FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FAME

I thought I`d tell you about my fifteen minutes of fame on prime time TV.

This was some years ago, and began when the BSFA asked members to respond to a BBC request to find people whose reading, perferably of a specific book, had "changed their life". Well, I don`t think any particular book has changed my life any more than any other but I`m always willing to have a go so I wrote and told them how I came to be a lifelong reader of science fiction.

As usual with me, it was a bit bizarre. During and after the war, relatives in America used to send my family large and tantalising parcels, stuffed with all the goodies we just couldn`t get over here. Opening one of these was a great event. I loved the tootsie rolls and such, but another excitement was the wrapping. These parcels were very securely packed, and padded out with newspaper and old magazine pages. I used to read the wrapping.And that`s how as a child I discovered the joys of spaceships and mysterious aliens and strange planets on which twin suns never set, thanks to pages of forties pulp magazines.

Well, I sent in a letter about all this to the Beeb, and the next thing I knew, there was a producer on my doorstep from a programme called :"Bookworm", exclaiming over how quaint the cottage was, and how photogenic the dogs could be.

He was actually very taken with the dogs. Could they film me at a show?I had an instant vision of what a complete BBC film crew following my every move might do for my chances at the next show, and said of course they could, yes certainly. However, the times didn`t fit, and it was decided that they would spend a day filming me at home and at a local show where I was judging.

They arrived really early, and filmed an interview , and then on to the dogs. They wanted to feature me feeding the dogs.

Now the thing about filming is that the first take is never a wrap. There`s always something not quite right. So we did four takes of the dog feeding. Four times I went out to them with dishes full of food. Four times they scoffed the lot. By the third time my old ladies were eyeing me strangely. Had I lost my marbles? Would the food keep coming for ever? Had they died and gone to heaven?

Leaving a collection of sleeping Papillons stuffed to the eyeballs with food, we went on to the little local show, where the management knew about the filming, but the exhibitors didn`t. I was to be miked for this part, and the dog people watched in amazement as the sound man stuck a hand down my blouse. Was this what it would take to win today?

I judged, with lights, sound, cameras, everything. Never has toy judging had such an avid audience. Those in the know about the mike directed their conversation directly to my cleavage, in ringing tones.

By the time I reached the Poms, the crew had moved on to filming individual dogs. They were looking for the unusual and the bizarre, but the exhibitors weren`t to know that, and had visions of their precious pooch on prime time national news. A muttered chorus on the lines of "gonny film my dog, mister?" began to rise.

I finished, and found the film crew backed into a corner by a very large man with a brace of Staffordshire Bull Terriers. "You must have a Staffie!" he was insisting. "It`ll no be the same without a Staffie!" His two dogs were very.....eager. The crew were English and totally non-dog. What on earth was a Staffie? Was it part of some bizarre Scottish ritual? Would it hurt much? They were pathetically grateful to be rescued and taken off for lunch.

After lunch we recorded some voiceovers, then went off to a planetarium in Edinburgh with Truffle, my youngest hairless Chinese Crested, chosen as looking suitably alien. I must say they were very philosophhical when she threw up repeatedly all over the hired car, due to incredible overfeeding for the sake of art earlier in the day. I wasn`t worried. There isn`t much on a Crested that can`t be put right with a wet sponge. I believe this is something totally untrue of car upholstery.

And after twelve hours it was finished. I had been interviewed, judged a show, heard the life stories of the crew listened to the career angst of the director -"I have to do something really good soon or it`ll be too late! The young ones are snapping at my heels! I`m THIRTY FIVE!!!" - and overfed my dogs in a way they that indicated a day of excessive and unusually colourful diarrhoea to follow

And yes, it did go out on prime time. My relatives saw it and were convionced that I had been abducted by aliens. My doggy friends saw it and greeted me with "Live long and prosper!" and that hand sign for months. The exhibitors saw it and realied that Fido`s intrinsic beauty had not been uppermost in the mind of the director.

Shortly afterwards "Bookworm" sank without trace.

If anyone out there still has a video, I am seriously hard to blackmail.