I am no stranger to fame! Incidences include:
1. Television film for Channel Four in 1983, in which I wear a school uniform and pretend to be a twelve year old Mason, accompanied by my oldest friend as Main Lead;
2. Frightful lunchtime fashion programme hosted by Paula Hamilton, in which I wear trousers, c. 1994;
3. Something ghastly to do with the Clothes Show, c. 1992;
4. Her Ladyship in The Dresser, 1989;
5. Model"* in 'charity fashion show' at Loughborough University, at which I find a Post-It note stuck to the wall with the words "Non-workingmonkey. Bad hair", c. 1993
6. Prostitute in red velvet riding habit in weird Czech play directed by halfwit, 1989;
7. Rolf Harris impersonator, After Magritte, 1990;
8. Spied on by bloodsucking Guardian journalist, c. 1995.
It therefore came as no surprise to find an electronic mail earlier today from a man asking me to be in a television programme. (Well, a live stream on ITV.com, to be more accurate.) I have no doubt that many others have been sent the same email, and I am sure that they will agree that it was very nice, and that they too were informed that the "project is long form, and aims to show (over the course of a few months) exactly how a blogger’s day-to-day life informs their blog and vice versa."
I imagine the author is bespectacled, in his mid-twenties and occasionally sent out to buy coffee for everyone. (Either that, or he is a BAFTA-award winning documentary maker whose work I have missed because I have been watching endless episodes of Arrested Development and cracking pistachio nuts in my teeth). But he is obviously not an idiot: "I’m not sure if you actually genuinely ARE unemployed", and I like the sound of him very much. (I did not like the sound of Knobby The Knob from London Lite. Some of you Will Know To Whom I Refer.)
I don't think** I'm going to do it, mind you. I'm not that interesting, I talk too fast and I dislike the thought of myself full screen at a three-quarters angle squeaking "Well, nothing much happens, really", whilst scratching my elbow and chewing on a small clay pipe. But my real reluctance comes from something altogether more simple: I'm vain and I'm a snob, and I don't want to be thought of as the sort of person who wants to be on television.
* I use the term loosely.
** In my country, we call this "keeping our options open". I might do it if people who aren't knobs do it. For e.g, if it is me, someone who writes about their therapy, someone who writes about their children a lot, someone who describes their every act of self-love (with pics), someone under the age of eighteen!!! who loves smileys!! :-) and her friends!!!!, and someone whose every word is clenched full with a cascade of burnished confused metaphor (like a butterfly emerging hummingbird-like from the rotting corpse of a bison), and compressedly over-wrought language in which the dripping pearls of pain creep down the dessicated pages of their self-realisation, I'm DEFINITELY in.
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39 comments:
ooh, pick me, pick me! I want to win a television!
wha ...?
So Films of Record have tracked you down, eh? There's a bit of that going around.
I think your inclination to decline is wise. I didn't see them, but what could surpass Her Ladyship, followed by a red velvet prostitute?
Exactly, Tea and Cake.
Exactly too, Asta my sweet. I don't think I've ever got over the red velvet riding habit. It was MAGNIFICENT.
please be a very cautious monkey if you do - i've done books for reality tv shows, and was on a documentary series lately, and the end result can be quite different to what you expect. also people sometimes say nasty things afterwards. smoke your little clay pipe for a bit and ponder it - that's my advice.
It has to be said, my instinct is no. I just don't like that sort of thing, however nice the man sounds.
Somehow, the idea of a monkey dressed as a prostitute, even in a red velvet riding habit, really doesn't do it for me. Perhaps it's the fez.
Oh, you should always do televsion - it's fun (though radio is funner of course)
Why does nobody ask me to do these things? I could easily go Hmmmmmmm to the camera!
Well nobody's asked me so it's bound to be rubbish. Humpf!
Incidentally, I love people's fifteen minute stories. I auditioned for the Parent Trap, don't you know? (That bitch Li-Lo stole my life). I also appeared on Newsround and threw a frisbee in front of a paedophile's caravan in a BBC crime drama no-one's ever heard of. Oh, and I met Graham Norton in Starbucks.
He was a right wanker.
Oh for goodnessake, just go for it!
Well it's always nice to be asked, as my granny used to say.
I think it's cool you declined.
The meeja is pretty snifffy about bloggers anyway, heard R4 celebrating that 200,000 people had given theirs up.
