MY FIFTEEN MINUTES

This morning, a nice-looking girl accosted me in the street, and I didn't even have my foldable boxes with me! Of course, she was holding a mike in her hand, and she had with her a man pointing a professional-size video camera at me, so the likelyhood that she stopped me to make some romantic overtures was fairly remote, unless they were shooting the pilot of some strange new reality show.
(I'm starting to sound like I am looking for romance every time I set foot out of the house, aren't I? I swear it is not the case!)

Anyway, I was thinking she must be covering some burning news topic, and wanted to ask my opinion about it as the proverbial, well, man in the street. I must admit I was looking forward to being interviewed. First because, as my friends would undoubtedly tell you, I have a certain propensity to give my opinion, even when nobody is asking. And also because, having extensive experience of appearing on television, I don't feel as awkward in front of a camera as some novices would. Or so I choose to believe.
(Didn't I mention that I have appeared many times on television, in several countries - not that I take undue pride in it, of course -? Well, I guess it's a story for another day...)

Unfortunately, to my great disappointment, it turned out that the lady was making a survey about the impact of some advertising campaign, on beer of all subjects. The camera was only there to record what I said in more detail for the marketing executives to study. I must now make a very painful confession, in fact an unforgivable one for someone who lives in the UK, and which will probably cost me the respect of my male readership: I don't drink beer. I have tried, mind you, as it is such a social handicap in the English-speaking world, but I just don't like the taste of the thing. So I keep on embarassing my friends in restaurants and pubs by ordering soft drinks and sweet wines, "sissy drinks" as one of them (a woman!) quite bluntly put it.

As you can imagine, having for once no opinion on the subject, and being very unlikely to have noticed the campaign (especially as that one, quite uncharacteristically, did not make a large use of lightly-clad models), I was not a prime subject for the survey. I was therefore quickly dismissed by my interviewer, and that was the end of it.

So I guess that if I want to become famous, I have to hang all my hopes on this blog again. I'm counting on you!

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