It has been agreed that I should not talk to celebrities anymore

How a chance encounter at Glastonbury set off a chain of humiliating events

Long and silly story today, but if you’d rather just read a free sample of The Man in The Wall, the first Aldhill Mystery story, you can go here. And if you enjoyed the book, please do share this link!

This story starts without any celebrities at all.¹

It starts in a muddy field at Glastonbury Festival in 2005 just after my friends and I came to the realisation that, in this sort of situation, mired sticky mud past the ankle, with nowhere dry and green to sit, the only way to feel good about life was to be drunk on pink cider.

No other kind of high would come close to fixing the misery of the thick sludge surrounding us. Being drunk on pink cider was the only cure.

And so that was the medicine we sought.

The pink cider worked its magic. By which I mean we went from feeling quite sad about the constant squelching through ankle-deep gunge to thinking it was all quite a laugh, actually.

At a certain point in our drunken mud-tramping, we stopped at the Long Drops. If you’ve been to Glastonbury you’ll know what the Long Drops are, and if you haven’t been to Glastonbury, you don’t need to have your mind soiled – literally – by the knowledge. That said, I always found them less offensive than the gangs of enclosed portaloos that sit at jaunty angles like a mouthful of British teeth. Often those bogs wobble alarmingly when you enter.

(And indeed, I once witnessed how wrong that wobble can go when an intoxicated man lunged into a portaloo, which then proceeded to rattle and shake like a fight was occurring until the whole thing fell face down, trapping the man inside. People rushed over to lift the lav back up to standing and the man emerged doused in excrement. Shrugging off the concerns of those around him, he staggered off without a word, presumably to find 1. a shower and 2. a trauma counsellor.)

So anyway, there we were at the long drops, clutching our pink ciders, when I turned to my friend Lia and said:

“In my head I’m always writing Smack The Pony sketches.”

And she laughed and said, ‘Oh! Me too!

Lovely Lia top, Brennan, the pink cider, the mud and me bottom.

It was a lovely moment, although maybe not one I’d particularly remember, if it hadn’t been for the stranger walking past who stopped and said, “Oh my God, same!“ And in a muddy field next to the long drops we all had the kind of deep bonding experience that pink cider can so ably facilitate.

So far so good, right? As you’ve probably noticed, I have not yet spoken to any celebrities. But at this point, a celebrity is about to enter stage left.

Picture the scene. A few years later I am at an ICA fundraiser event in London sponsored by Spinvox (a tech company only a select number of nerds will recall, which claimed to use voice recognition to turn voicemails into texts, but may not have been). I’m sitting at a very snazzy table with some PRs and a selection of the London blogging and tech journalism scene, listening to talks from various celebrities.

Here is a photo I found on Flickr of me at that very event:

Me with Vero Pepperrell at the Spinvox ICA Fundraiser photo © Lloyd Davis

The talk I remember the most was Peter Serafinowicz’s about the Codex Seraphinianus, a mad book published in 1981.

Another speaker was Sally Phillips, which is where your alarm bells should be ringing.

I’m afraid I can’t remember what Sally Phillips (or anyone else) talked about because Peter Serafinowicz’s weird book has occupied that space in my memory, although I do remember being very excited to see her. Which is presumably why, later in the evening, as she was weaving her way between the tables, I pounced.

“Hello Sally!“ I said, approaching her. “I just wanted to tell you about the time I was at Glastonbury festival and I told my friend that I’m always writing Smack The Pony sketches in my head, and she said she does the same thing, and then this random woman stopped and shouted “Oh my god, same!” and we had this amazing experience in a field about how much we all love Smack The Pony and I thought you would like to know about that.”

Throughout this speech, Sally Phillips stared at me with those big eyes of hers and gave me the smile that she gives Alan Partridge when he speaks to her on the front desk of the Trave Tavern. I can’t remember what she said in reply, I just remember that I realised I had come across as a total nutter accosting her to tell her a random story about the time I was in a field in Glastonbury clutching a pink cider and talking to a passerby.

So that was that. But the story doesn’t end there because a year later, in 2008, I was at the GQ Man of the Year Awards. I can’t remember why. I think I did once write a piece for GQ, but it’s more likely I was there as the guest of a sponsor. Back then, tech journalists got some pretty nice jollies. Nowadays, they’d give my seat to an influencer with actual power.

Sitting on a table next to me were Julian Barrett and Noel Fielding from the Mighty Boosh who were clearly extremely excited to be meeting Robert Plant and Jimmy Page – almost excited as I was to be watching that interaction happening just a few metres from my face. There’s a photo here. Imagine I’m just to the left of this shot gawping like a kitchen bin.

But not for long! Because while the Mighty Boosh and Led Zeppelin were the centre of everyone’s gaze, I spotted Barrett’s wife Julia Davis sitting alone. Julia Davis for god’s sake! Nobody puts Julia Davis in the corner. So, naturally, I decided to go over and tell her how much I love her.

“Julia,” I said. “I just wanted to tell you how much I love you and that to me you’re the most exciting person here.”

