1997 September
Friday 12
Today I was meeting Bill Oddie at Texas Homecare for a Lads' Shopping Trip. He prefers Texas to the Do It All (formerly a Focus DIY) even though it's further out. By the time I got there, Bill had finished.
"Don't you need to get anything Alan?"
I grabbed a bag of fuses (I don't even know what spec) and we went to "check it out". As we walked and chatted I stopped dead.
"Whoops. Mea culpa", Bill muttered.
My ears were pricked. Bill had just made a very cavalier remark about how he was going to bring binoculars to Sue Cook's party so he could look at Alan Titchmarsh's wife's breasts. That's right. Sue Cook was having a party and forgot to tell me.
'What have I ... what have I ... what have I done to deserve this?' I was thinking. I was incredulous and my fist was positively hulking with rage. You could say I was The Incredulous Hulk.
"Alan Titchmarsh's wife! WHO'S SHE?!" I yelled into the receiver to Sue.
"But Alan", started Sue, "it's only a low-key thing. She's there to make up the numbers for cribbage - with Moira Stewart, Lynda Bellingham, and Lenny Henry.
Once I heard this star-studded cast of game-players, I knew for sure that she was telling the truth.
"You can come Alan", she finally said. "Just don't talk to the amputee girl".
What? Was that the one-armed young lady who'd been a guest on Crimewatch a couple years back? If so, Sue was in luck. I already had spoken to the one-armed-girl. I'd even written her a letter. But she never wrote back.
I'd met her at BBC Television Centre during the tail-end of Knowing Me, Knowing You. I tried to explain to her that there wasn't a violent criminal around every corner ... not least because the (BBC TV Centre's) corridors were circular! The joke went over her head. I then assured her that just because she was recently victim to violent crime, it didn't mean that all men were rapists and murderers.
That very weekend I fatally shot a guest live on air.
Apropos the present: The chances that I'd be called upon to make a speech at Sue's party will be minimal. Never-the-less I've been re-reading Nigel Rees' book of humorous graffiti for witty repartee. I've thus far shortlisted three picks:
'I used to use clichés all the time. But now I avoid them like the plague!'
'Donald Duck - he's not all he's quacked up to be!'
'I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous!'
In order to slip these in I'd have to try and steer the conversation to Disney; otherwise I know for a fact that George Best is ambidextrous. I could say I met him in my days as sports presenter. While already impressed with this not-implausible mistruth, anyone within earshot will be on qui vive for my consequent zinger. Career grand slam! Nothing can go wrong.
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