I used to date one actress who vanished into thin air, then managed a date with someone who appeared in Sliding Doors.
That failed to go anywhere.
But I did date a wonderful French lady called C and she had been on stage and had a part in a BBC comedy.
On to my fledgling acting career. A synopsis of a brief flirtation with the stage and screen.
It all started with my epic Wizard Of Oz dressed in lime green. Then a robot. Then a dad with one of those piano ties.
My debut on TV came in Danny Baker's Sunday Football show. If anyone has the title credits I'd love to see them again. I featured in the sponsor's message as a footballer. I got paid the princely sum of £100 and a few bits of Umbro gear as they were the advert paymasters.
A few professional actors were in the team shot. The goalie wasn't a player, you could tell, just a true thespian with two left feet, and he had the major speaking part. He simply said "ey up lads" and that was it. Hardly Richard Burton reading Dylan Thomas.
It was filmed at my football club, which also bizarrely allowed the adult channel once to film a scene in the showers. Bang Babes I think it was called, as one of my mates set up that adult channel, and made a lot of money from it. Our showers were grotty as hell.
My second appearance in the big screen came in 1998 for the World Cup. Nike at the time wanted an ad with a few "banter lads" in the pub looking sad after our team had just been knocked out. I was sad just at using the word banter. And still am.
I couldn't get the downbeat bit right (which was a surprise considering the amount of luck I've had in my life) and ended up being cut out of the shot altogether, apart from part of my right side of the head.
My work has meant I've been in and around studios and recording booths for a long time, and I particularly enjoyed the actors who read ski reports.
Buttery, 15, minus 2, windy.
One classical actor deemed it beneath him, although I did ask what he had been in. Someone replied "Z Cars". He was hardly current.
I was informed he was a wonderful Richard II.
Who isn't?
Another actor at the studios had appeared in Alan Partridge. I saw her in the recording booth and asked if it was her who played Lionel Bainbridge's daughter in "Brush Strokes"?
The fact that was in the 80s would have made her in her 60s - which I think she took umbrage too.
I played cricket against someone who apparently was a Dalek in Dr Who. Whovians will probably know his name. He wore glasses that appeared thick perspex and used to talk to himself at the crease. Shit player.
Actors regularly appeared at my cricket club. Peter Polycarpou - who starred in Birds Of A Feather kept wicket and was reasonable.
But the biggest name was Chris Jagger. Well, Chris thought so.
He had a fine set of hair and was much taller than his slightly more famous brother Mick.
Jagger (C) was the captain of Green Room Cricket Club and greeted my then skipper Anis warmly for the coin toss.
Anis told the story of them walking to the pitch with Jagger saying if any of our players wanted his autograph he would happily grant us the request.
The response from Anis was textbook. He simply said "Who are you?"
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