First Lady? Nope, not here mate (From Watford Observer)

First Lady? Nope, not here mate

2:36pm Friday 19th June 2009

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As I’ve repeated many times before (once or twice in this column) I’m no fan of working weekends.

Mind you, the dreaded WO on-call rota occasionally throws up some absolutely cracking jobs – a trip to the St Albans Polo Club, for example, and a chance meeting with EastEnders’ Ian Beale.

Wonder what I’m on about? Then read Mike Pickard’s account of a positively bizarre afternoon a few pages back. Not that I care a fig about prancing around on horses, guzzling Champagne and toadying to the big knobs of Hertfordshire society, mind – I doubt if they’d let me in anyway.

No, I was more interested to learn of the presence of Albert Square’s penny-pinching fishmonger – real name Adam Woodyatt – who was attending not as an honoured guest but in his capacity as a professional photographer.

Am I right to suspect his time on our screens could be coming to an end? Are the BBC’s screenwriters plotting to do away with the man everybody loves to hate?

I don’t know about you but I smell a sudden murder. But whodunit? Dot Cotton, in the café, with a 12-inch bread knife would be my bet.

Take a close look at the photograph on the right, taken outside Leavesden Studios last Wednesday afternoon.

According to this, and just about every national newspaper in the land, it shows a limo bearing the wife and children of President Obama who had been visiting the set of the latest Harry Potter Film – apparently a birthday treat of some sort.

Not according to the studio itself, however. A little bird tells me that when asked to comment on the visit the studio repeatedly told our inquisitive hacks it wasn’t and hadn’t happened at all.

“The Obamas? Here? You must be mistaken.”

This, then, is definitely NOT a picture of a presidential limo driving away from Leavesden Studios.

It was all in our imagination. Full stop. End of story.

Apologies to all and sundry for making up such twaddle.

On the subject of non events I bring you news of my frantic dash to County Hall on Tuesday morning – where I had expected (and, let’s be honest, hoped) to find an angry hoard of quote happy, easily excitable anti-racism campaigners, there to protest against the election of the county’s first BNP councillor.

Not that I wished the lady any ill will, of course; I was just after a rip-roaring good story.

“Trouble expected at county council,” warned the BBC.

“Dozens of protesters to make their voices clear,” warned my breakfast radio.

“Angry scenes expected,” said the Watford Observer.

So were these warnings justified? Errrm, no…not by a very long shot indeed.

Confronted with a placid, fairly friendly group of around 12 thoroughly respectable types – easily outnumbered by the assembled media scrum, police and security guards – I and the various other reporters on scene had little choice but to withdraw with not so much as a mild whimper to report on. Probably a lesson in there somewhere.

And finally. It may surprise many of you to learn that personal insults in this job are few and far between, coming mostly, when they do, from within the office.

Obviously these are soon brushed aside. Insults from readers, however, often cut to the quick – just like on Tuesday afternoon.

According to Rod 689 (name like a robot but a razor sharp wit), of High Wycombe, who appeared none-too-pleased with the aforementioned story on the BNP, I look like a sixth-form student. Ouch.

To quote Blackadder, ‘I prostrate myself at the feet of the world’s greatest living comedian.’ Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got an essay to finish, a driving lesson to take, some spots to squeeze, and a newspaper round to be getting on with.