Ignore me. Thanks to you I've just had a wotsit enlighted moment. Bit cryptic, sorry, and ta!
hello, I believe I have been offered the same '15 minutes'.
If you wear your red velvet riding habit, I will wear my top hat!
That is a joke by the way. Celebrity is not for boys like me.
'...err well see, I blog because... err... oh I don't know... would you like another flapjack?'
Remember the code:
1. Never give your name to a journalist, especially if drunk and falling out of dress (you that is, not journo) and
2. Never expose yourself to the meeja unless you have a worthwhile and/or humanitarian (or simian) cause to promote and even then, only if desperate.
(dram, either am or pro, is specifically excluded)
Sorry, I have one word to add: Delrosa
Haha, well I cannot deny it, cos I've already blogged it...
I have been asked to do it, and I want to do it! And I probably will. Yes, I am a media whore and I want to be on telly and there's really no point pretending I don't. I've been on telly a few times before (sadly my CV ain't nearly as exciting as yours, by which I am Mightily Impressed) and it's fun and no big deal.
As for all these worries about reality TV ruining your life, I would say, um... methinks the naysayers need a reality check. It's not primetime TV, it's not WifeSwap, it's not even on telly for God's sake! It's 3 minutes of not-quite-nearly-fame on a live stream on ITV.com. I mean, whoever has even *heard* of ITV com, let alone watches live streams on it?
This is not even remotely equivalent to the paraparazzi camping out on your doorstep. It's just a little documentary, that's all.
I did tell them I couldn't possibly see how you could film blogging and make it interesting to watch, but they said I needn't worry, just make sure I was wearing my Very Best Underwear. And remember to change my name and plan a moonlight flit to the Maldives. And hire a bodyguard. And then everything would be OK.
;o)
MM - I know. I think I may even have photographic evidence somewhere. Oh yes.
Clare - horses for courses, as they say! It's obv. it's not Big Brother. I just don't really fancy doing it because, well ... I just don't. The only thing that would persuade me is Andre doing it. In a red riding habit.
Also (and I know I keep saying it): all the things in the list I did as favours to mates, apart from the first one which you'd only say 'no' to (bearing in mind you were 12 and two of your best friends were doing it too) if you were mad in the head.
I will be watching you with my eyes and cheering you on, however! Oh yes!! (Will you wear the purple fur? Please say you will.)
It is getting a bit hot for fur...
Oh 'eck. I have just spoken with Television Man on the phone. Am I a Great Big Eejit for even contemplating this?
Yes, of course I am. But it is fun being an eejit.
Bless his little socks, he was a bit bemused by the fact that one day he is sending emails to bloggers, and the very next day they are all Posting Blog Entries about it and chattering away excitedly On The World Wide Web. He is not used to such things.
(I will certainly wear fur if I can get away with it. Even better than that, I might try and wear The Home Mad Orange Fur, Complete With Hat)
(It is not home mad, it is home MADE. But mad is probably more accurate)
(Oh dear, I am an eejit)
run! run like the wind!
when have you EVER seen ANY documentary about ANYBODY (apart from dead politicians or princesses) when they've made people look anything other than mad fuckwits?
When I become a film-maker, which I shall, maybe not in this lifetime, but when I come back at Quentin Tarantino, i shall make loving films about my blog friends.... but films of record? hmmmm... i hear only strange and worrying things.
I'd quite like to do radio as they don't have unflattering camera angles. However I think there is something grubby about wanting to be on tv just for the sake of it.
1. Play School. Close up 'boy in crowd' in scene through window (Arched).
2. 'Pall - The Movie', uncompleted summer holiday project based around local curry house. Hilariously named 'Alan Pigge' character.
3. 'Les Transactions'. Man being buggered senseless then beaten up in shower, for money. Sort of 'art project'.
love the title however when warhol said: "everyone should have 15 minutes of fame" he actually meant: than everyone would know that it is not as cool as you think it is and "actually really sucks so get out of my face you paparazzi"
Ms Pepper, I do think you are overreacting... tis only short 3-minute films, nothing more. Even if they make me out to be Mad Scary Lady, that would be pretty funny, no? I could even ham it up a little...
Do it, but give them what they want. Dribble whilst sitting at your keyboard. Refuse to answer the door when the bell goes. Wear a tin foil hat. The cameras will love it.
I like this blog by the way.
Even I got that email... but I shan't be doing it.
