I am nursing a hangover. A small one, but a hangover nonetheless. My first since taking the pledge, at the Right Hon. Mrs O's insistence, after the incident in that Edinburgh karaoke bar the year that John Birt delivered his second MacTaggart (an event of such stultifying dullness that the only human response was to drink and drink and drink again). My mouth is dry, there is a small angry throb at both my temples and I am unaccountably anxious. In short, I feel just like I do before a meeting with Michael Foster, the smallest and angriest throb of all.
I had no intention of drinking, but by 8.45pm the bar was empty of the old, familiar faces and it was a choice of leaving my own leaving-do at least two hours earlier than is strictly respectable or having a vodka or three to see me through. So when the tall Somali girl from our diversity team - who sounds like she’s named after a Vauxhall people carrier - asked me for the umpteenth time why I wasn’t drinking, I told her I was and sent her off to the bar to get two of whatever she was having. She came back with a brace of Strawberry Mojitos and a couple of friends even darker, more desirable and less pronounceable than she is. The evening is a bit of a blur from then on, if I’m honest.
Sipping a recuperative mug of peppermint tea, I scanned Media Monkey online this morning, curious to see if any of my guests were amongst The Guardian’s roster of narks and grasses, but there wasn’t so much as a sniff. I’ll check the site again after lunch and if word still hasn’t reached King’s Place of the legendary grandiosity of my send-off, I’ll email the details myself.
Any account of the proceedings will need to gloss over the embarrassing dearth of senior industry bods in attendance at The Ivy Club last night. I thought I saw Peter Dale lurking in the shadows (looking more Gollum-ish by the day) and The Wolf Man was conspicuously present, but he hardly counts on the grounds that a) he practically lives in The Ivy b) he would attend the opening of a tin of John West salmon, and c) his commissioning pot is so small these days he makes Hamish at More4 look positively well-hung. Of the bigger beasts, Fincham had taken the precaution of sending his apologies the week before, citing an unavoidable clash with his great aunt’s birthday (a likely story, just the wrong side of insulting), but I didn’t hear a peep from Dawn or Jay or Janice and Stuart M was a no-show, despite him emailing to assure me he would be there ‘come what may’. The Channel 4 lot were out in force, as they bloody well should have been, but they’re such a bunch of thirtysomething no-marks these days I swear I can hardly put a name to a face, (aside from S, of course, who has several names for each of her faces). But the biggest disappointment was Canny D, the miserable ingrate, who I’ve known since he was jailbait. Considering how I helped him escape unscathed from the great Celebrity Big Brother debacle and the strings I pulled to get that irritating little blog shut down, a brief supportive cameo is the least I was expecting.
If anything the video testimonials were even thinner. After all the exclusivity deals I’ve signed across three different decades for four different broadcasters and all the lunches and handbags and Jo Malone gift sets I’ve bought, you’d think the bastards could find time to film a short tribute or two. So where were Ross and Ramsay, Brand and Bleakley, Clarkson and Peter Kay? Too busy counting their millions, I suspect. Justin Lee Collins, Super Hans from Peep Show and The Star Formerly Known as Carol Vorderman is NOT an acceptable ‘guard of honour’ for my passing out parade from high-ranking broadcasting executive to lowly producer.
All this won’t seem to matter quite as much once I’m sitting by the pool in Armagnac. Mrs O and I and the Little Madam fly down on Friday, Ryanair to Biarritz. E is at Tennis Camp until the 23rd, but has condescended to join us after that. Five weeks in the French sun, with only Lucinda’s visit in the second week of August threatening to slightly overshadow such a blissful prospect. She is insisting on coming down to discuss Admirable Productions longer-term strategy - or ten year plan as she is calling it - so that we’re prepped and ready for the Broadcast interview that Freud's have set up for their Edinburgh issue. I’d rather not think any ‘longer-term’ than the first citron presse at the end of Friday’s journey, but will grin and bear it in the spirit of our new partnership, although I’m not much looking forward to seeing Stalin in her swimming costume. Still, it surely can’t be quite as bad as the time I bumped into Lorraine Heggessey, wearing nothing more than an electric blue monokini, on the first day of a two week stay at Mark Warner’s in Kos.
Finding that on the sun lounger next to you would give anybody a bloody hangover!
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