I know how to swan to the top of the queue thanks to many Buzzcocks visits to the BBC and so here to see Shooting Stars, freshly disgorged from the crowded tube at White City, Nico and I stride purposefully up to the door, give our false identities (we are standing in for two other Pedants who can't make the show) and soon find ourselves being ushered to our seats.
'I don't understand - eez 'is name Veek or Jeem? And what do I call Him? Is it Jeem?' He tells me he has written it down so he remembers it. 'I don't know anything about the show - what's it like?' he asks. Nico is French, lest you missed the clues, and with a mother a couple of years older than me, which makes him young enough to be my son with years to spare. (like a bad car advert - Nico? Mama?) Poor soul, can you imagine anything much worse than matron-sitting your work colleague through Shooting Stars?
'Erm it's a bit surreal, a bit silly, hard to describe really, I mean Jim/Vic does this thigh rubbing thing, and then they call the dove down and there's a bit where he says Uganda or something like that - and I think it's got Ulrika Jonsson in it (who I know so little about I can't even spell her name).'
'Ulrika who?'
Okay, so we're both on the same blank page with Ulrika. I'm not making a lot of sense, I realise. He looks worried. I assure him it's funny. Very funny.
'I think Noel Fielding is on tonight - he's from the Mighty Boosh - have you seen that?'
'I don't fink so, I 'aven't seen much TV to be 'onest, but I fought it would be fun to come along and see...' This is me trying to do a Franch accent, which, actually is only for comic effect because his English accent is pretty and faultless and not at all like something out of 'ello 'ello, but I can't resist it and in any case, he reminds me, at least 'e doesn't 'ave a speech impediment' - which is how he describes my Scottish accent. 'Last night we went to see a play in...' He goes on, and there follows a description that doesn't draw many parallels with the humour of Vic and Bob, so I just nod approvingly, and we talk for a while about Plague over London which he's seen twice. Definitely nothing to do with Shooting Stars then.
He gazes around the huge sound stage, surprised that it's so big as we wait for the warm up act - a chap called Muff (yes indeed and there were no attendant jokes which was the first surprise) who made us cheer for longer than I've cheered for anything (which, actually, isn't that much, come to think of it - except maybe Leonard Cohen) and then titter. Have you tried tittering to order? No? Well it's harder than you think, believe me. So we fake laugh and fake whoop and fake cheer (well I say we, but I've been in England so long that now I can't do spontaneous glee and hilarity without feeling deeply uncomfortable, so I just clap as politely and enthusiastically as I can - like I'm at a funeral and really pleased the person is dead) but the titter - not so much.
Then another girl with a head microphone comes on called Boo. I mean, is it a prerequisite to get a job at the BBC to have a monosyllabic name that makes you think of toddler's pets or rude body parts? She starts to give us instructions about more fake cheering and fire exits but is bizarrely drowned out by Bob having a desultory conversation in the wings with someone about posting on Facebook (really) without having first turned off his microphone. And then the cameras start rolling. We real cheer for Ulrika (who has new boobs, apparently) and Tony Blackburn (I know - why? Why?) and Jack Dee and Noel Fielding and some bird with a Northern Irish Accent and heels only marginally higher than Noel's, until Jim/Vic dances on in a saucy Letch's blazer.
Nico laughs with delight. And that's when I noticed he is clutching a large envelope with a heart drawn on it.
'What 'ave you got there?' I ask, momentarily forgetting that he's the one who's Franch (though just today another perv stopped me in the street and asked me again if I was French before calling to me - after I looped around him - that I should talk to him because I was a big beautiful woman. Not so much of the big, you prat.)
'Oh Sarah said I should give it to Jeem. It's some art work. I have only to give it to Him though, not to anyone else.' He pats it carefully. Fake names infiltrating the BBC and suddenly I'm with James Bond on an undercover mission in which he had been told to trust no one. 'I 'ave to 'and it to Him personally. She made me promise.'
'What if we don't see Him. Are you to eat it?'
