10 People I’ve Met

Tim Key (2025, Edinburgh Filmhouse)

I was at the Filmhouse to see The Ballad of Wallis Island for the third time. Bizarrely, Tim Key, who with Tom Basden had written and starred in the film, was at the ticket desk. I thought that the best course of action was for me to tell him that I was going to see The Ballad of Wallis Island for the third time. He said he hoped that I would enjoy it again.

I should have left it there. But I said that I’d seen his show Loganberry, and had been through to Glasgow for the launch of his book L.A. Baby! Perhaps, I said, I was a fan.

He agreed that I probably was and exited stage left.

Caroline Catz (2011, Young Vic)

After I'd found my seat, I was taking a look around the auditorium when a familiar looking woman approached me. I thought 'friend or someone I used to work with or possibly a friend who I also used to work with, no, the only person in that category is my wife, but I definitely know this woman, I'd better say hello'. I started to open my mouth to speak and just as I did, she flashed me a smile at which point I realised that she wasn't a friend or someone I used to work with (or my wife) because she was actually TV actor Caroline Catz. I said hello anyway.

Not much of a story, but they all count. David Harrower's version of Gogol's comic masterpiece Government Inspector was very good.

Alan Ball (2005, Edinburgh International Conference Centre)

Hideous, hideous evening. A corporate charity quiz night, fuck knows how I allowed myself to be persuaded to go. People waving cheque books in the air like they just didn’t care. (Come on, baby, tell me, what's the word? C-H-A-R-I-T-Y.)

So, Alan Ball, who won the World Cup with England in 1966 was there in some capacity. Was he the quiz master? Surely not? No, maybe, yes? But he seemed like a nice bloke and, after it was all over, he was just sitting by himself. So, I went over to talk to him. Granted, drink had been taken by this stage and I asked him if Bobby Moore had actually stolen the diamond bracelet from the hotel jewellery shop in Bogotá just before the 1970 World Cup kicked off.

The general consensus is that the incident had been a fabrication to somehow have Moore ruled out of the World Cup thus weakening England’s chance of winning it. (Which in any case, they didn’t.) But that evening, Alan Ball told me that Bobby Moore “might have” after all stolen the bracelet.

Richard Jobson (2003, outside the Cameo Cinema)

In retrospect, I think Richard Jobson - lead singer of Skids and film director - might have been positioning himself for photographs from the press. But I’d really enjoyed the premiere of 16 Years of Alcohol and wanted to tell him.

It was only when I voiced my - made up on the spot - opinion that more films should use, as did his, the underpass at Lothian Street as a location that he grew bored and started to edge away from me.

Damon Albarn (1999, Schiphol Airport)

A few months earlier I’d lent my Rough Guide to Amsterdam to friends. On their way back through Schiphol Airport they’d bumped into troubadour Paul Weller, got him to autograph the book.

Waiting for my flight home, I spied Damon Albarn - then riding the crest of fame with Blur - buying some duty-free cigs. Initially he wasn’t too happy about being approached by an autograph hunter, but when I asked if he would sign a copy of the Rough Guide of Amsterdam beside the signature of his mate Paul Weller, he burst out laughing. That’s entertainment.

Brett Anderson (1994, a hotel in Dublin)

I think Justine Frischmann was there too. So young.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1983, Holyrood Palace)

I was there to collect my Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award, the Duke was handing out the gongs. He did speak to me, can’t remember what he said, might have been praise for my bravery in attending a Royal Garden Party wearing a brown off-the-peg lounge suit.

I was later to return my medal to the Palace in protest at Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra war.

John Peel (1982, Heriot-Watt University Student Union)

It’s now the Lyceum Theatre Studio but then it was the Heriot-Watt University student union, and it was there one Friday that I went to a club night hosted by Radio 1 disc-jockey John Peel. In between spinning the discs (Talking Heads, Joy Division, Scritti Politti, Crispy Ambulance, etc.), we got chatting, I offered to buy him a pint even, politely declined on the grounds of having a weak bladder, in retrospect a very John Peelian thing to say.

At the time I was 17, John was 43. I am now a few days off from turning 61.

Tony Hart (early 1970s, London)

I can’t recall the circumstances of how / when / why I met artist and children’s TV presenter Tony Hart. At the time I would have known him - or rather know of him - through the wonderful Vision On programme (“And now, the gallery …”) Anyway, he said he’d draw me a picture and I asked if he would draw me a hippopotamus. Which he did, cross-eyed - the hippo, not Tony Hart - in black ink with a bee buzzing about the hippo’s nose. It was lovely. Wish I still had it.

Sheila Burns (1965, Edinburgh)

17 years earlier, in June 1948, The Scotsman newspaper carried a report of the Scottish Athletics Championships. It contained this paragraph:

The women’s Olympic trial over 200 metres resulted in a sparkling victory for Sheila Burns (Edinburgh University), whose form suggested that she is speedier than any of her sex in Britain today. Miss Burns, who is 23, will be taking part in the women’s Olympic trials at the Chiswick Stadium on June 26.

As it transpired Sheila Burns wasn’t selected for the British Olympic team but she remained one of Scotland’s finest athletes, holding the Scottish 200 metre record for over 3 years from 1949 to 1952.

She was also my Mum.