Julia looked frankly terrified and gave me a similarly rabbit in the headlights look that Sally Phillips had sent my way. I’d like to tell you this is as bad as it got, but then I opened my mouth again, and I think I’ve already established that whenever that happens it’s a bad idea. “I have to tell you about the time I met Leslie Phillips,” I said²

At this point I went cold all over. Not because of the insanity of me telling Julia Davis this story, although God knows that was bad enough, but because I realised that I had got something fundamentally wrong. And yet, I was just drunk enough to not be able to quite identify what it was. A painful second passed and then it came to me, “No! Not Leslie Phillips. Oh God, what was her name? … Sally Phillips! That’s who I meant.”³

Looking back, I now see the best thing would’ve been to have apologised for taking up her time and politely moved away. But I decided instead to simply plough on, despite the fact that both of us now felt harrowed by the experience.⁴

“I was telling Sally about the time I was a Glastonbury festival and I said to my friend that I’m always writing Smack The Pony sketches in my head, and she replied that she did the same, and then a total stranger turned to us and said, ‘Oh my God. Same!’ And I was telling Sally about this and I think she thought I was completely mad.”

I remember Julia smiling in that slightly “Someone save me” way and then she said something like, “Oh I’m sure she didn’t. She’s very nice.”

“Anyway,” I continued, praying that the Lord would strike me down, “I’m so sorry to have bothered you, but I just wanted to tell you how amazing I think you are. You’re my favourite comedy writer.”

And then, in the absence of the ground swallowing me whole, I resolved to leave the event because I had clearly drunk too much⁵ and was in danger of embarrassing myself in front of another celebrity.

But this is where, as you have probably guessed, things went from bad to worse, because, as I headed for the escalator (which Noel is helpfully standing next to here), I spotted Rob Brydon coming towards me.

Not today, Satan! I thought. I slowed down. I waited until Mr Brydon had climbed on the escalator and travelled down a little and only then did I step on. Unfortunately, Satan had the last laugh. Rob Brydon turned and looked back up and realised his friend hadn’t followed him.

“What are you doing?” he said to someone behind me.

And then something terrible happened. Rob Brydon started walking back up the escalator. I stood still, hoping he would pass me by, but he caught my eye and stopped. “I don’t know what they’re doing,” he said, joining me on my step. “Are you having a nice evening?”

Oh bumcakes, I thought. And here is where I made the terrible decision to reply.

“I’ve just made a fool of myself in front of Julia Davis,” I said.

And he said something like, “Oh, I’m sure you didn’t. Julia’s very nice.”

“I tried to tell her a story about Sally Phillips and Glastonbury Festival but I forgot Sally‘s name and called her Leslie and so now Julia must think I’m insane.”

I think I have very clearly established that there is something wrong with me. Not only do I speak whatever is in my brain, I am constantly looking for absolution (especially back then). So what I wanted from Rob was reassurance that I wasn’t a complete tit and what I did to get it was… behave like a complete tit.

Katie, why oh why can’t you just be NORMAL?

So, anyway, I left the party, swerving Denise Van Outen who was giving Tess Daly what I imagined was a “He ain’t worth it” type speech about (I’m guessing) Vernon Kay, and made my way home without any further celebrity-based embarrassment.

So at that point it was agreed by all that I should no longer speak to celebrities, especially if I’ve been drinking.

Postscript

Two not very good photos of me on my way to the BAFTAs. I now wear this skirt every year on Halloween and Pirate Day.

At some point after this I was at the BAFTAs⁶ about to go to the dinner with my friend David, a fellow tech journalist. David knew about my celebrity stupidity disease and so when he realised Eddie Izzard was behind us, he kept elbowing me and telling me to tell Eddie I loved him.

I refused. I held strong. But then things got even worse because David Tennant appeared. I’m not quite sure what he was doing maybe just saying hello to people, but everyone on my table had a lovely time chatting to him, especially one female journalist who was very tactile by today’s standards and felt uncomfortable even back in those less enlightened times.⁷

It would make the end of the story better if I continued my idiot streak here, but although David’s jacket was literally touching me, and we made eye contact a number of times, I kept my promise and didn’t speak to him. Presumably, he wondered who the surly girl was next to the handsy journalist.

It’s a shame, really. Just think how much more fun this anecdote would be if I went on to tell first Eddie Izzard and then David Tennant the story about the time I was on an escalator with Rob Brydon and told him about the time I met Julia Davies and referred to Sally Phillips as Leslie Phillips when I told her a story about the time I met Sally Phillips and told Sally about the time I went to Glastonbury festival and met a stranger who also writes Smack The Pony sketches in her head.

Right, that’s quite enough humiliation. Having read this breathless tale back, I realise I come across as one of those hapless hot mess heroines in a chick flick, and the only thing I can offer in my defence is that during the time this happened I did also manage to co-found and run a web publishing business, so I can’t have been totally non-functioning… just partially.

Have a lovely weekend!

x Katie Lee / KJ Lyttleton

1. And apologies for how name-droppy it gets after that, but you can’t really tell this story with the celebrities

2. Why? Why did I HAVE to tell her? What is wrong with me?

3. This inability to recall names has meant a lifetime of feeling like a muddled old person. I guess it’s a blessing that the ageing hardware is starting to match the faulty software.

4. And before any farming nerds write in, I am aware harrowing and ploughing are two slightly different soil-based activities.

5. Which means two drinks knowing me

6. Clang! All I can say is my life used to be very different. These days I spend all of my time walking the dog to the allotment or sitting on a sofa crocheting while watching television. When I was in my 20s that was also what I wanted to be doing because I was born old.

7. That journalist, by the way had just bought a house in Mayfair. She insisted she wasn’t rich but had simply offered the old lady who owned it an “insultingly low sum”, which I think about to this day, because what does “an insultingly low sum” in Mayfair look like, even in the 00s?