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Tuesday 11th November 2008

Never Mind The Buzzcocks has been running since 1996 and finally in series 22 I have been asked on to be a panelist. They really must have run out of people to ask. It's actually the first of the big terrestrial panel shows I've ever been on, though both Phill Jupitus (who has been on every single episode of the show) and Simon Amstell seemed to think I had done it before. Maybe Charlie Boorman has been on.
Though since Edinburgh I feel that my name has maybe shifted on to a new list as I seem to be being asked on to more of these things.
I walked up to TV Centre just before 4pm and we were quickly taken on to set. I was on Phill's team with Lil Chris, and we were up against guest captain Frank Skinner, alongside Mel C and James Rushent from Does It Offend You, Yeah?, who I was relieved to find no one else had heard of either. So it wasn't just me being old and uncool. It was a good bunch of people and the vibe was good.
I immediately warmed to Lil Chris who is a very unaffected and funny teenage lad, managing to disarm everyone with his enthusiastic normality. When he met Frank Skinner the first thing he said, with a tinge of excitement and recognition, was "Is that jacket from Next?" Much as it would be lovely if the millionaire funny man shopped there, Frank checked to reveal that it was actually from Jasper Conran. But Lil Chris was only asking because he has one that looked the same from the cheaper high street store. There was no guile there, but it marvelously undercut Frank and I told Chris to save this stuff or the show.
Mel C was six months pregnant and looking radiant. I had met her once before when Stew and me had been on the real Richard and Judy show back in about 1996, but not surprisingly she didn't remember that. Nor did she betray any knowledge of the old Lee and Herring routine in which we had said that the Spice Girls each represented one of the five types of women, of which she was "ugly women... who can jump." Even at the time I didn't mean that as I rather fancied her, but it seems unnecessarily harsh written down there. Later she discussed how she'd slagged off Cliff Richard once and then met up with him, so I think she would have understood.
Unusually, in my limited experience of these things, we were not provided with a list of questions and answers for the quiz. We were told what the first question would be, and shown the footage, but the answer was a closely guarded secret and though there would have been the opportunity for collusion in the introductions round (which I would be guessing), certainly on my side there wasn't any. Luckily it turned out that mine were pretty easy to get.
We started recording just after seven and it was a long night - we finished around about 10, but apparently they always record this much to make the 30 minute show. I managed to make a significant contribution, although, of course, have no way of knowing which bits will get into the final show. I am hopeful that I will come out of it well and managed a few lines that I was pleased with, along with a few that I hope don't make the cut. Everyone had something to contribute, which doesn't always happen with these shows and Lil Chris was my favourite, garnering considerable sympathy with the audience, making any attempt at barbed jokes about him fall flat. "Don't give me aggro!" he said to Phill Jupitus at one point. There is no answer to that. Simon kept trying to make Mel C slag off her fellow Spice Girls, but the relentlessness paid off as in the end she admitted that they had all snogged each other at some point. Which was an exciting image for everyone, though James got particularly excited.
Anyway, I mustn't give too much away. You'll have to watch it on Thursday. I enjoyed myself and actually think it's good that it's taken me 12 years to get on to anything like this. Before I'd got back into stand up I think I wouldn't quite have had the experience or confidence to pull it off. I didn't feel at all nervous, which I did a bit when I did Annually Retentive and certainly did when I was on Radio 4's "The News Quiz".
Hopefully I'll get on a few of the other ones now. It's not something I'd want to do all the time, but it reminds people I exist and that I can be funny and by getting well paid gigs like this it means I can carry on doing free stuff like the blog and the podcast. Speaking of which Phill mooted the idea of doing an Alien vs Predator style four handed combined podcast (he does one with Phil Wilding called "The Perfect Ten"). Like Collings and me, Jupitus feels that podcasts should be all about new content and not just radio shows cut together. A four handed one off podcast might be an almighty mess, but it could also be a lot of fun. Watch this space, and I'll let you know if it happens.

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