After my first appearance on Andrew Collings's new Sunday radio show (what do you mean you missed it? I was ace on it, especially when I said it was a shame that Hitler wasn't around to take advantage of the weak state of the identikit political groups at the moment, and then had to add the caveat that I meant it was a shame for him, obviously - I'm on every week so you have no excuse), I headed back to my car. It's actually quite joyous driving in London on a Sunday. The roads are relatively empty, the parking is free and there's no congestion charge. It somehow feels vaguely naughty to be there, though obviously it isn't.
When I got back to my car I saw the unusual sight of a group of businessmen in their suits and ties and also in bowler hats with umbrellas grouped in a cluster by my car. It was fairly sunny, why did they have their umbrellas up? Why were they out in their businessmen clothes on a Sunday? Why did one have suspiciously long hair? Why did the one with the shaved head have an oddly ill fitting bowler hat that from behind looked like it might be made from cardboard?
Up the street were some trendier looking people with photographic equipment. I had stumbled upon some photographic shoot of some kind. It was either a portrait shot for a group of eccentric and dispirate businessmen or was going to be used in an advert or something.
In spite of my 16 years of experience working in the media I am endlessly fascinated by this kind of stuff. I am pleased about this. As I am about the fact that I get quite excited about seeing celebrities still, even when it is Douglas Hurd.
So I watched the businessmen at work for a little while and took photos through my car windscreen. They were shortly joined by a very attractive woman in a businesswoman suit who I guessed might in reality be a model, as I am not sure real businesswomen have the time to keep their legs in such phenomenally good shape.
Clearly she was going to be placed amongst the stuffy boring businessmen and use her powers of feminine intuition and sexual attractiveness to turn their humdrum world upside down. The photographer was trying to put together a shot where the businessmen were flailing around whilst the businesswoman looked cool and sophisticated.
My guess is it's a magazine advert for perfume. But only time will tell.
But look like some kind of long-lensed pap I have sneaked out some advance pictures from the closed set (well actually the fairly open street) as a sort of spoiler. Hopefully the ad campaign will be useless now and will be scrapped and will have done my bit to bring down capitalism. Which might mean I have to move out of my nice big house and live in a teepee in the woods or something, living off the land.
This is at best a Pyhrric victory.
