#30 - The greatest story ever told

Everyone has an anecdote, right? Even if it’s something small, like how one day on the way to work you ran into Nigel Havers at the train station - like, actually, bumped into him. It’s something you can whip out at a moment’s notice, pretty confident that no one else in the room is going to beat you to the punch. Say your bit and then move on to the person who went skydiving with gorillas or something.

Side note: the episode of Peppa Pig in which all the kids at school must perform a talent in the talent show, and Peppa’s friend (might be Suzy Sheep) steals Peppa’s talent and performs it before she gets a chance to, is perhaps the most harrowing piece of TV ever made - it reminds me of being in a social situation and feeling like you need to have something interesting to say. It genuinely freaks me out a little when I think about it. And I’m someone who has won a talent show before.

Anyway, back to the anecdotes. If you haven’t run into Nigel Havers (or similarly ageing actor) while out and about, perhaps you went to the same school as a celebrity (my son’s school was attended by a famous actress from Game of Thrones!), or you won a competition to have dinner with a Gladiator from Gladiators (90s version). All good stories, for sure, but I’ve got some bloody great ones. I’ll attempt to tell a few in order of greatness (from very good to a room full of applause).

Snubbing a great

You may not know that I used to be super into snooker. While a lot of kids grew up wanting to be footballers, I wanted to be a pro snooker player - and for a time a model, having had my hand featured on the cover of a Butlin’s catalogue. I had a coach and everything (for snooker, not hand modelling), but ultimately was never really good enough. Still, one weekend the local snooker club I played at organised a trip for all the kids to see some live snooker. Amazing! It was great to see so many players I’d seen on the TV in real life, and because our coach knew a lot of them we were allowed backstage to meet them. Exciting!

All us kids lined up to walk past the pros and shake their hands, which seemed normal at the time but does appear a little strange if you look at it from a distance today. Still, 20 kids all shaking Peter Ebdon’s hand, excellent. 20 kids all shaking Mark Williams’ hand, excellent. 19 kids all shaking Stephen Hendry’s hand… I snubbed him. The then most successful snooker player of all time. Ain't no way I was shaking hands with the player who destroyed my dream of Jimmy White winning the World Championship. Do I regret this decision now I’ve grown up and have come to appreciate what Hendry did for the game? Yes. Did I care then? No.

Zola, get down!

If you’ve been to university you’ll be aware of the hundreds of local companies trying to get you to do things. “Join our club,” “become a part-time stage actor,” “go paintballing.” It’s the latter that got me and my friends while we wandered around a campus fair. If a big enough group signed up it’d only cost £10 each. Seemed like a great deal for broke students who couldn’t get enough of Halo. They obviously don’t tell you how quickly you’ll burn through your included paint ball supply, but hell, you only live once!

I can’t remember where this place was, but a longer-than-wanted train journey later, we’d arrived at a kind of camp site out of a low-budget 80s slasher movie. Vehicles had been abandoned, the single-track road leading to it seemingly about two miles long, and massive meat hooks jutted out of a wooden cabin (OK, maybe not the last one). We geared up and waited for the other players to arrive. Probably other students. Who else is going paintballing on a Tuesday afternoon?

Well, you’d be surprised. A stream of black Range Rovers appeared and pulled onto the muddy field being used as a car park. The doors flung open and out stepped a bunch of men, mostly tall and fit, but one a lot shorter. As they walked towards us, all carrying their own gear, it was obvious this was going to be a mismatch… then I recognised the face of the lead guy. It was Chelsea defender John Terry. The small man next to him, the legendary Gianfranco Zola. My stepdad’s a big Chelsea fan, so while not quite as starstruck as if the Spurs squad had appeared, I was still gobsmacked.

In complete disbelief the Chelsea squad (I can’t remember all the players that turned up, but it was at least 10) then split, some of them joining our team. One of the most bizarre and unexpected moments of my life will always be shouting at Zola to get down as Terry lobbed a paint grenade, then watching him commando roll out of the door of a dilapidated bus. Amazing scenes.

I had great fun telling this story at a Christmas family gathering, alongside a step-cousin who is one half of the band Rizzle Kicks. I gave him a copy of Need for Speed Underground on PS2 that year.

The almost greatest showman

I have fairly conflicted views on this one, but here it goes. “What do your parents do?” is a common question, isn’t it. I’m not sure why we’re all so keen to find out what parents do, but it seems to come up an awful lot, especially at school.

“My dad works for the postal service.” Oh, right, does he? Wow. Do you get free stamps?

“My mum is an accountant.” OK. Bit boring, but someone’s got to do it, and numbers can be fun.

“My dad works at Nintendo.” Fuck off, mate. We all know your dad works in Rumbelows.

“My dad is a lion tamer.”

It’s true. My dad was a lion tamer, as part of Chipperfield’s Circus. He is one of the Chipperfields (not the Chippendales!). I was born (alongside my twin brother) into a circus family. By rights I should be living in a caravan and touring the country performing in the Big Top. I expect we’d have followed in my dad’s footsteps (just like the brother I’ve never met) had he not abandoned my mother just after we were born, but I can’t picture myself performing with lions. A clown maybe… like my granddad. I definitely wouldn’t have ridden on elephants, like my mum, or thrown knives and breathed fire, like my uncle. Maybe a strong man, like another uncle. Who knows.

