Most underwhelming person off the telly you have seen whilst out and about

What @Chef Tyke hasn't mentioned is how close he came to securing a date with Sarah Cox when we saw her in Space many moons ago.

Edit - just remembered another Ibiza one with Chef - Peter Stringfellow in El Divino. Terrible shirt, younger plastic lady on his arm. One of our mates got a bit lairy and kept shouting "oi, Stringfellow!" for reasons best known to himself. The magic mullet quickly departed.

 

I saw Ken Livingstone on a Ryanair fight from Riga to Stansted when he was Mayor of London. Looked incredibly disheveled, as if he'd put his tie on pissed. At least he can't be accused of wasting public money, as my ticket had cost me about £20.

 

Sounds like the Duke of Hamilton.

 

One fig? Between 11 of you?!? Tight buggers....

 

Meeting the Duke of Edinburgh (proper one, not William), and Jeremy Paxman were both memorable - each was genuinely funny, happy to have a chat, and in the latter case nothing like the persona they play on telly.

Suranne Jones was also memorable for different reasons- she came to our school before she was known and performed in a play about relationships, sex, and consent. Whether the content or lack of other options, many of the lads in school were rather fond, and I’m sure the survey feedback forms made for inappropriate reading.

 

Karl pilkington, while he was filming a show down dungeness top bloke exactly the same as he was on the radio/tv made my day!

 

i’d love to get my hands on her cream buns….

 

I love how utterly random these stories are!

I have 3 to tell, each likely less interesting than the last.

In my early twenties, I visited my dad in Lytham. They have a wonderful pub there called 'the Taps,' which at the time was fairly rare in that it specialised in good beer. The place is owned by Bill Beaumont (which is incidental to the story). A few jars in, I headed to the bogs (which has a very useful headrest placed above the urinals for those that have imbibed too much - again incidental). As I slowly migrated through the flow of bodies, I found that I came chest to chest with one Roy Walker of catchphrase fame, having failed to swerve one way or the other to avoid him. Being of substantial build myself (and with him clearly having been the one who needed to step aside), Roy was quick to apologise, before adding "Christ, you're a big fella." Which to be fair, I am. Without missing a step, I replied "say what you see Roy, say what you see." It's fair to say Roy was not impressed by my quick wit, and exited without a word.

A few years later, I took a mate of mine to watch the filming of Countdown. This chap had suffered a severe head trauma around 8 months before, had been in a coma for 2 months, and it's fair to say he was still recovering somewhat from his injuries. Inhibitions were not prevalent in his make up. I can't say why he was so excited about Countdown, but excited he was. I don't know if anyone else is familiar with how they film it, but they bring in an audience and film 2-3 episodes on the same day, with the same guests. Those episodes then go out across a week or so - or at least they did at the time (Whitely was still in the chair). One of the guests on the day was a fella named Tom O'Connor. Very smart lad, but not someone who I was familiar with at the time. Now, you get a bit of warm up with Countdown, they have someone telling you when to cheer, and when to be quiet. You do a bit of practicing with some randoms before they bring out the guests, and my man Belly was attentive and well behaved throughout. So out came the guests, the cameras start rolling for real, and the actual competition starts. The contestants do their stuff, and we're a few rounds in. One ends, and everyone claps on cue, then there's a lull... at which point, with a background of silence, my mate gets up, lets out an enormous fart that can be heard around the studio and shouts "here Tom, name that tune!" It was only later that I managed to do enough research to find out just how insightful his intervention was.

Finally, I once got stuck in a lift in the Marriott hotel in Leeds with Alex McLeish. I think he was managing Birmingham at the time. The lift stopped, we both panicked a little. He pressed the emergency button, waited for the reply and said "you'd better get here now, if you know who I am," and then genuinely (and really, rather bizarrely), turned away and looked at the lift wall when I said "well, seen as we're stuck here, I might as well say I know you're Alex McLeish." That was it, we sat there in silence for 20+ mins after that, until they got us moving again.

I can confidently state Belly is the most interesting person in any of those stories.

 

Yeah, seemed a nice bloke. Found it very amusing we didn’t know it was him, and actually walked us to where we were going!

 

Another little brush with celebrity status. Lol
Once went to Doncaster and Linda lusardi was signing autographs in the night club we were in.
Park Road fc had gone for their annual end of season night out, a few were all stood in line patiently waiting to get a signed photo off her.
The bouncers were controlling who went on to the balcony, a 1 in 1 out system where she was sat, me being the cocky 2hat that I was at the time waited whilst the 1 in, set off back to the bouncer
Then I vaulted the rail around the balcony sat down and said ...my my you look absolutely tired out Linda would you like me to go and get you a drink adding whens your next break.
Momentarily she was taken aback before answering ooh I'd love a gin and tonic. Right I said let me go and get you one
Bye the way I'm Bryan
I hadn't finished my name before the bouncer controlling the entry point had his arm around my neck, ready to drag me out.
Stop stop she shouted get you arms of ....my friend Bryan.
The bouncer apologised, saying ooh Im so sorry I didn't know
So you should be Linda snapped
Followed by I'm taking a break now, will you fetch me a gin and tonic and whatever Bryan wants
I sat with her for 15 minutes, I asked if I could take her for lunch the next time I was in London to which she replied yes and followed it up with giving me her personal contact number, and a signed copy of her which she was handing out
After 15minutes or so and our Gin and tonic downed, her driver minder came and suggested it was time for her to return back to work.
An hour or so later when she finished she beckoned me to her.
I got a very nice kiss and a you won't forget to call me , will you
Now you'd think that London would be the follow up story...
A arr


not this time
I lost the f**'King paper with her number on it

 

