So it is up to us to guess which MP, TV celeb, rock / pop star / well-known figure / etc has been caught with her/his trousers down / is cheating on his/her partner (sometimes with someone of his/ her own sex), is a quiet klepto / etc
Every now and then, as this screenshot makes clear, caution can be thrown to the wind because the dangers of m’learned friends being hired to drag Popbitch through the courts has subsided.
I subscribe to two weekly newsletters, a second ‘extra’ on a Monday for a fiver a month (I think the first is free, you just have to sign up) and in yesterday’s (August 17) there was mention of one Eamonn Holmes.
Even before I bumped into him about 23 years ago and account of which is the body of this post), I thought Mr Holmes was a prize jerk, all that fake ‘oirish’ charm but, frankly, he is not an outlier on TV.
Many years ago after I had been sacked by my then paper the South Wales Echo for dropping one bollock too many – I have a proud history of dropping bollocks, remind me to tell you how all on my own I closed Newcastle airport and grounded all flights for several hours one night – I was getting my freelancing – working subbing shifts on the Western Mail (till the editor, John Humphries, soon got wind of my sacking and did the same), writing and selling features and taking piccies here and there for, nothing grand.
As part of my looking to kickstart my ‘career’ again (the quote marks as necessary, believe me), I got in touch with the local TV station, HTV Wales, and spent a day ‘shadowing’ one of its reporters. She told me this:
You’ve REALLY [my emphasis] got to want to get your face on screen if you want to work in television!That’s when I knew: I have never wanted to ‘get my face on television’, not even metaphorically, I far prefer being in the background. When I was a kid and we all wanted to be in a band, loads of folk wanted to be either the lead singer or the lead guitarist. I didn’t, I wanted to be the bass player, standing in the shadows keeping the girls guessing.
NB I have finally bought a bass guitar and am using it in recordings after my nephew complained that none of my songs ‘had bass’. You might not notice a bass line, but you certainly notice when there isn’t one.
As for Eamonn ‘now ain’t I the charming Mick’ Holmes, I have just emailed this to Popbitch, more for their info than that they will use it. You might like it, too. Here is that email.
. . .
The Eamonn Holmes mic on in the loo story reminded me of my encounter with him and helped me get a better take on television / newspapers.
For all our myriad sins (and I might be biased), we print hacks we still always take the No 2 runners-up spot in the scumbag stakes to television (which is why I prefer radio to what my old Black Country grandad called ‘the idiot’s lantern’).
When I was still working in Cardiff, subbing for the South Wales Echo, I had become friends with one Jan Taylor who had been a BBC Wales TV researcher until the producer of the programme she was working on got her up the duff.
When still pre-baby at the BBC Llandaff in her salad years, she was yer actual, gorgeous petite young woman (I’ve seen piccies) which might have caught her producer’s eye, but by the time I met her, post-baby, was a short and dumpy, a single mother with a young 5/6 year-old lad and picking whatever temp work she could get / just existing on benefits.
On the Echo she was answering phones in the class ad department and we became quite bosom pals which makes part of what I’m about to tell you a tad galling (and there is a separate, though unrelated short anecdote about my Jan at the very end of this. Maybe save that for the second glass of chardonnay).
In 1990, I moved to The Smoke to work shifts on the nationals, but Jan and I still kept in touch and, it must have been autumn 1992, she rang me to ask me a favour. Sure Jan, what?
Well, she said, she’d landed a temporary gig as researcher on short six-week HTV Wales late-Friday night pubs-out series with Eamonn Holmes hosting. Each show would have a separate theme.
When I was still working in Cardiff, subbing for the South Wales Echo, I had become friends with one Jan Taylor who had been a BBC Wales TV researcher until the producer of the programme she was working on got her up the duff.
When still pre-baby at the BBC Llandaff in her salad years, she was yer actual, gorgeous petite young woman (I’ve seen piccies) which might have caught her producer’s eye, but by the time I met her, post-baby, was a short and dumpy, a single mother with a young 5/6 year-old lad and picking whatever temp work she could get / just existing on benefits.
