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At risk of my blog turning into a list of TV programmes that I’ve appeared somewhere in the background of, I was in the background on telly again last night!
Last year I went to see four episodes of Dave Gorman’s Genius being recorded – I think it was during perhaps my second or third week living in London. The episode shown last night on BBC Two – actually the fourth to be recorded – had Frank Skinner as the guest and brilliantly, myself and my friend Katy were visible in a few of the shots:
That’s us on the right. Bottom row of the seating. I’m wearing brown trousers and I’m slouching, as usual.
There we are again! Enjoying watching a maths teacher do a dance!
Just to prove I haven’t been photoshopping myself into the audience… here’s another picture!
And another!
If you watch the whole thing, there’s some pretty good shots of us when the camera is on Dave at the desk – we appear just to his right.
Whilst perhaps not as exciting as appearing in shot at a political protest, or y’know, on the Weakest Link, I still think it’s exciting. If I appear on anything else, maybe I should start invoicing TV companies for my work as a supporting artist?
I like to think of myself as the anti-Amish. Not only do I love technology and hate Amish people, but I think that rather than steal your soul, only photography or being filmed can truly validate your existence. It’s why I moved to the CCTV capital of the world, and why today, I appeared fairly prominently in the background of a news report.
No, I wasn’t in Austria sticking up for Joseph Fritzl (though I’d still argue that the default reaction to “secret underground dungeon” is “that’s cool” rather than “that’s horrible”), but I went to a protest organised by TV’s Mark Thomas. That’s right, TV’s Mark Thomas. Not the other one.
The cause was noble: it was calling for the government to invade Jersey.
Jersey is known to be harbouring billions of pounds, having spent years avoiding tax inspections, and is thought to have links to a number of rogue corporations and shadowy groups known as hedge-funds. What makes the need for this action even more imminent is that the UK government has in fact sold off various buildings to private companies (who then lease it back) based in Jersey – in practice, this means that HMRC, the tax inspectors who collect tax and track down people who are avoiding and evading tax rent a building from a company who avoid paying tax. You don’t have to be a genius to realise that this is not on and thus support the military action.
Brilliantly, the story made More4 news tonight. Here’s their report, in which if you look closely you can see me in a suit:
Obviously though, what with this being the future and all, it was I, the citizen journalist who beat Channel 4 to the studio. In fact, I did a live broadcast to the internet. Here’s my report, as it was broadcast live:
When I got off the tube earlier today I was surprised to receive a flurry of texts and tweets telling me some exciting news: My appearance on the Weakest Link was being shown again on BBC One! It was recorded in November 2007 and first shown on March 3rd 2008. If you missed it first time around or want to watch it again, it’s going to be on the iPlayer for the next week.
As I’m a shameless publicity whore, I thought it would be appropiate to have a page talking up my appearances in the wider media. If you’re contemplating trying to hire me to write or make something for you, then this could be a bit of a “portfolio”. In no particular order:
Newspaper Column (January 2007 – )
I’ve been writing a weekly newspaper column in the Herald & Post newspaper tackling some surprisingly big issues for a local paper. I’ve talked about everything from politics, foreign policy and elections to philosophy, science, religion and all sorts… all with a satirical/sarcastic/ridiculous edge. You can find an incomplete selection of my columns in the Columns section on this website. It’s worth pointing out though that I’ve had to rework, alter or had to sanitise the language slightly for a family audience. The ridiculous ideas contained within are still the same though.
I’ve recently compiled the first 18 months of columns into a book that you can buy from Amazon.
Tech Digest (July 2008 – )
I’ve been freelancing for Tech Digest, the UK’s leading technology and gadgets blog. They’re all lovely people, as they seem content to let me write in the same snarky tone I do on here. If you’re after a crude way of viewing my posts on there, have a click here for a filtered Google search. Brilliantly, the stuff I’ve written for Tech Digest has also been syndicated on Yahoo News. (Click here for a similar search)
Catching the attention of the New York Times
About a year ago now I put together a silly video with a friend where I went around the Natural History Museum in London, pretending to be an evangelical creationist Christian, and I proceeded to “debunk” the science. It has certainly wound up a few Christians – not least the folk on GodTube, a Christian-specific YouTube clone – but it also caught the attention of the New York Times. And I was quoted in the business section.
