I Was Gavin Esler’s Fluffer (Blogging Experiment #2)

Post dedicated to Tim Footman by whom the title was suggested.

Of course it was hard not to get drunk on the power. I don’t think I can really be blamed for that. We’ve all been there… having everything we ever wanted thrown at us, and more. Who can blame us for making the most of it, trying it on?

After all, so many doors were opened for me. I had a tab going at the Hat & Feathers – the whole works, pickled eggs, pints of lager and lime, house wine.

People used to cross the street when they saw me coming. Onto my side of the road, don’t you know? Sylvia Young wasn’t a patch on this place.

Jon Snow cut me up at the traffic lights on my first week. I knew it was him as I saw the stripy socks disappearing into the distance. My friends from back home couldn’t believe it, and all the other stories I told them. Belle de Jour holding a taxi door open for me, and such like.

And the people were actually listening to some of my ideas, as soon as I’d managed to tone down my voice to acceptable levels. It was me that recommended Martha you know. Before she disappeared to the land of Radio 4.

Jeremy was so different to how he comes across in the programme. He used to tell me, there’s a part of me that sneers all the time and when I’m on the TV or complaining about underpants I just go to that place.

Of course the adulation couldn’t last and it was in the wake of John Peel’s death that I suggested getting in that “bloke from Manchester, you know, the one from that band he likes.”

We all know how THAT turned out.