On the Echo she was answering phones in the class ad department and we became quite bosom pals which makes part of what I’m about to tell you a tad galling (and there is a separate, though unrelated short anecdote about my Jan at the very end of this. Maybe save that for the second glass of chardonnay).
In 1990, I moved to The Smoke to work shifts on the nationals, but Jan and I still kept in touch and, it must have been autumn 1992, she rang me to ask me a favour. Sure Jan, what?
Well, she said, she’d landed a temporary gig as researcher on short six-week HTV Wales late-Friday night pubs-out series with Eamonn Holmes hosting. Each show would have a separate theme.
The first was to be all about ‘romance’ covering different topics, with a spot about blind dating and lonely hearts ads. She’d found a woman who had ‘answered a blind date ad’ but couldn’t get hold of a guy, so would I help out: would I be the guy placing the ad (and I didn’t have to, of course, it was jus a prop for the spot)?
I told her it sounded a tad like tacky, Friday-night trash TV for half-cut morons, but she assured me no, no, no, no, no, no, no! It wasn’t blah, blah, blah bloody blah, pleaded as only damsels in deep distress can plead so, then being even more naive than I am now, I finally agreed.
When the Friday came, I left work at Dacre Towers in Kensington at 6pm, caught a train from Paddington to Cardiff Central, a trip of just under two hours, and towards the end of my journey, I refreshed myself – I had knocked off work after all – with two of those miniatures of gin and a can of tonic and a quiet spliff in the loo.
So I arrived quite mellow, got a taxi out to Culverhouse Cross, was met at reception by some assistant with a clipboard and wearing half of a set of headphones called Emma, Sarah, Sam, Lizzie, or something (and who was one of three I met assistance I met over the next hour or so, all with a clipboard and all with a natty half of a set of headphones) who assured me if there as anything I needed - anything at all! - just tell her. She took me to make-up and disappeared, as did the other two when each at one point came to me in make-up. I never saw any of them again.
Sitting in make-up was Eamonn Holmes, having the work done to him while I waited. And for at least ten minutes, if not longer, it went on as he got the make-up girl to bloody get the ‘kiss curl’ on his forehead right, just as he wanted it. He was never satisfied by what she did and got her to try again and again and again. Dick.
Finally, halfway satisfied, he got up and came over to me sitting on a sofa with all that fake begorrah, now ain’t we the friendly charming ones, ‘oirish’ to a fault as only total ex-pat Micks dicks with an agenda manage.
‘Hi, I’m Eamonn Holmes, what are you going to say?’
Me, puzzled: I don’t know what I’m going to say as I don’t know what the questions are going to be, just ask me and I’ll reply.
‘But what are you going to say?’
I repeated that I didn’t know, how could I know, just ask, you know, and . . .
Then, from Mr Holmes
‘Why are you so nervous?’
Well, I wasn’t nervous at all as it happens, I’m one of those don’t give a shit about a lot of things, even more so as I ‘matured’ (and two mild heart attacks helped, there’s always a silver lining). But this riled me a little. At that point, mellow with the gin and spliff, I was even less nervous than ever, so I told him I wasn’t nervous, just that I’d never been on TV before and it was new to me.
That was when he pissed me off, mellow as I was. I don’t remember quite how he put it, as in the actual words he used, but said something along the lines of ‘now, you’re not going to be trouble, are you?’
I do, however, remember the ‘actual words’ I used in response, as in this is verbatim. Honest. I told him:
‘You play it straight, I’ll play it straight. You fuck around, I’ll fuck around.’
That was it. He said nothing, just turned and walked out. Within about 3o seconds my pal Jan rushed in, in tears, almost hysterical.
‘What have you done! What’s happened! You’ve just had a stand-up row with Eamonn Holmes!’
Whether it was her hyperbole or fucking Eamonn Holmes’s, I didn’t know and no longer cared. ‘Stand-up row’ eh? I remembered it as a very brief exchange with no voices raised at any point.
Then my mood got even worse. A minute or two later, a woman walked in to make-up who had briefly subbed on the Echo with me, before taking off and joining a local women’a pressure group and, I assume, was to be trotted out that night on the show as the token ‘feminist women’s voice’. This is TV after all. We had always go on well and chatted for a minute or two before she asked me:
‘You do know about the behavioural psychologist, don’t you?’