I used to live in Hampstead and work in A&E there, so you’d see well known people all the time, both in work and out (best random in work one was having to pull Jeremy Beadle’s pants down to give him a pethidine injection - he was a nice bloke, albeit in some discomfort). I then worked all over central London, so again you’d see one or two well known people every day. But probably my most bizarre encounter was when I popped out of the office to a newsagent on Marylebone High Street, to get a can of pop. I firstly had to ask Barbara Windsor to move, as she was chatting to someone in the doorway of the shop, and then when I got to the counter I found I was stood next to Ozzy Osbourne. It was like Stella Street.

Years earlier, when I was living in Liverpool, I went down to London with my girlfriend to watch a band (The Milltown Brothers) play at Camden Underworld. We were staying in a youth hostel just behind Oxford Street. When we got back down on to Oxford Street we could see beams of light shining up into the sky from the direction of Leicester Square, so we wandered down to see what it was. On the way we spotted a TV chef (can’t remember his name) and thought that was something we’d be able to tell people when we got home…

A bit further down the road we saw Richard O’Brien and then we almost walked straight into a slightly pissed Richard Branson, who told us he’d been to the opening of a new restaurant called Planet Hollywood. As we got round the corner there were people stood behind the barriers watching everyone leave the restaurant. We’d never heard of the place, but over the next 20 minutes we saw Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis & Demi Moore, Mel Gibson, Lennox Lewis, Kim Basinger, a taxi filled with Ronnie Wood, Jimmy White and Johnny Depp, and a few dozen others who I can’t remember. It was quite bizarre.

The next day we went to the restaurant and when we took our seats we noticed everyone turning round to look at us. We were starting to feel a tad paranoid, until the waitress told us that Barbara Streisand and Andre Agassi had been sitting there before us. I imagine we confused people who turned round for another look, although my nose isn’t dissimilar to Ms Streisand’s!

Of course, when we got home and started reeling off the names of everyone we’d seen, nobody believed us. A year later we went down to London again and in the evening wandered into Leicester Square and it was all roped off and Red carpeted again. This time they were opening the new Warner Bros. cinema, and there was a premiere of The Fugitive that night. We hung around, hoping to add Harrison Ford to the list, but word went round that neither he nor Tommy Lee Jones were there. There were loads of people like Simon le Bon and Bob Geldof and so forth going in though. And once everyone had gone in a limo with the star guest arrived, and it was Clint Eastwood, standing about 10 feet from us. Very tall chap. After him the last limo pulled up and out got Princess Diana. I turned to my girlfriend and said we might as well not even bother trying to convince anybody back home about this one.

 

I dropped on Harry Gration in the Witherspoons one summer in Bradford. We had a brief chat and I found him very amiable

 

I was at a funeral about 18 months ago for a mate of mine who was a TalkSport presenter - he also did in house commentary for Arsenal and Harlequins so there were quite a few current and ex players there from both. The family had specifically requested formal funeral attire - Joe Marler, the ex England prop from the fatties code of rugby turned up in shorts, in December. An absolute bellwash of a bloke.

 

A lot of years ago was in Cleethorps in a caravan for a weeks holiday.It rained all week but on the Wednesday I could hear a car struggling to get out as the grass was wet through.Went outside to give the bloke a hand and it was Alan Minter the boxer and his manager.Managed to push him out and then dropped on him in the club bar that night.We had a good session that night fantastic bloke.

 

Nick Knight. His son and my son used to train together ( tennis) once a week. Spent many a Friday evening having a good old chat. Thoroughly nice bloke.

 

Forgot to mention when I went up to Skye on a road trip for my 50th in 2021 with my wife and on the return leg we had a 1 night stay in Bamburgh at the Victoria hotel. It was warm for September so we were sat outside at one of the tables and next to me was ex England and Yorkshire cricketer Ryan Sidebottom with his family. Had a brief chat with him and he said he was working as a sales rep for a caravan and static homes company.

 

Having to give loo roll to Jim Mcnulty because David Perkins had run out of it.

 

Most recently, I saw Liam Palmer sat on his own at Sheffield Centertainment Nando’s, he’d just demolished a full chicken easily going by what was on his table. Questionable attire too.

A couple of years ago I bagged tickets to a Britains got Talent audition show in Manchester. The four judges walked down the gangway, I was sat right next it, high fived Bruno whatshisface, smiled at Amanda Holden (she’s tiny) & shook hands with Simon Cowell, who smokes like a chimney, & is very short & he looks like he’s wearing a mask with all that Botox!

Back when The Damned United was in Cinemas, we shared a screen with Chris Kamara, me & all my mates were awestruck at the time & he was lovely chatting to us all, & even mentioned my Barnsley shirt & said how good a player Allan Clarke was.