38th Best Non-Aligned UK Political Blog 2007
Despite my consistently snarky tone and complete lack of seriousness when writing about politics, I was voted by popular vote the 38th best non-aligned UK political blog of 2007, and 251st best UK political blog over all. Whilst this may not sound too phenomenal, I’m pretty pleased considering all of the people I was up against. Best of all this was actually published in a real book: Iain Dale’s Guide to Political Blogging in the UK, which you can buy from real bookshops and see my name in it.
MP Coke Survey
A few years ago now I carried out a survey of Members of Parliament asking whether or not they preferred Coke or Pepsi. Obviously this had a lot of mileage for puns about MPs being on Coke and whatever. Brilliantly, it was picked up by the biggest UK poltical blogger, Guido Fawkes and the popular B3ta weekly e-mail newsletter… and then Matt Withers mentioned it in his column in Wales on Sunday.
Appearance on the Weakest Link
Okay, so this isn’t really work or anything. But I appeared as a contestant on The Weakest Link in March 2008, and remarkably, ended up winning. Needless to say the highlights are on YouTube.
There’s probably some other stuff I’ve missed out. Anyone want to remind me? Oh, and if you’re reading this to see what sort of things I’ve done, and you’re someone to write some silly drivel for your publication, drop me and e-mail and let’s do business. james (at) jamesomalley.co.uk is my e-mail.
The craziest thing has just happened. I went to my local pub for once – literally the pub nearest to my house – this isn’t the crazy thing. Now, my town is one of those small towns where everyone knows each other, and don’t take too kindly to outsiders, so it wasn’t terribly surprising when we saw the man who owns the music shop in there (he was the man who leant me my trumpet, incidentally) – what was surprising was what he said.
“Didn’t you win the Weakest Link?”, “Yeah”, I replied. “We’ve got another winner here!”, he said, introducing me to another Weakest Link winner. Which is a bit of a weird coincidence – what are the chances of that happening?
Apparently he was on in January last year, and took away nearly £3000, figuratively shitting all over my £1970. His programme was repeated recently, but I was disappointed to discover that there are no repeat fees.
It was a pretty amazing coincidence, although one thing about it did bother me. It means that I’ve lost my “Thing”. I’m no longer going to be the guy who won the Weakest Link, I’m just going to be the guy with no unique traits whatsoever. Which is slightly frustration, considering how much I’ve gone on and on about being on the Weakest Link. I now need to find something unique and noteworthy about myself, otherwise I risk falling into obscurity. No one remembers Buzz Aldrin, because of the other guy who was on the moon before him, And Christopher Marlow is an obscure footnote in literary history, because Shakespeare hogged all of the limelight. What can I do to re-gain my lost fame?
If you missed the rather oblique hints I’ve been posting over the past week, you may be surprised to learn that I was on the Weakest Link on Monday. And even more remarkably, I actually won.
It’s fairly probable that a couple of million people saw my glorious victory on the telly – on (almost) primetime BBC One. I’m not going to delude myself though. The grandeur, the celebrity, the immense wealth… are all factors I’m going to have to cope with in my new role as a prominent figure in the public consciousness.
Obviously, despite being a quiz show champion and presumably able to take my seat next to Judith Keppel and Kevin Ashman on the Eggheads team at my own discretion, I should probably resign myself to the fact that at best I’m going to be a rather low-rent celebrity now, rather than face the crushing disappointment later. I don’t want my pursuit of fame to lead me to milling around the town centre in the same brown shirt I wore on the programme, pen in hand ready to sign autographs, approaching people and saying “You are the Weakest Link, Goodbyeâ€, in a desperate attempt to be recognised. I don’t want to slowly die a little inside every time someone looks at me and raises my hopes, only for them then to cross the road to avoid me.
This said, I fully intend to take my duties as a low-rent celebrity seriously. Without people like me, the trashier end of the gossip magazine market would crumble, and the general public would have nothing to read in waiting rooms the world over.
In fact, I’ve already started phoning up the gossip magazines and newspapers to report “wicked whispers†of myself, just so that I remain in the public eye. It can’t belong until “Psst… which Weak Link was spotted filling his car up with petrol last Tuesday?†or something equally inane appears inset in a box on the 3am Girls page.
My concern at this time though is prolonging my fame – I imagine its going to be pretty fleeting. I’m already bored of talking about the programme, so my legions of fans probably are too, so I’m going to have to try and reinvent myself. It’s going to be difficult, but as this is the entertainment industry we’re talking about, luckily a lack of talent isn’t actually a barrier to remaining famous. The fact I can namedrop Kerry Katona or Richard Blackwood and you know who I’m talking about illustrates this nicely.