No, I said, I did not. What did she mean?
It seems that the deal was that I and whoever Jan had corralled into being my ‘blind date’ who had ‘answered my lonely hears ad’ would be introduced at the top of the programme as the first item, then whisked off to a hotel a few minutes drive away to share a bottle of bubbly with nibbles, then taken back to the studio as the last item on the show to report on how we had got on etc.
My former friend and colleague also told me our ‘date’ in the hotel lounge bar would be screened live to the audience (and the rest of HTV West and Wales viewers who had tuned in) from a small, discreet camera at our table. Worse, a behavioural psycho chappie had been hired to analyse our body language etc and every now and then comment on it. Apparently there was no sound, which in retrospect was a good thing.
The ‘date’ went badly. We got chatting and very soon the lass, who was in her early 30s and a single mother of a 2-year-old, told me that her child was the result of an affair she had had with her then boss.
Fair enough, it happens a lot, but what appalled me - and I am not easily ‘appalled’ - was when she told me she had got herself pregnant on purpose to try to force her lover to leave his wife and chilren and take up with her. He hadn’t, though.
This was revealed in a matter-of-fact, that’s life manner which did not sit well with me and I told her so, which is why I a, glad there was no sound on the live broadcasting of our date.
After about 35 minutes of our non-date, Jan turned up to take us back to the studio, and as we were driving off in her Fiat Panda, she said by the way, Eamonn Holmes would be asking us whether we would ‘see each other again’ and would we please both say ‘yes’.
No bloody way, I told her.
The car screeched to a halt and my pal Jan got very upset: but I’ve GOT to say yes, I have to, her job depended on it, please, please, please say yes! No, fuck that, I told her.
Finally, when we got back, we waited in the wings for a moment or two, then as the show was winding down, we were brought before the camers, and I distinctly noticed Eamonn Holmes’s very beady eyes, very wary indeed, dreading whether trouble lay ahead on live TV.
‘Well,’ he asked me, ‘and what did you find out about each other.’
What, I replied, can you find out about someone in twenty minutes. As it was I had found out a little, but didn’t mention it.
That final item lasted about ten seconds before a relieved Eamonn Holmes turned back to the camera, thanked everyone for watching and it was over.
That night, I stayed at Jan’s ‘bijou maisonette’ (as she called it), but can’t for the life of me remember what we said when we got in thought the next day I told her about the woman’s scheme to part her lover from his wife and family.
For me it’s all one of piece: Eamonn Holmes and his fucking kiss curl, how a short chat became a ‘stand-up row’ in seconds, fucking re-writing reality (and pretty much everything scripted to within an inch of its life). Fucking bloody television. Give me scumbag print hacks any day of the week.
Bonus: Till a few years ago when Jan got in a huff because once she rang me down here in North Cornwall, but I had to rush out and couldn’t speak and told her. She never rang me again and always told me ‘she was too busy’ and when I called a week or two later, she told me she was ‘too busy’ and hung up. Shame but these things happen.
But when I was still living in London (up to December 1995), we chatted quite often on the phone and she like me to read her the most recent bits of a novel I was writing (since ‘vanity published’ and if you do check it out, please remember the old advice about never but never judging a book by its cover as this one ain’t what you might think it is).
One night, she brought me up to date on her love life: it seems she was seeing two guys at the same time (though whether she was shagging both, I don’t know), but she couldn’t decide between them.
One, let me call him Peter, she said was a good-looking, charming chap, living on his uppers maybe and without a penny to his name, but sensitive and dreamy, very taken with the arts and wrote poetry, and she, Jan, thought he was a lovely, lovely man.
The other, Paul, was a little older, and he had his own very successful business, though something of a philistine bore, something of a dinosaur and certainly by no means a ‘new man’ or showing any signs of becoming one.
She could not decide which to make her ‘fellah’.
I would have thought it was simple, I told her! The first one, obviously, Peter, seems to be the man of your dreams, artistic, sensitive, what else do you want, Jan? What’s the attraction of the other one, I asked?
