Loud and Clear!

IT was time for a new set of publicity photographs for my other job. I have a couple of radio shows on Talk Radio Europe and, with the website having a revamp, it was decided that they needed some pics doing.

As an aside, radio presenting is a job I was born to do. It’s a job for madmen as you sit in a sound proofed room, talking to yourself and playing music when there could be no one listening.

The shots were taken behind the desk, complete with microphones, computer screens, CD players and the large plasma screen that we take news feeds on in the background. I tried my hardest to look suitably serious and was rather pleased with the result. “If you squint really hard, you look like a budget Jason Statham” was one comment.

But it wasn’t until I looked at the photo last week that I noticed that the ex-Pope Benedict was on the the plasma screen, apparently glaring in my direction. Yes, I was being photobombed by the Pope. But in a month when a Mother Superior has been up in court in Ibiza charged with cocaine smuggling – you must be able to stash more than a couple of grammes in a good sized wimple – perhaps this is a sign of my true calling. Alas, a quick search of the Internet couldn’t find me a suitable religious order, so I am toying with the idea of setting up my own. And the Little Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence has a certain ring to it…
All this talk of the Vatican reminded me of a classic exchange with a good friend last year. He had been misbehaving with a girl with a steady boyfriend, and was concerned with running into him at function. “Trust me” I said as we strode into restaurant “I’ve more chance of becoming Pope than us seeing him here”.

As my friend headed to the bar, I ran straight into said boyfriend, who thankfully had no idea what was going on. But my mate, spotting the boyfriend came up with a classic line.

“Your usual, Pontiff?” he shouted from the bar.

Stick up kid

It’s certainly winter up at the casita, the wind rattling the windows as I write this. Living on a lake, with the Sierra de las Nieves behind me, it can get a little chilly. So I tend to wrap up warm. But it backfired when I popped down to a bank in Marbella to check a transfer had come in. (That’s one of the joys of freelance work. You spend 10% of your time working and the other 90% chasing cash. Apart from on this newpaper, obviously). I charged into the foyer of the bank, bobble hat pulled down, scarf wrapped around my face and sporting Aviator shades, and bounced off the glass door that normally opens. As I picked myself off the floor, I noticed the staff looking extremely concerned, with the manager nervously dialing a number on his mobile.

It then dawned on me that bank staff thought I was trying to rob them.

I quickly whipped off my cold weather gear and was greeted with relived smiles. After all, the last bank job I can remember carrying out was on my sister’s Piggy Bank.

And finally

When I was public relations executive for a well known Marbella restaurant, I recieved an email from demanding to know why I had allowed Nigel Goldman to review the establishment. The gist of the email was that the man was a known fraudster.

‘Unfortunately’ I smugly replied ‘We don’t screen our customers for previous criminal records. Otherwise we would have a half empty restaurant and, last that I heard, the Little Sisters of the Poor weren’t great tippers!”

I no longer work in restaurant public relations…