TV Debut

There are not many advantages to working for a beginner’s wage in a very posh area. Every morning when I am emitted from the hot bowels of Green Park tube, I become acutely aware of my relative poverty and subsequent shabby appearance. In cooler weather, the expensive suits on display made a mockery of my off-the-sales-rack M&S number, while during the deep-freeze of winter, successful business men displayed their wealth in impressive coat format, while I shivered under some tiny corduroy mistake I got off eBay five years ago for three pounds. My shoes were also no solace, a scuffed pair of imitation leather shufflers that I’ve had since the days I used to push trolleys round the car park in Waitrose Cobham, the equivalent of free school dinners to everyone else’s double burger with extra chips: four hundred pound brogues.

Making matters worse is my walk past both The Ritz and The Wolseley. I may as well have propped myself up on a crutch and held out a tin cup for coppers, though my bad shaving and terrible hair, both my own fault, no doubt exacerbated by prolo appearance.

But for all the raging snobbery, it’s nice to be in a posh bit: fewer tramps, swankier cars and gentlemen’s clubs with polished brass exteriors. Some days, while traipsing home, I could smell the cigar smoke in the air. So too could the Ethiopians who had been polishing the brass since dawn. I may not have wealth, but at least I have youth. While scraping their fortunes, these finance types have grown fat and haggard, which no amount of bespoke tailoring can vanquish. I can skip by, an impudent imp with no money, but also no cash-getting wrinkles. I tell myself they look at me jealously, but they are probably frowning at how the soles of my shoes are peeling away.

Come summer, and I am in a better position. In the sunshine, the less you can wear, the better. The real earners swelter behind expensive neckties and crystal cufflinks. I roll up my polyester trousers, cast off my elastene socks and give serious though to slipping out of my ten-pound work shirt and searing my pasty parts under the midday sun while lounging on the grass in beautiful St James’s Square.

Every bright lunchtime, this haven of fauna amid Georgian townhouses and angry taxis fills with office workers clutching bags of nosh from Eat, Pret and Itsu, mingling on the lawns with tattooed builders working in the area. Us grads have taken to ambling down there, albeit with cheaper food brought from home in trusty tuppaware, and rubbing sweaty shoulders with the West End’s rising stars in hedge funds and executive search. I may lack the required signet ring to fit in with the crowd, but my twelve quid white rimmed aviator sunglasses from River Island at least mean no-one can see the shame in my eyes. And it was indeed this yoof-fashion eyewear that prompted the latest surprising development to fall into my lap.

“There’s a massive sculpture in the square,” one of our jollier colleagues had informed us, “Fancy coming along for a gander?” I had to admit to not being interested in any highbrow art during my allocated lunch hour, but said I would more than likely be there anyway, doing my best to sustain heatstroke among tempura rolls and Greek salads. Turned out a Jeff Koons behemoth was residing on the grass prior to auction at nearby Christies. I had never heard of him and immediately accused my colleague of being a racist pig.

“What’s that big pink thing?” a fellow grad asked me later, we being the only two to escape to the square that lunch time. I smugly reeled off artist and information as if a general expert, much to their indifference. We were more excited to spot a TV crew, a boy with camera and a girl with boom, going from group to group, apparently gathering comment on the statue. Behind my aviators, I seethed fierce jealousy that we had not yet been approached, pretending to listen to my friend talking. Why were they asking the couple with a baby? They had a baby in the way and were clearly idiots! Why were they asking Woman With Book? She shook her head nervously because she knew it was our bloody turn.

Only after losing interest did they bound up, as if making the most of a veritable scrape of the barrel. “Hi, we’re from Richard & Judy and we’re asking what people think of the statue today.” They made Richard & Judy sound either like some sort of evangelical church that sends out missionaries among bored office cattle or like a far away place where people with inane questions come from.

“You’ve asked me before,” chirped my friend, confessing this was not her first time to be voxpopped for the show.

The boy and the girl were two of the nicest people I have ever encountered and clearly well trained in the art handling fame-hungry cretins such as ourselves. We had to stand with the pink sculpture in the background and describe our thoughts on it, all without turning to look at it. It’s funny how when you’re told not to do something that a compulsion to do so overpowers your every rational thought. Nevertheless, they assured us we were doing well and would make it onto the show that evening. I remember calling the sculpture “pink and shiny” and my colleague likened it to “intestines or haemorrhoids”. We thought we were hilarious and the nice boy and girl were happy to let us think they agreed.

Next we had to guess its value before opening up a pre-prepared golden envelope for the camera which revealed the true price of the artwork: a Tesco-value twelve million pounds. We did our best impressions of salt-of-the-earth outraged British consumers and I made embarrassing dad jokes before signing release forms and saying goodbye to the lovely crew while wishing they were our new best and only friends.

My friend immediately rang her mother to get our broadcast Sky plussed as we dashed back to the office to gloat and receive ribbings from jealous podfellows. Our genius aired just after five fifteen. I was still chained to my desk waiting to go home, but I received a text from an old friend not seen for years, asking what the devil I was doing working on the telly. As if.

I dashed home on the bicycle in time to catch my small screen adventure on Channel 4 +1, stopping only to notice that J from Five was basking in the sunshine on a bench immediately in front of my flat. While reheating beans, I willed Richard to stop gabbling over Judy until they finally showed the montage of clips in which I featured. I can’t have been on the screen for more than four seconds; my nose was a funny shape, my skin pale, my shirt creased and my voice strange. I bloody loved it. And then that was that. Back to banality. Nevertheless, it was enough to add a frisson of glamour to my tedious days. Imagine if I’d been on something higher end than Richard & Judy, maybe had a ten minute slot on Pebble Mill or something.

A flatmate soon arrived home and I fired my news at them: “Come and look out the window; J from Five is on our bench and he’s been talking to a tramp for the last hour.”

“I don’t know who J from Five is…”

“Oh. Well guess what – I’ve just been on Richard & Judy.”

“Wow,” he said, “That really is news!”