Star Spotting
Tim Vine, walking down Great Portland Street at 9.20am this morning, looking a little worried. And looking at me in a worried way, and I looked at him, wondering who he was and whether I was supposed to know who he was and acknowledge his existence. I decided not to. That was the right decision.
Apparently I’m not allowed to claim Hardeep Singh Kohli, who I saw walking into BBC White City, since he was on BBC soil. Similarly, I can’t also claim the BBC News 24 reporter who looks a bit like John Stapleton but isn’t, since I saw him walk into the BBC staff-only WHSmiths inside Television Centre. But at least I get to claim one new celeb signing.
Just to update you of other potentially exciting celebrity sightings: in my final week at Virgin, I saw Stephen Twigg on his mobile in Golden Square, who I nodded to and mouthed ‘hello’, and he mouthed ‘hello’ back again, and it was only then that I realised who he was and that no, I’d never talked to him longer than about five seconds. And, on going for my job interview at BBC White City, I spotted coming out of the little cafe none other than Captain Slow James May (again on BBC soil so it doesn’t count).
I also bumped into Media UK celebrity Martin Deutsch today, not on BBC soil, but he’s not a real celebrity and I ended up buying him a beer at the fiercely non-subsidised BBC Club in Television Centre, so that doesn’t count either. (It does serve real ale, though - three beers on draft, including Directors and Brakspear. I don’t know whether this counts as commercially-sensitive information. I’m hoping not).
In other news: I today learnt how the radio works in the office, and so spent an enjoyable couple of hours listening to BBC Radio 2 until someone doubtless noticed and switched it off again. I also learnt that there’s a stationery cupboard “over there” on our floor, but I wasn’t looking at the time and missed where “over there” was. (It wasn’t me that was being shown it, I just overheard the conversation).
Finally, today I was described, successfully, as “a tall bloke with a stripey shirt”.
It’s all go, let me tell you.
(PS: Old colleagues might like to know that the digital radio in the office was found tuned to Virgin Radio, before I tuned it over to Radio 2. I heard a Kaiser Chiefs song today and quite liked it, so I’m on the way to a cure.)