It happened at last!
I was walking Misty and Milly along the towpath when the mobile trilled.
'Hello?' that's always a good opening gambit, I find.
'Hello, it's...' I'm so damn sorry that I forgot her name, but I was expecting a PPI call or something similar and was just getting ready to deliver my standard answer which starts with an 'F' and ends with a double 'F'.
Usually that's a very good follow up to the opening gambit.
'I'm from "The Chase," she informed me, 'and I would just like to ask you some questions.'
Well it's a good job that the swans have migrated a bit further along the canal, because you could have knocked me down with a feather!
We had a very nice chat.
She talked.
She probed.
She asked things that if you had applied to go on a prime time quiz show, you might reasonably have been expecting.
My tongue swelled to twice it's normal size!
My brain dissolved into mush.
My answers were not only incorrect they were downright stupid!
Now I don't know if you've seen the actual show - 'The Chase,' but the chances are that you've seen something very similar.
And the chances are that you've shouted incredulously at the dumb smuck on screen, 'Don't know that, you moron! I could do better than that!'
I have.
But - I have now been in dumb smuck's position.
It ain't easy.
It ain't easy at all!
And there weren't any cameras.
Or an audience.
Or Bradley Walsh.
Or that bloody Chaser, who I was going to wipe the floor with.
It was a very nice young lady, asking questions, on the phone, with no pressure, no pressure at all.
Apparently if I don't hear anything next week I have been unsuccessful in my application.
I'm not holding my breath.
Besides. If the unthinkable did actually happen - what then?
There will be an audition in Birmingham apparently.
I'd have to get through that.
And then I would have to get through to the show and build myself a nice little sum in the 'cash builder' round.
I would have to face whichever Chaser that they thought best able to annihilate me on national television - and beat them!
Then me and the rest of the 'team' or a least those that survived would have to beat 'The Chaser' all over again in the final showdown.
It's a bit like expecting Halesowen Town to win the F.A.Cup really, isn't it?
No wonder the dogs looked worried, sitting there on the towpath, heads tilted in concern. Bet they're wishing that the next call is from a PPI sales operative and that I answer them with all the 'F's that I can muster, rather than go through ritual humiliation on prime time T.V.
I don't.
Bring it on!
I was walking Misty and Milly along the towpath when the mobile trilled.
'Hello?' that's always a good opening gambit, I find.
'Hello, it's...' I'm so damn sorry that I forgot her name, but I was expecting a PPI call or something similar and was just getting ready to deliver my standard answer which starts with an 'F' and ends with a double 'F'.
Usually that's a very good follow up to the opening gambit.
'I'm from "The Chase," she informed me, 'and I would just like to ask you some questions.'
Well it's a good job that the swans have migrated a bit further along the canal, because you could have knocked me down with a feather!
We had a very nice chat.
She talked.
She probed.
She asked things that if you had applied to go on a prime time quiz show, you might reasonably have been expecting.
My tongue swelled to twice it's normal size!
My brain dissolved into mush.
My answers were not only incorrect they were downright stupid!
Now I don't know if you've seen the actual show - 'The Chase,' but the chances are that you've seen something very similar.
And the chances are that you've shouted incredulously at the dumb smuck on screen, 'Don't know that, you moron! I could do better than that!'
I have.
But - I have now been in dumb smuck's position.
It ain't easy.
It ain't easy at all!
And there weren't any cameras.
Or an audience.
Or Bradley Walsh.
Or that bloody Chaser, who I was going to wipe the floor with.
It was a very nice young lady, asking questions, on the phone, with no pressure, no pressure at all.
Apparently if I don't hear anything next week I have been unsuccessful in my application.
I'm not holding my breath.
Besides. If the unthinkable did actually happen - what then?
There will be an audition in Birmingham apparently.
I'd have to get through that.
And then I would have to get through to the show and build myself a nice little sum in the 'cash builder' round.
I would have to face whichever Chaser that they thought best able to annihilate me on national television - and beat them!
Then me and the rest of the 'team' or a least those that survived would have to beat 'The Chaser' all over again in the final showdown.
It's a bit like expecting Halesowen Town to win the F.A.Cup really, isn't it?
No wonder the dogs looked worried, sitting there on the towpath, heads tilted in concern. Bet they're wishing that the next call is from a PPI sales operative and that I answer them with all the 'F's that I can muster, rather than go through ritual humiliation on prime time T.V.
I don't.
Bring it on!