My Curb Your Enthusiasm moment, “You talk too fast horrible man, I’ll never watch you”

Heart sinks. Take a breath. Try not to look bothered! I was having coffee in London’s Westfield shopping centre with two BBC big wigs, Jeff Anderson the Editor of BBC1 Watchdog and Jo Vaughn-Jones the Senior Producer, discussing how we’ll be doing PPI reclaiming on next week’s programme… when it happened.

Jo had just asked me, “do you get stopped by people a lot”, and I’d explained that it was common, though not for me the celeb trappings of autographs or photos, most people just walk up and say “hiya Martin, just a quick question” in a tone so relaxed and informal, I often question whether I know them or not. In fact it’d happened twice just on the walk to the coffee place.

Then, in a moment Larry David (if you’ve never watched Curb Your Enthusiasm do) would’ve been proud of… I saw an older woman stop directly in front of me, turn, march towards me and from no-where near yell….

You’re the man on the television who talks too fast, why do you do that, I’d never watch. It’s horrible, horrible, I hate you, I’d never watch you, horrible”

The look on her face suggested I’d done something unpleasant she’d stepped on, then with an up-curled lip she walked away; none of us said a word during the whole thing.

Thankfully Jeff and Jo thought it was pretty funny – can’t say I enjoyed it that much though.