I’ve just had a slightly surreal experience doing a live link to an Australian Breakfast TV Show. On Saturday night, around the time I would normally be winding down with a hot toyboy or a winding up with a cool book (both would be perfect!) I was whisked off to the Pacific Studios in the East End of London.
My driver was an interesting Serbian gentleman who also chauffeurs the prolific crime writer, Patricia Cornwell. Apparently, she arrives in the UK from Richmond, Virginia in her own private Lear jet complete with entourage, and occupies several suites at the (currently undergoing refurbishment) Savoy Hotel. I’ll have to work harder to achieve that status, methinks . . .
He told me she’d been here recently researching Jack the Ripper for her next novel and also visiting the cemetery in Gravesend where Pocahontas is buried. I didn’t know that! Did you?
But I digress . . .
I arrive at the studios and am installed in the Green Room to await the witching hour. All is dark and quiet. I’m the only guest coming Live from London tonight. Hair and make-up are not available after hours but no matter – I’ve done my own.
I watch the show unfold on a TV screen. The presenters seem friendly enough – the Aussie version of Fern & Phillip. After a short while, the technician takes me through to a small room and mikes me up. In the middle of the space is a platform on which stands one lone chair. In front of it are two monitors and a huge black camera.
I sit down on the chair and wait. In the upper monitor, I can watch the programme progress and in the lower monitor, I can see myself. The black and white dress may have been a mistake. It’s strobe-ing slightly but too late to do anything about now. I jooj up my hair. I then remove my necklace – disagree with the quote that ‘less is more’ – and put it back on again.
On entering the room, I noticed that the entire back wall was a blue screen. Looking at myself now, I see that I appear to be sitting on the South Bank of the River Thames, the floodlit Houses of Parliament and Big Ben glistening in the background. Such fakery! Never believe anything you read in the papers or see on TV! The Aussies are being fooled that the studio is a glamorous glass edifice on the embankment boasting one of the most iconic views in the world! It’s not! I’m in a small room in Hoxton!
“30 seconds to live” a voice says in my earpiece.
“OK” I squeak.
“5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 . . . “
“Good M-o- o-r-ning, Lon-don!” the presenter shouts, reminiscent of Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam.
“We have with us today a very interesting woman,” he goes on “a British woman who is, in fact, The World’s Oldest Cougar!”
I burst out laughing but I could just as easily have cried! I doubt I’m the World’s Oldest Cougar! I don’t even think I’m the oldest woman on TBW! I don’t actually want to be the World’s Oldest anything!! But I crank my brain into action and the interview goes OK.
The following morning I’m still laughing. I guess all publicity is good publicity and in the name of irony, I shall adopt the nomenclature in future, though I suspect that Joan Collins, at 76, still wears the crown.
Wendy Salisbury aka Poshbird is the author of The Toyboy Diaries 1 and 2 available now at all good bookshops and on Amazon.