It’s strange to think about the could have beens, the nearlies, the sliding doors moments in it all. One good thing did come from it, though. On the second date with my now wife, following a trip to the cinema, we went for a drink. As I’ve since learned, she thought I was pretty dull… that is until I uttered the words that are impossible to ignore:

“My dad is a lion tamer.”

Do it

It was a warm summer day, some time ago. I had been up for hours already, getting my son ready for school and then walking him the 12-minute journey there. As always, the main road that cuts straight through town was a complete nightmare to cross, the drivers seemingly oblivious to the small child and I desperately trying to arrive on time. We made it across once someone eventually stopped, in turn shaming the car coming in the opposite direction to stop too. It was like this every morning, so nothing new there.

The road leading down to my son’s school is pretty steep, so kids scoot down there at a million miles per hour, my heart pounding as each one leaves it to the very last second to slow down at the edge of the road - some don’t even do that, blindly zooming across side roads as parents walk behind completely oblivious.

I drop my son off, wave to him as he walks into the school with his best friend, then make the harder walk back up the hill and back home. As I stand once more swearing under my breath about the state of the road I need to cross, I remember I need to pick up some salad for dinner. We’ve got a supermarket just off the route home, so I can nip in there and pick up bits and pieces and still be home to start work at 9am.

I enter Lidl, a supermarket I’ve come to appreciate more and more, and I’m immediately greeted by a bakery wall. It’s Lidl’s secret sauce, the thing that makes it more than just a budget food shop. I could easily see myself buying one of everything, but I exert some willpower, opting to only pick up a ring doughnut for my son. He’ll be happy about that.

As I pop the paper bag carrying this delicious treat into the annoyingly large wheeled basket my eye is drawn to what’s occurring at the other end of the bakery wall, over near the almond croissants. I struggle to process what I’m seeing, but I hear what’s said perfectly clearly.

“Do the poo! Do it!”

I recoil, lucky not to take down the pensioner loading up on yum yums who’s stood behind me. My eyes focus in on what I see before me, within touching distance of the chocolate twists. There, sitting directly on the shop floor, at eye level with the apple turnovers, is a toddler on a potty. In Lidl, next to the pastries, a toddler is doing a poo, his mother stood beside him, cheering him on like a fan in the stadium of a football match.

“Do it. Do it. Do the poo!”

I walk past as if witnessing a car crash on a motorway. My eyes meet the child’s and then the mum’s. What the fuck is going on, I think to myself.

Then I pick up the salad leaves, pay for my shopping, and leave. I’m still in shock as I walk home, my life never to be the same again. At home I wonder why, with Lidl’s customer toilet located next to the doughnuts, this child wasn’t encouraged to take a shit in there. I’ll never know the answer.

The shit you see in the middle of Lidl.

When you work as a critic you’ve got to have fairly thick skin. I reviewed Star Wars: Galactic Racer on Respec last week, a game I really wanted to love but found to be almost working against me with how it’s structured. Still, the racing is top notch, exhilarating, and other positive words of a similar vein. I felt somewhat bad dishing out a score that was good, but not great, given the studio which built it likely has a lot riding on the game’s success. But as a critic you can’t do anything but judge what is in front of you and report back on how you feel about it. Of course, that didn’t stop numerous people on the internet contacting me to wish me well, including comments about my “balding head,” my “shit teeth,” and my “paedo eyes.” What a wonderful world we live in! 

This newsletter was mostly about my hilarious and odd life, but I’ve been doing plenty of other stuff. I’ll have a think about some other bits and pieces and round them up in the quick reviews below. I’m a critic, too, you see.

Things I can review:

• Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (Sky/Now TV): I’ve been keen to watch the TV show, Nirvanna the Band the Show for a long time. It’s just practically impossible to legally watch it in the UK. Unless I’m missing something obvious, it’s not available on any streaming services in the UK and you can’t buy the episodes or rent them from a service like Prime or YouTube. I gave the movie a shot anyway, aware some of it might not land as well, and I’m glad I did. I can’t quite work out if all the time travel actually makes sense, but it’s a good-natured comedy with incredibly likeable characters. 9 tickets for The Rivoli out of 10 failed plans.

• Taskmaster (Disney + and other places): I was late to this. I’m not sure when Taskmaster first aired in the UK, but it was well over a decade ago. I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to wildly popular shows that everyone seems to love talking about, and I think I filed Taskmaster somewhere with the likes of Love Island and Ex on the Beach as pure dross. I was very wrong. I love Taskmaster. It’s one of the few shows that I actually laugh at (audibly). I just hope the guest lineups remain strong, as the first two seasons are excellent on that front (although I do prefer season 1’s comedy team). 9 smashed eggs out of 10 golf holes.
• Olive focaccia (Lidl): I can’t remember if I've already talked about the olive focaccia Lidl sells in its bakery, but I love it so much I’m going to write about it again even if I have. While I’m sure you could spend a good chunk more money elsewhere and get a superior bit of bread, Lidl’s offering is cheap enough to not break the bank and it elevates a normal sandwich (cheese and pickle, vegan pastrami and mustard) to a level way beyond what’s possible with a basic bit of sliced bread. Delicious! 10 times I hated olives as a kid out of 10 times I couldn’t get enough olives as an adult.