I’ve just got back from The Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV, where I was debating the Northern Rock crisis. Marc Almond was also on the show, and we were chatting behind the curtain (it’s at the back of the set, as this is a programme with an audience). He was telling me how he loves singing on shows, but gets nervous doing the chat bit, especially as he has to remember the concert dates to plug them correctly.
So, flippantly I said to him “Tell you what, if you plug my website, I’m good with remembering numbers so I’ll do your concert!”. Then, bowl me over with a bag of feathers, I’m watching him be interviewed live and he says, “Now I should just plug Martin Lewis’ website, then he’ll be plugging my concert in a minute.”
The other two on the panel, John Gaunt and Carol Malone, were in stitches; after all, getting a pop concert into an interview on the banking crisis isn’t easy! So then, in a heated debate on the subject, as I saw the floor manager indicating there wasn’t much time – I simply announced, “Oh, and by the way, do go and watch Marc Almond at the IndigO2 (Greenwich) on December 8″. Bizarrely I got my biggest applause of the show for that!