I Clavdivs. And making up letters for the Sunday Sport.

Derek Jacobi is playing Scrooge...in a Christmas ad for Sony. Derek Jacobi!! From I Claudius to I Wanker.
Sorry, I really wanted to think of something that sounded a bit more like Claudius but couldn't be bothered.
Next week, Dame Vanessa Redgrave teams up with Fearne Cotton for T-Mobile.
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Deirdre Saunders is great. She's been an agony aunt for 100 years and helped something like 1.2 million people's erection problems. When I worked at The Sun, what I admired most was that every case was completely genuine. She really did get a massive postbag and didn't make anything up. Unlike me, I'm almost ashamed to admit (obviously not that ashamed otherwise I wouldn't mention it).
I had to make up stuff for both the Recorder and the Sunday Sport but, perhaps strangely in the eyes of some, not at The Sun.
But yes, for a brief period I had to write the letters page for the Sunday Sport. It wasn't the dirty kind, mainly Viz style letters like a bloke whose budgie swore every time Terry Wogan came on and things like that. It was to make up for the classic lack of real letters the paper got.
I was really quite good at it but crap at everything else they wanted and got fired. It's the only time I've ever been fired.
Similarly at the Ilford Recorder, we had a Legal Helpline kind of thing. Three legal problems from readers for a lawyer to answer. But no one ever wrote in so I had to make them up, ring the lawyer and get him to answer queries about people with overhanging sycamore trees or a TV that didn't work when they got it home.
Also, at the Ilford Recorder, the newspaper group had a contract dispute with Russell Grant over his horoscope syndication so we, the reporters, stepped in to write a replacement.
Basically one reporter who shall remain nameless (Helen!) went round the office asking people their star sign and what their plans were for the weekend. So, for instance, if I was going to football she'd write 'Sagitarrius: Sport and pleasure combine for you this weekend' and so on.
We even had a letter from someone to say how much better her horoscope was now that Russell Grant wasn't doing it.
Anyway, that's my shameful confession. My cross-dressing revelations will have to wait.
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Nine little boys from public school sitting in a bowling alley talking about one of their mates. 'He's got £3 million in the bank apparently and owns 1.5 acres.' 'You mean his mum and dad.' 'No he says HE has.' 'He was like that at prep school. He takes pills because he's mental.' 'Are you sure it's for being mental.'
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Does anyone remember the days when Marks & Spencer considered themselves too posh to advertise? If only that was still the case. I loved Rufus Hound's description of Peter Kay's act: 'He's good at remembering.'
Nighty night...Solly
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