Perfect Strangers

Hi all,

went to London yesterday and was hanging around in Covent Garden for a while, what a fabulous place for people watching.

Whilst I was there I took the opportunity to have a cornish pasty from The Cornish Pasty Company who have stalls all over London, there's one at London Bridge and One at Wimbledon that I have visitied and I know there are loads more.

The pasties are made in Cornwall and delivered frozen to the stalls who then bake them and serve them up, loads of varieties and every one I've had has been fabulous.

I would heartily recommend trying one if you pass a stall should be about £3.

I went up to audition for a new game show called Perfect Strangers, it was an odd experience but interesting so I thought I'd share it with you.

I arrived 15 mins late thanks to some delays encountered in my travels, only little ones but they added up to a 15 delay, now I hate being late, I really hate it so I didn't arrive in the best of moods, it was a muggy day and I'd legged it all along Long Acre to the venue so was sweating profusely, I must have looked a sight !

I apologised profusely to the researcher who was very nice about it and fitted me in at the side of the line-up having first stuck my name on my chest and taken a digital photo.

The host was just finishing putting the potential candidates at ease with some jocular chat when I arrived and seemed a little put out when I was thrust onto the end of the line, I smiled like a loon and tried to catch up with what was happening, feeling very uncomfortable I have to say I wasn't at my best.

In front of us were table tennis bats and the host explained that they would take the place of buzzers while we played a trial round, the whole point of the quiz is that you have to work as a team one of you answering half the question the other answering the rest so of course I ended up on a team of three !

The star of the audition was a super agressive guy up the end whose bat was in the air before the rest of us could blink, we later found out he is an estate agent, when we did manage to beat him to it it seemed a reasonable game, they showed us George Bush snr and Jnr and asked us to name them, Everest name it and the two countries it lies in etc.

I was crap you won't be surprised to hear.

After that we were put in a circle and interviewed on camera individually, of course I ended up being last and by the time it got round to me every funny thing possible to say had been said, the estate agent said he didn't want to play with any thickies and that he'd probably cope with losing by having a quiet word round the back with his partner!

After that there was a written quiz, not too bad except I'm pants at modern music and couldn't remember for the life of me who Shakespeare married lol.

It was after this ordeal I went to Covent Garden to meet my wife for lunch.

We ate as mentioned and while we were enjoying our food we watched the street performers, geez these guys work hard for a living, then wandered round the stalls, oh my word the prices ! and went home.

The return trip was slightly more relaxed than the outbound and we made it home in plenty of time for me to visit my dentists, now they know about customer service but I'll leave them to another time.

Keep slogging guys and remember.

Whether you think you can or you think you can't

you're right !

John Anslow
http://ffriar.com