I shall content myself with
a) being in the studio audience of "Whose line is it anyway" directly behind Clive Anderson in 1989.
b) appearing on TF1 news in France being interview about student protests in 1994
Fame, I shun it, not that I've had any other option, but if I were you I wait for the bio pic of your life and then play yourself:)
swineshead, ain't that the truth?
When the ladette producer asks you if you talk to the trees, say that you do. When you are asked to lean back on the park bench so, with that camera angle, your stomach will look larger than your head, lean back. When the interviewer asks you a question and then grimaces grotesquely at you while you are trying to reply, do what she wants: even though your every twitch is being recorded for ever, mirror her face-pulling and look like a complete nutcase.
I have been on tv, always for The Cause, in 1992, 1994, 2007; and have learned (from the mistakes of others) to make it a rule never to be filmed at home.
See, I'm torn.
I would love to see you on the telly.
But there is no way I would do it myself.
Not without a very large cash incentive.
I am weak with laughter! This is a sensation. I will do a compilation of TV appearances of readers, which will make a super post all on its own.
Anonymous - Utter genius, I thank you.
Anx - TF1! Legend! Clive! Oh yes!
Indigo - THE CAUSE?!
Jude - I'd do it for £5k, but that's a given. (Which reminds me - someone sent me an email the other day offering a go on some fucking online panel for the BBC. I said, "what's in it for me?", they said: "An exclusive behind-the-scenes party at the BBC!". I said, "Are you cretins? All of you?".
Clare notwithstanding, SURELY the point is that you should only do this sort of thing:
1. If you get paid for your time (after all, they're selling the documentary)
2. If you are a self-publicist
3. If you have something to publicise.
Also (Clare notwithstanding), and as I said in the email to the man today, the sort of people who say yes to this sort of thing confuse me as much as the sort of people who are OK being paid £40 for being in a research group when they do not need the money. If they DO need the money, why on earth would one trust a word they said?
Swineshead - hello and welcome. Cup of tea? Bang up for the tinfoil helmet mind.
JonnyB - show off.
Apprentice - correct. Always nice to be asked.
Gigibird - in the almost inevitable event of someone making a biopic about me, I will be played by Lisa Tarbuck. It is the absolute truth.
Sorry - Morgan - frisbee? GENIUS.
Upper Case L - I really have no idea!!!
5K would be OK. But not quite enough. I would want enough to be able to say to any possible sneerers - yes, they made me look insufferable (and I'm not), but look at my nice new car/holiday in the Bahamas/new house.
And an exclusive party at the BBC? Would I get to meet Jane Garvey? - I know that's radio, and probably doesn't count, but she makes me laugh.
Fair dos as it goes. I think 10k minimum plus % of rights when sold and repeat fees. Come. On.
20K. And all the other stuff. True life exposes in Best, celebrity relationship spreads with the man from the colonies in OK....
This could make you truly non-working.
I say, on those terms, do it.
I do have something to sell, by the way.
Well, that's my excuse and I am sticking to it...
And as for BBC secret private parties... woohoo! Where do I sign?!
;o)
I like being notwithstanding, by the way. It's so much better than being notwithsitting, although not quite as good as notwithlying.
I am absolutely intrigued though by the antipathy to it all. I expect I shall Find Out To My Cost how right you all are...
NWM, Indigo - THE CAUSE?!
Younger readers may not remember a time when, sur le Continent and in the Yorkshire Dales and in a banana-shaped "dead" spot in the West Country, you could hear Radio 4 only on 198kHz. There was no web broadcasting, little cable, almost no affordable satellite. Yes, when Middle England marched on Broadcasting House, I was there, and I helped to organise a 12-country "fax storm" upon the BBC (probably illegal, now), and many other exciting and extremely time-consuming things, to save 198kHz for Radio 4 (and the listeners won).
This year, I have been one of the nosupercasino founding four.
I sent him a very nice email explaining that anonymity is a big thing for people who waste their time in the manner that we choose to, and how he imagined that would work on the tele-vision. He seems a bit stumped by this, and has yet to reply.
I rather fancied a CrimeWatch-style back-lit silhouette voiced by an 'actor'.
Fuck's sake.
You forgot your best claim to fame. I speak of your appearance, for at least 12/24ths of a second, in an TV commercial for a national tabloid. Or was it a travel agent? Anyway, you were magnificent darling.
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