She was candid and to the point:
‘He’s loaded!’
Well, it made me laugh.
With love and kisses (and now retired, with half a beady eye on potential dementia and definite death), all the best, dear Popbitch, from deepest, darkest, mysterious, stormy Bodmin Moor (well, sort of, don’t let a fact or two get in the way of a good story as we used to say in the biz),
I told her it sounded a tad like tacky, Friday-night trash TV for half-cut morons, but she assured me no, no, no, no, no, no, no! It wasn’t blah, blah, blah bloody blah, pleaded as only damsels in deep distress can plead so, then being even more naive than I am now, I finally agreed.
When the Friday came, I left work at Dacre Towers in Kensington at 6pm, caught a train from Paddington to Cardiff Central, a trip of just under two hours, and towards the end of my journey, I refreshed myself – I had knocked off work after all – with two of those miniatures of gin and a can of tonic and a quiet spliff in the loo.
So I arrived quite mellow, got a taxi out to Culverhouse Cross, was met at reception by some assistant with a clipboard and wearing half of a set of headphones called Emma, Sarah, Sam, Lizzie, or something (and who was one of three I met assistance I met over the next hour or so, all with a clipboard and all with a natty half of a set of headphones) who assured me if there as anything I needed - anything at all! - just tell her. She took me to make-up and disappeared, as did the other two when each at one point came to me in make-up. I never saw any of them again.
Sitting in make-up was Eamonn Holmes, having the work done to him while I waited. And for at least ten minutes, if not longer, it went on as he got the make-up girl to bloody get the ‘kiss curl’ on his forehead right, just as he wanted it. He was never satisfied by what she did and got her to try again and again and again. Dick.
Finally, halfway satisfied, he got up and came over to me sitting on a sofa with all that fake begorrah, now ain’t we the friendly charming ones, ‘oirish’ to a fault as only total ex-pat Micks dicks with an agenda manage.
‘Hi, I’m Eamonn Holmes, what are you going to say?’
Me, puzzled: I don’t know what I’m going to say as I don’t know what the questions are going to be, just ask me and I’ll reply.
‘But what are you going to say?’
I repeated that I didn’t know, how could I know, just ask, you know, and . . .
Then, from Mr Holmes
‘Why are you so nervous?’
Well, I wasn’t nervous at all as it happens, I’m one of those don’t give a shit about a lot of things, even more so as I ‘matured’ (and two mild heart attacks helped, there’s always a silver lining). But this riled me a little. At that point, mellow with the gin and spliff, I was even less nervous than ever, so I told him I wasn’t nervous, just that I’d never been on TV before and it was new to me.
That was when he pissed me off, mellow as I was. I don’t remember quite how he put it, as in the actual words he used, but said something along the lines of ‘now, you’re not going to be trouble, are you?’
I do, however, remember the ‘actual words’ I used in response, as in this is verbatim. Honest. I told him:
‘You play it straight, I’ll play it straight. You fuck around, I’ll fuck around.’
That was it. He said nothing, just turned and walked out. Within about 3o seconds my pal Jan rushed in, in tears, almost hysterical.
‘What have you done! What’s happened! You’ve just had a stand-up row with Eamonn Holmes!’
Whether it was her hyperbole or fucking Eamonn Holmes’s, I didn’t know and no longer cared. ‘Stand-up row’ eh? I remembered it as a very brief exchange with no voices raised at any point.
Then my mood got even worse. A minute or two later, a woman walked in to make-up who had briefly subbed on the Echo with me, before taking off and joining a local women’a pressure group and, I assume, was to be trotted out that night on the show as the token ‘feminist women’s voice’. This is TV after all. We had always go on well and chatted for a minute or two before she asked me:
‘You do know about the behavioural psychologist, don’t you?’
No, I said, I did not. What did she mean?
It seems that the deal was that I and whoever Jan had corralled into being my ‘blind date’ who had ‘answered my lonely hears ad’ would be introduced at the top of the programme as the first item, then whisked off to a hotel a few minutes drive away to share a bottle of bubbly with nibbles, then taken back to the studio as the last item on the show to report on how we had got on etc.
