[Red Moon]

Crossing Timmy Mallett

Jungle warning - the 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here' participant shouldn't be crossed if my experience is anything to go by

It's often said that we journalists are a despicable breed. After all we murdered poor Diana. We lie at the drop of a hat and we'd sell our grandmothers to the highest bidder.

Of course it occurs to no-one that you don't go into this racket if money floats your boat. No. It's a better story if the public think we hacks are all sweaty, greedy and evil.

And it's true I've not always behaved ethically.

For example, when I was at the BBC I disgracefully tried to balance coverage of the illegal and immoral Iraq war by interviewing people who were opposed to it. I suppose that makes me a communist.

I only hope that's offset by the obsequious treatment Lexus David Cameron gets from political editor Nick Robinson.

The other occasion I erred I'm afraid I trod all over Timmy Mallett's moral compass.

A highpoint in the loveable entertainer's career was his afternoon show at BBC Three Counties Radio where he was lucky enough to be produced by my wife.

On one occasion we went out for a drink in Luton after they'd come off air and he told a very moderately amusing anecdote about fellow children's presenter Michaela Strachan. His very good friend.

It was about Strachan's reaction to a staged kidnap attempt while she was doing a hostile environment training course ahead of filming in some remote troublespot.

Apparently she screamed or fainted or got the giggles. Can't remember which.

Mysteriously this tale appeared in a Daily Telegraph diary column quoting what the Mallett had said.

And my god the wrath. No sooner had I got home that evening than the phone started ringing.

"Timmy's very angry," came a voice down the line when I answered. "Timmy's very angry."

"Oh really Timmy? Why's that," I replied, weakly leaning against the wall.

"Guess what happened to me today," went on the pint-sized funster. "I went to see my parents - my old pensioner parents - and they showed me a copy of the Daily Telegraph. What the hell's wrong with you, selling a story you'd heard sitting in a pub...

"That's a disgusting profession you're joining. Really despicable. Now I'm going to have to ring up my friend Michaela and apologise. Timmy's very, very angry."

And I have to say I did feel a bit bad about upsetting him. I'm not sure the diary story did Strachan any harm - actually it gave them both some of the publicity they so clearly crave.

But I do worry that I provided a bit of the oxygen that kept his national profile high enough to see him pop up in the outback on this year's 'I'm a celebrity'.

The gnomic pot of insufferable jollity is once again on network TV and for that I apologise to you all.

Source: News Statesman