Last night I came face to face with a pair of Victoria Beckham’s old white jeans. To be fair, it wasn’t just me and the jeans. It was more of a charity auction do where her trousers were up for grabs. I had a good look at them. But then came a slight panicky moment when my arm got stuck in the leg and I feared they might have to call security to release me.
It has been that sort of week, really. A lot crammed into a smallish space. On Monday I dashed from the Policy Exchange Christmas party to the re-re-re-relaunch of Duran Duran. In the seats behind us were Bob Geldof and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, which safely gets my Weird Pairing of the Week award. It was groupie heaven, crowned with a kiss from Simon Le Bon. My cheek is now on eBay.
The night after, I found myself dining barefoot with the editor of the Independent for an interview with GQ magazine. The restaurant was Japanese so culturally I suppose it made sense, though all those feet were still a little unnerving. ‘Barefoot dining’, it strikes me, could be one of those slightly strangled recreations people list in weighty tomes, just after their gentleman’s clubs. I seem to be getting a lot of stick for not putting my own hobbies in Who’s Who. Believe me, I tried. First I put the things I genuinely spend my time doing, and I came across as the most boring woman in the world. Then I decided to think up something alliterative, witty or curious. And it sounded painful (cf. ‘barefoot dining’ above). Then I went for something with an air of mystery, and it sounded like I had neither hobbies nor, quite frankly, friends. So yes, I have left the space blank, sounding, in the words of my dearest sister, like ‘a sad git’. Sometimes silence speaks volumes.
One of the new songs from the Duran album is called ‘Falling Down’, all about, they explained, ‘f***ing up in public’. I have started humming it to myself — the aural equivalent of the rosary bead — on air. Is it just me or does everyone in broadcasting suffer a media version of Tourette’s syndrome? There is something about the live microphone and the shining red light on a rolling camera that makes you want to say deeply inappropriate things. Ad libs on News 24 are the worst. Particularly if the previous reports have been about say, puppies, canoeists or Dolly Parton. And you have to grasp the desk firmly with both hands and constrict your jaw until you can just mouth ‘And now for the weather’ without anything appalling slipping out along the way.
Occasionally, though, you have no choice but to be forthright. ‘Shoot me’, I once declared a little rashly, ‘if I ever do reality TV.’ Since then I have been invited to participate on Strictly Come Dancing, Strictly Dog Training, Strictly Weeding and Strictly Show Jumping. And my personal favourite, Strictly Spearmint Rhino, where they teach you to pole dance. I have dutifully declined them all but — here’s the rub — I admit I have sequin envy. I sigh at a samba, caress the buckles on sparkly shoes when I think no one’s looking. My preferred skin tone is now orange. Mark warns me it is divorce if I ever try it. He helpfully points out that there is no ‘core Newsnight audience vote there’. But I think he’s being short-sighted. Newsnight viewers love a phone-in. The ‘Choose your favourite post-Kyoto emissions target’ vote-off got a rousing reception.
But right now the image I can’t get out of my head is that of Jeremy Paxman sitting on the stage of the Albert Hall covered in fake snow. He assures me it’s all true. The reason I know this is because the organisers of this year’s Salvation Army carol concert put it in their pitch to me. ‘Last year,’ they wrote, ‘your colleague Jeremy hosted it and might even have quite enjoyed it.’ Now I’m no Derrida, but if I read the subtext right, the implication is this: if it was good enough for him, it’s jolly well good enough for you. And indeed it jolly well is. I am immensely honoured to be asked. They have suggested I appear in something ‘glamorous but tasteful’. I bet they didn’t say that to JP. Maybe I’ll turn up in body snow, a jingly sleigh and a Santa girl fur-lined cape. So that next year, when they pass the baton to, say, Jon Sopel or maybe even John Humphrys, I have set the bar irresistibly high.
Milo’s nursery school has asked him what he’d like to be in the nativity play and he’s told them without hesitation he wishes to be a polar bear. I worry they think this is his subversive Jewish gene trying to hijack the telling of the birth of Christ. But actually I can’t help feeling it shows a certain prescience in these days of global warming — they’ll be lowing along with the cattle soon enough. My big headache now is the costume. Kings and shepherds I could do with my eyes shut. But where do you start with a polar bear outfit for a three-year-old? Hang on a sec. I might just pop back and see what actually happened to Mrs Beckham’s old white jeans....
Emily Maitlis is a presenter on Newsnight and BBC News 24.