's a huge pleasure to join in with that, even if, usually I was just providing him with a feed line springboard to jump off of. Samira was sharp and clever and knew all the answers (though I remarked that wasn't really fair as she read the news) and the Masterchef guys, although a little nervous and out of their comfort zone, did a good job too. The record is two hours long and the show only a quarter of the length of that, so whether my jokes about the muscles in Nick Clegg's forearm or Navy Seals bumming Bin Laden will make it on to BBC1 at 9pm remains to be seen, but I got some good laughs and a couple of rounds of applause and a few groans of disgust so I am overall pleased with the performance.
After the show I bumped into Graham Norton and guest Jason Byrne in the corridor and I think I also saw Lady Gaga in a dressing room, though it might have been one of her dancers. Who is to say? I ended coming out for my cab just as Lady Gaga's fleet of cars was moving away and people were chasing her down the street. I managed to get to my cab unmolested.
I am glad that a day like this is the exception rather than the norm and that I am able to go about my daily life without being chased down the street or recognised. But it's fun to be allowed to be a part of it occasionally and it is something of an achievement for me to have finally worked my way up the ladder so I can be a decent (or indecent) guest on a big show like this. If you throw enough shit at the wall... might have to be the name of my showbiz autobiography.
