Jess is a member of the university’s QI Society, which had naturally arranged a trip to London to watch said television programme being recorded. I was asked if I’d mind acting as a driver, and while the prospect of driving from York to London and back in one day filled me with dread and horror, getting to see QI live sweetened the deal sufficiently that I agreed.
Since there was so much driving involved, and since some of it would be very late at night, I planned to have a long lie in beforehand. Unfortunately my MOT was about to expire, and due to bad planning, the only time I could get it done was on the morning of the big day. So I only got to have a lie in until 8 o’clock, which is at least three hours before I’d even consider getting out of bed on any normal day, so it really wasn’t much of a lie in at all.
I failed my MOT, which might seem to thwart the viability of the rest of the day’s plans, but the failures were very minor - the brakes not working, the wheels falling off, things like that - and the last one still had a few days to go before expiry, so I figured I was still safe and legal to drive. Unless failing the test immediately invalidates any extant certification, of course. I didn’t think of that at the time, and I still haven’t checked, so I suppose I shouldn’t be publicly admitting that I subsequently did a Very Big Drive. Oh well, too late now.
The drive down to London was pretty awful, in terms of weather and traffic and slowness. We left the campus at half past one, and had to be in the studio by 7:15 or they’d give our tickets away. We made it, more or less to the minute.
Beforehand, I’d contemplated what my dream panel would be. I decided Alan Davies (obviously), Jimmy Carr, Rich Hall, and David Mitchell. So we went into the studio, the warm up man came and did his stuff, and then Stephen Fry came in and introduced the contestants. They were Alan Davies (obviously), Jimmy Carr, Rich Hall, and David Mitchell.
My dream panel! I couldn’t believe it! Seriously, what are the odds? Well actually I just worked it out and they’re one in a hundred and eight, which isn’t really all that mind blowingly amazing, but at the time it felt like I’d won the lottery or something.
That was a metaphor. I haven’t actually won the lottery. I want to avoid any confusion on that point for reasons we’ll come to later.
After the show, the plan was for me and a carful of people to depart immediately, and for the others to hang around for a bit in the green room. The reason for the disparity was that we were only able to secure so many green room passes, and Jess and I didn’t want to get back too late anyway - she because she had an exam the next day, me because I was hoping to be awake for the entire journey. But for some reason - be it administrative error or generosity of spirit - we’d all been given the special green room wristbands when we arrived, so we figured we might as well hang around for a bit.
I’ll tell you what the green room was like. Imagine a party, where, like at any party, there are little groups of people around the room, all having their own conversations. Then imagine that in the middle of the room is the towering form of Stephen Fry - who is the size of approximately six ordinarily tall people - and that every single one of the conversations is going something like:
“Omigod I’m in the same room as Stephen Fry!”
“Shall we go and talk to him?”
“Are you mad? We can’t talk to Stephen Fry! The man’s a god! What could plebs like us say that would possibly be of interest to him? Let’s just stay over here and admire him from afar.”
“Omigod his jacket just brushed against me! My arm has made contact with Stephen Fry’s tweed!”
And then imagine that you’re Stephen Fry, and that you’re perfectly well aware that this is the exact conversation everyone else in the room is having. I feel quite sorry for him really.
Anyway, he came and talked to us at one point. I just stood there gawking at him in idolatrous awe. But I did actually TALK to Alan Davies, and STAND VERY CLOSE to David Mitchell, so that was all very exciting.
In the end I figured I’d better go if I was to stand any chance of not nodding off on the M1. On the way back we stopped at a service station for petrol. I went in to pay for it, and slotted my card into the chip and pin machine.
ENTER YOUR PIN it said on the screen. So I entered the first digit, but I got it wrong, so went to press Clear, but I got that wrong too and pressed Cancel instead.
I was careful to phrase that sentence in a way that doesn’t give you any information about what the first digit of my pin number is. Seeing as I’m about to tell you how you can steal all my money without even knowing it, I don’t know why I bothered really.
The machine told me to remove my card, so I pulled it out and pushed it back down again for a second try.
“Sorry, I messed that up,” I said to the chap who was serving me.
“No, I think it’s gone through,” he replied.
“It can’t have, I haven’t entered my PIN yet.”
“Yes, there we go,” he said, handing me my receipt.
So if you ever forget your pin number, there’s a handy way of circumventing the need for it. Alternatively, if you want all my money, all you need to do is jump out of an alleyway and stab me, and run off with my debit card while I’m writhing about going “Aaaaargh". But do bear in mind that the amount of money in my account probably isn’t worth the hassle of having to wipe the blood from your knife. This is why I wanted to make it clear that I haven’t won the lottery.
We got home at around 3 o’clock and went to bed. And that was the end of my quite interesting day.
