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I once "stole" a bin bag that until seconds earlier had been warmed by the arse of Fruitbat from Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. (he was sitting on it outside one of the beer tents at Glastonbury Festival) I was a huuuge fan of theirs for about a year and a half and then literally one morning I just woke up and suddenly realised, "This is actually not very good", can 't explain why, and have never listened to them again.


Oh, and I also played a game of hurling (basically aerial hockey, with similar bats) with the Frank And Walters.


Not all of my star stories concern incredibly minor indie bands from the early 90s, but quite a lot of them do.

Oh, and I once stalked Tony Hart (in a bright red VW Beetle) after we saw him in a Post Office somewhere in the West Country. I don't know why we felt the urge to follow him in the car, but after about twenty miles it suddenly occurred to us that maybe he was going on holiday in Cornwall, and that this was starting to become slightly potentially illegal. The man was a childhood hero to us, and we didn't want to unnerve the poor fellow. Any more than we already had, I should say. Early on in our chase, my friend made a banner reading "You're Tony Hart!" on the back of some cardboard from a box of cider and held it up to the windscreen.



This has just reminded me of the time I saw John Hegley busking at the side of the street during an anti-war demo in about 1991, and, incredibly star-struck, went up to him and exclaimed, "You're John Hegley!" (he was not very famous at the time)


Hegley's response: a withering, "I know I am."


I slunk away, ashamed.

More late 80s/ early 90s minor indie band claims to fame:


I once touched the hem of Tim from James's trousers.


I once wrote a fan letter to the Soup Dragons and got a reply from the bass player (his name escapes me now, I'm afraid), enclosing a free badge.


I once saw Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream in the Virgin Megastore on Western Road in Brighton, counting his own LPs to see how many copies of Screamadelica had been sold. Loser.

Oh, and not indie-band related, but I've just remembered I once stood in a coat queue at a Marie Claire Christmas party in front of the very lovely Julian Rhind-Tutt from Green Wing. We exchanged some amusing banter about leaving so early that most people were still putting their coats in rather than taking them out, and having drunk too many free White Russians. I may have laughed just a little too loudly at his jokes, so aware was I that I was in the presence of a comedy hero, while simultaneously pretending I had absolutely no idea who he was.

Not exactly claims to fame.... but brushes with fame....


1- Sat next to Bjorn from ABBA on a 15 hour flight...


2- A friend of mine got "the" Tom Jones to sign my birthday card in a restaurant, incidentally my father's name was "Tom Jones"


3 - When i was five, I got trapped in a revolving door, with a dog on a lead and the person coming towards me, who happened to be the Prime Minister of the time, Harold Wilson.

A friend of a friend, whilst he was in secondary school, used to tell everyone that met him, that his uncle was Chevy Chase, little did he know, his family inc his younger sister made it up & kept up the pretence for over 5 years..poor guy, not sure what is worse, finding out he was not his uncle or finding out that Chevy is not really that funny.

A friend of mine once saw Leslie Phillips come out of a Chinese restaurant in Soho, dressed in a navy blazer with gold buttons, and with a nubile young woman on each arm, whereupon they all jumped into an open-top red MG that was parked on double yellows right outside and drove off at high speed.


What a legend!

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