He gives me a look which leaves me in no doubt that I am not as funny as Vic and Bob and then places it tenderly between our seats. 'Keep your feet away from it,' he warns as though it might detonate at any second.
'Okay, okay. I'll be careful.' I say, chastened and sit a safe distance away from the pristine white envelope which he continues to stare at all like it's a royal baby o f uncertain parentage and through all the hundreds of retakes and extra, more convincing laughter, and people answering non existent questions, and potatoes being given make up (oh no, I kid you not - baked potatoes in wigs being powdered... singing baked potatoes at that) before gathering it back up to his breast at the end of the show when we troop after a few dozen other people into the Green Room. Which as a Pedant I feel I should point out is blue. Or turquoise. But at any rate, not ruddy Green.
Nico perches on the end of a sofa, still cradling the envelope. 'He's not 'ere.'
'No but we can still get a drink.'
'I'm too afraid to drink. What if I get this wet? Sarah weel keel me...'
'Oh you won't it'll be fine. Let's have a glass of wine,' I say, knocking a few dozen amateurs out of the way to get to the bar. 'James Bond always has his martini we can have some plonk and still complete the mission.'
Bob is talking to Noel Fielding (who looks like Worcester man but with more hair, slap and in silver heels) and glum Jack Dee in a little starry bubble while the rest of the production guests look at them in awe from the corner of their eyes while pretending to be having a great time eating BBC sandwiches and drinking warm wine. I wonder if this is what it would be like if God really did come down to earth to redeem us all and turned up at a cocktail party. Everyone would ignore him, being too shy to speak up. Jim/Vic comes in eventually wearing a lot of make up and a big shirt with flapping sleeves and joins the cool kids. We hang back like the retards and train spotters.
'So are you going to give it to 'im, I mean Him, oh He we must learn to call Jim?'
'He's talking to the other guest stars. I can't interrupt Him. Even if He was not famous. In Fronce, we don't go up to people and just butt in - it's rude.'
'Yes, but it's England. We butt in. We call 'oy, are you French?' in the street. And He's the star of the show. It's not like he's not ever going to be standing about like a wallflower not talking to anyone, is He? We'll have to barge up and take him out at some stage. Come on, let's be brave, knock back your wine, let's do this.'
He tipped his glass. I tipped mine. We looked at each other and like two soldiers going over the top as brothers in arms, we nodded in agreement. Nico held his envelope like a bayonette and, dead men walking, we breached the hill.
Lets rooooooooooooooooooooooooooll.
'Erm excuse me for interrupting but we're from Atlantic?' I stammer,
'And Nico has been asked to deliver this.' I whisper, feeling like a total sycophantic divot. I much prefer doing the green, blue, turquoise room thing with Phil who always introduces me round, gets me crisps and lets me have the Molton Brown soap from his dressing room. I've actually met Noel Fielding before. In this very room. Along with, on other occasions, Sean Hughes, Mel B, Jonathan Ross, Fern Brittan, Julian Clary, Mark Lamar, Simon Amstell and and half a dozen boy band members. I don't think Noel is going to remember me though. I mean, it's not like we bonded or had matching tattoos done. It's very nerve-wracking being a nobody.
Nico trembles and holds out the envelope.
'Aye,' said Jim/Vic, looking just a tad embalmed, and takes the package while we huddle serflike, tugging our forelocks and grovelling.
'I was told I had to give it only to you,' says Nico, reverentially as He we get to call Jim, rips open the seal, chucks the paperclips away, tosses aside the cardboard and yanks out the drawing inside.
'When I do these at home I just chuck them about but they always make it out like they're that precious,' He says, holding the paper up to show Bob who seems to think we are the drawing fairies and just sort of appear, bearing artwork, and that this sort of thing happens all the time.
Nico and I slink off, our mission accomplished.
It isn't exactly what you would call a Daniel Craig moment, though frankly, I never thought he packed that much of a firearm when he walked out of the sea in those wee trunks. But our performance this evening as been not so much On Her Majesty's Secret Service as Cheaper than DHL. It doesn't quite have that Bond ring to it, does it?
But at least I managed to walk home without anyone asking me if I was French.
