On blanking famous people

Famous people. They're nothing like what they are on the TV.

Nothing like them.

"Ere. You're nothing like what you are on the TV," you'd say, and they'd be forced to agree with you.

They are - by and large - much smaller, for a start. It is one of the laws of television that you must be less that five foot tall to appear on the box, thanks, mainly to the limitations of the modern TV camera.

This means that when you run into your average famous person, you are more than likely not going to recognise them, looking, as you do, right over their short-arsed little head.

This is why, for example, my encounter with a famous person of some repute went so, so badly:

There I was, making small talk with one Antony Worrall Thompson - a very small, angry middle-aged man who smells of mould - who was using our sadly deceased studio to give an interview to Radio Five Live not so long ago.

A regular venue for Prayer of the Day, we had small bearded men in all the time and each was very much like another.

"So," I ask, "What do you do?"

(Angrily) "I'm a CHEF"

"Oh, jolly good. Will you be talking about cookery?"

"YES. YES I WILL"

"Are you any good, then?"

"I have MICHELIN STARS"

"You're a tyre fitter too? Wow."

Things went downhill from there.