A dinner date with fame
Are you sure you meant to say that?'
As the guy to my right leant towards me, avoiding the gaze of the camera behind him, and whispered into my ear, I started to realise that, perhaps, things weren't going quite as well as they might have been. After all, libelling one's teachers and enemies in private is one thing but doing so, drunk, on national TV is quite another...
It all began towards the end of Hilary term, when an innocuous ad appeared in the back of the OxStu. 'Did you go to a boarding school? If so, Granada TV'd really like to hear from you.' I had happy visions of being interviewed in a book-lined study, being allowed to pontificate at length about 'the good old days', with perhaps a medicinal gin and tonic to hand.
Flash forward three months and I, with some fellow desperados, boarded the Oxford Tube, bound for a dinner party that we were told was going to be used as the basis of a documentary; the atmosphere was light-hearted enough, and we all agreed on one, important factor. Namely, that we were going to get very drunk, say wonderfully witty things, and do our schools an immense amount of credit, and that, if we didn't, we'd make a stand and refuse to sign any of the release forms.
The first thing that seemed slightly bizarre was the room that the party was being held in; although I hadn't expected the Ritz, we found ourselves sitting round a table in a room that was decorated like a cross between a 19th century Parisian brothel, a Dickensian prison and an acid trip survivor's flashback. The only sensible thing to do was to reach for the nearest glass, and start on the wine, which I proceeded to do with gay aplomb.
The producers had done their job thoroughly; there was the usual mix of suspects from the grand old public schools of England, namely Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Clifton and Shrewsbury, all of whom more or less lived up to their stereotypes with suitably embarrassing results. For the first half of the dinner party, the conversation was stilted and slow in the extreme. However, at about ten, I finally realised that I ought to stop feigning decency and admit that I was, by now, hardly in a sober state, and that there was no longer any need to act as an ambassador for the old school tie. The conversation started to become increasingly surreal, as if Samuel Beckett had been invited to a party hosted by the earl of Rochester, Withnail and Mr Chips; a typical moment was when, after being treated to a lengthy anecdote about exactly how many sports were practiced at Harrow, one of our number (who shall remain nameless) turned to him, and said, with complete seriousness, 'Would buggery have been counted as a sport or a leisure activity at Harrow?' As the ales did their job, people began toasting imaginary teachers, imaginary friends and imaginary lovers, the cigars came out, and the producer's interjections became fewer and fewer, instead replaced by the sound of heavily suppressed laughter.
My nadir came around this point. After plugging the two books that I'd written (as yet unpublished, but that may change), repeatedly and tediously, I decided that everyone was being a bit too nice. There had been a teacher at school who I'd always disliked, and who had always loathed me, and it seemed absolutely in keeping with the evening that I should turn to camera, smirk, and say, calmly, 'X was not only an absolute cunt- oh, sorry, can't say that on TV, scoundrel- but he was also an obvious paedophile as well. It's a wonder why they didn't lock him up years ago.'
Gasps of breath from the others, looks of joy from the production team, and the slow, unhappy realisation that I had just placed myself open to a very big, very nasty libel suit. Before I could start retraction, the filming had reached its end, and a large piece of paper was placed in front of me. Dazed, I signed it- it turned out to be the release form, unfortunately meaning that I assented to letting the entire nation see me in my drunken, libellous state- and tried to walk out the door, my legs only partially supporting me. Outside, I saw the producer.
'A good programme, I thought', she said, brightly.
'WhensitgonnabeonTV?'
Through years of experience of dealing with swaying, inarticulate students, she understood. 'Oh, September sometime. Plenty of time.'
I think that I'm going to be going away on a long holiday that month. Somehow, the thought of having a career on TV seems a hell of a lot more unattractive than it did the day before. Big Brother? No, sir.
12th Jun 2003