My former friend and colleague also told me our ‘date’ in the hotel lounge bar would be screened live to the audience (and the rest of HTV West and Wales viewers who had tuned in) from a small, discreet camera at our table. Worse, a behavioural psycho chappie had been hired to analyse our body language etc and every now and then comment on it. Apparently there was no sound, which in retrospect was a good thing.
The ‘date’ went badly. We got chatting and very soon the lass, who was in her early 30s and a single mother of a 2-year-old, told me that her child was the result of an affair she had had with her then boss.
Fair enough, it happens a lot, but what appalled me - and I am not easily ‘appalled’ - was when she told me she had got herself pregnant on purpose to try to force her lover to leave his wife and chilren and take up with her. He hadn’t, though.
This was revealed in a matter-of-fact, that’s life manner which did not sit well with me and I told her so, which is why I a, glad there was no sound on the live broadcasting of our date.
After about 35 minutes of our non-date, Jan turned up to take us back to the studio, and as we were driving off in her Fiat Panda, she said by the way, Eamonn Holmes would be asking us whether we would ‘see each other again’ and would we please both say ‘yes’.
No bloody way, I told her.
The car screeched to a halt and my pal Jan got very upset: but I’ve GOT to say yes, I have to, her job depended on it, please, please, please say yes! No, fuck that, I told her.
Finally, when we got back, we waited in the wings for a moment or two, then as the show was winding down, we were brought before the camers, and I distinctly noticed Eamonn Holmes’s very beady eyes, very wary indeed, dreading whether trouble lay ahead on live TV.
‘Well,’ he asked me, ‘and what did you find out about each other.’
What, I replied, can you find out about someone in twenty minutes. As it was I had found out a little, but didn’t mention it.
That final item lasted about ten seconds before a relieved Eamonn Holmes turned back to the camera, thanked everyone for watching and it was over.
That night, I stayed at Jan’s ‘bijou maisonette’ (as she called it), but can’t for the life of me remember what we said when we got in thought the next day I told her about the woman’s scheme to part her lover from his wife and family.
For me it’s all one of piece: Eamonn Holmes and his fucking kiss curl, how a short chat became a ‘stand-up row’ in seconds, fucking re-writing reality (and pretty much everything scripted to within an inch of its life). Fucking bloody television. Give me scumbag print hacks any day of the week.
Bonus: Till a few years ago when Jan got in a huff because once she rang me down here in North Cornwall, but I had to rush out and couldn’t speak and told her. She never rang me again and always told me ‘she was too busy’ and when I called a week or two later, she told me she was ‘too busy’ and hung up. Shame but these things happen.
But when I was still living in London (up to December 1995), we chatted quite often on the phone and she like me to read her the most recent bits of a novel I was writing (since ‘vanity published’ and if you do check it out, please remember the old advice about never but never judging a book by its cover as this one ain’t what you might think it is).
One night, she brought me up to date on her love life: it seems she was seeing two guys at the same time (though whether she was shagging both, I don’t know), but she couldn’t decide between them.
One, let me call him Peter, she said was a good-looking, charming chap, living on his uppers maybe and without a penny to his name, but sensitive and dreamy, very taken with the arts and wrote poetry, and she, Jan, thought he was a lovely, lovely man.
The other, Paul, was a little older, and he had his own very successful business, though something of a philistine bore, something of a dinosaur and certainly by no means a ‘new man’ or showing any signs of becoming one.
She could not decide which to make her ‘fellah’.
I would have thought it was simple, I told her! The first one, obviously, Peter, seems to be the man of your dreams, artistic, sensitive, what else do you want, Jan? What’s the attraction of the other one, I asked?
She was candid and to the point:
‘He’s loaded!’
Well, it made me laugh.
With love and kisses (and now retired, with half a beady eye on potential dementia and definite death), all the best, dear Popbitch, from deepest, darkest, mysterious, stormy Bodmin Moor (well, sort of, don’t let a fact or two get in the way of a good story as we used to say in the biz),
Patrick
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