So I’m thinking there are two routes I could go down. I could take up drugs and have myself referred to as “the troubled star, James O’Malley†whenever I’m mentioned, or slightly less self-destructively, acquire myself an equally low-rent celebrity girlfriend – say, a former Eggheads contestant, or someone who once appeared in the background of an outside broadcast on the regional news – that’s the sort of level of celebrity we’re talking about. Interest in me would be revived as the press would, for some reason, care about the ups and downs of our relationship, as if it somehow makes a difference to… well, anything.
Obviously after the difficult and highly public split I’ll have another short lived career revival as everyone wants to see what I do next.
I think this is starting to sound like a plan. Sure, there’s at least a case for bowing out of the public eye gracefully instead and not perpetuating our societal addiction to the cult of celebrity… but where’s the fun in that? If anyone needs me, I’ll be in Britain’s crowded shopping centres and precincts, waiting for someone to recognise me from off the telly.
Well that was exciting. I’ll post more as soon as I’ve put something decent together. If you’re in the UK and you missed it you can watch it on the BBC iPlayer for the next week:
Just in case you haven’t spotted all of the not-so-subtle hints, or the post below, or are genuinely stupid, here’s one last reminder that I’m on the Weakest Link Tonight (that’s Monday 3rd).
That’s on BBC One, at 5.15pm. Just after Newsround. I’ll probably post more about it after the event. Unless I come across badly.
Being a cold-hearted rationalist, I’m unable to appreciate the abstract concepts of “luckâ€, “faithâ€, “hopeâ€, and useless words that essentially mean “spurious assertion based on nothing†– this means that I have a habit of approaching everything rationally, with a sort of “risk assessment†and mentally judging the probabilities of things happening.
I could apply these skills that I assume I have to a career as say, a health and safety executive – or a spoilsport as they’re colloquially known. As it happens though, I instead devote this part of my brain to something far less useful: figuring out which television game shows it would be best to appear on to win some money.
I reckon if you can win pretty big on maybe three or four game shows a year, you may never need to get a proper job, and can sit at home with a self-satisfied grin on your face, like CJ and Daphne from Eggheads.
This may sound pretty silly – and twenty years ago, it might have done. Back in the olden days, before Chris [Tarrant] (BC), quiz shows never really gave away much money, and it was all about the prizes. It would have been all well and good appearing on The Price is Right or Bullseye or whatever it was people watched prior to my birth, but having watched years of repeats on Challenge TV on Sky of all sorts of crappy quiz shows, unless you can live in a speedboat, and eat chequebooks and pens for lunch, then living entirely off of the proceeds from quiz show winnings would have been impossible.
Thankfully now though, TV seems to chuck money at whoever can bark the answers to a handful of stupid questions, and thanks to satellite TV, there’s now enough channels with enough time-filling cheapo quizzes on to make this possible.
So what quiz show is it easiest to win big money on? There’s a couple of factors involved, I rationally think – the amount of prize money and the contestant turnover. Its all well and good going on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, but they only have more or less one contestant a week (or at least did back in 1999 when people actually watched it) – but chances are, even if you make it on to the programme, you’re going to end up sat in the audience watching someone else walk away with £32,000. Similarly, going on Mastermind is great if you can handle the questions, and they have four people a week on… but is it really worth all of that effort for a trophy and bragging rights?
If you’re after some cold, hard, cash, then I think the game show that is best to go on is The Weakest Link. Sure, you only know how it works because you used to watch the last round after switching over from Neighbours, waiting for The Simpsons, but its almost the easiest quiz to get on: they have nine contestants every episode, and its on practically all year round, so they must need a lot of contestants – which increases your chances of being on. The prize money is good too – its nearly always over a thousand pounds – which really isn’t bad for a day’s work. And the best thing? You don’t even have to be clever or intelligent. The trick to winning is being the second cleverest, or good at pretending to be clever – as they’ll always vote out the strongest link in the penultimate round.
So that’s my advice – if you want to win money on the telly, go on the Weakest Link.
If you missed the rather 
Well that was exciting. I’ll post more as soon as I’ve put something decent together. If you’re in the UK and you missed it you can watch it on the BBC iPlayer for the next week: