Tuesday April 26th, 2005
So there I am, checking e-mails and getting ready for bed at 1.30 am this morning when I get a call from a producer on GM-TV. Can you come on tomorrow morning and talk about the report that’s just come out (it was embargo’d which means we journalists get it but don’t write or talk about it till a certain time) about the UK spending £1.5 million during their lifetime?
“Oh that” says I, “It’s an absolute pile of pants, press release by the Prudential, based on limited research and the figures so blunt they couldn’t cut water.” The response, ‘cool, come on and say it.”
My next question was what time. 6.30 was the hilarious reply. To get to GM-TV at 6.30, they’d have to send the car to pick me up at 5 am - less than four hours time, so after laughing at the absurdity I told him “not on your nelly”. However I did volunteer (assuming they’d say no) that if they came to me I’d do it after 8.30.
Five minutes later a call back, we’ll have an outside broadcast truck at your house at 8.00. No way out now. I asked him if he’d get the crew to wake me up. They duly did, I let them in, they set up in my living room, while I had a shower, shaved, walked in front of the camera, and started talking to Eamonn.
