Me, the sleb

Posted by Katy Regan at 08:45 on 20 May 2009

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Most of the time, in my job as an author, I can assure you that it’s nowhere near as glamorous as it may sound: Mainly lots of fretting and staring into space at my very messy desk-cum-dining table which currently, has upon it:

Some dead flowers, some hair products, some anti-bacterial spray, a bank statement, half a packet of ham and a packet of radishes that I have taken to just eating straight from because I can’t be bothered to make a proper lunch, an over-due electricity bill that I seem intent on ignoring and three cups of half-drunk tea. It is here, in this haven of creative order, that I spend most of my time, not getting much done.

Then, now and then, a day comes along where it is glamorous, and it is utterly cushty and I have to pinch myself that this is my life, this is my job and then I have an overwhelming desire to do your heads in with my smugness. So, please allow me…

Thursday was such a day. I was invited to judge the Company Magazine Bachelor of the Year Awards.  If you are unfamiliar with what this is, it is basically an annual list of the 50 most eligible men in the whole of Great Britain. I was summoned to Soho Hotel in London to join a ‘panel’ of judges. Imagine my delight (and confusion) when that panel involved actual celebrities! : Dawn Porter, investigative journalist extraordinaire, Caroline Flack, TV presenter, Michelle Dewberry, winner of second series of The Apprentice, Zoe Salmon, Blue Peter presenter and er….me. (Clearly Tess Daly dropped out and they had to get in a civilian.)  Still, I wasn’t complaining, it was an afternoon of high tea and scones at Soho Hotel, followed by two hours of sifting through pictures of hot blokes – awfully tiresome as I am sure you can imagine. I’m sure the slebs must have been wracking their brains as to who the hell I was. I felt like the impostor in the Big Brother House. There was a fair amount of lovey darling-ness and agent talk (I have an agent too. So there…)  of having been at so-and-so awards with Steve Jones the day before. (I’d been visiting my son’s primary school the day before – it was just to visit – but in my head, after two hours with this lot, it was to cut the ribbon on the new sports centre.)


So anyway, it was a lot of fun, deciding if Paolo Nutini  is more eligible than Prince Harry, whether Paul Sculfor – Cameron Diaz’s ex is actually secretly in love with me -  and whether ‘with girlfriend’ actually really counts as single (it’s not legal, after all). I mainly stuffed scones and cream down my neck (I fell down rather a lot in that sleb behaviour since real slebs don’t really eat that much) and tried not to make a fool of myself by saying that I hold a secret torch for Dean Gaffney, or anything (oh no, that was Michelle Dewberry! I LOVED her) . Then we did some lovey darling kisses at the end, and I told Dawn Porter I just adored her TV programmes. I’m sure she was just itching to tell me how much she loved my book, but she er….she didn’t. Intimidated, probably…

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