‘Kate will deal with creepy crawlies and snakes very well... because she works with Piers Morgan’
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25
Caitlin Moran, the world’s most irritating ‘feminist writer’ — and the bar for that coveted title is exceedingly high — has lambasted me for commenting with ‘thunderous predictability’ about Meghan Markle, raging that I recycle my ‘well-worn opinions’ like ‘the mice on the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ recycling their single, stale fury-biscuit over and over.’
Ms Moran is certainly an expert in recycling stale fury-biscuit.
This was the 28th time — yes, I counted — she has bitched about me in her Times column in the past three years. I may have to get a literary restraining order.
I have myriad well-documented weaknesses, but one of my undoubted strengths is a genetic fearless streak that regularly makes me take big, sometimes insane risks.
I subscribe to the theory of the world’s greatest ever ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, who said: ‘You’ll always miss 100 per cent of the shots you don’t take.’
Of course, such a gung-ho attitude can occasionally lead to complete carnage, such as when Australian fast bowler Brett Lee smashed up my ribs in a cricket net (ironically, I did take shots but missed with them all as Lee’s 95mph thunderbolts cannoned into my flesh...)
Today, Ant Middleton, star of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, appeared on Good Morning Britain.
He’s climbed Everest, rowed the Pacific, fought the Taliban in Afghanistan, and is built like the proverbial brick s***house. So not a man to be messed with.
A few days ago, Middleton appeared on The Russell Howard Hour and named me as the person he’d most like to put through special forces paces.
‘I’d strip Piers naked, burn his clothes, push him into the wild and drive off,’ he chuckled, disturbingly.
So naturally, I felt a surge of ludicrously self-harming bravado well up inside me when he arrived at the GMB desk this morning — and I challenged him to an onair arm-wrestle.
‘Are you mad?’ cried Susanna Reid. ‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘I beat my army colonel brother at this every Christmas.’
Middleton smirked, and we commenced our wrestle.
Or rather, I commenced it with every ounce of my power — and felt an immovable wall of human granite.
Until this moment, the strongest handshake I’d ever encountered was Lewis Hamilton’s.
But Middleton’s paw enveloped my hand like a ravenous python enveloping a large rat, toyed with it for a few amused seconds, then crushed it onto the desk with such force that it was still hurting eight hours later.
‘There are no limits,’ insisted kung fu movie king Bruce Lee. He obviously never tried to arm-wrestle Ant Middleton.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8
One of the most important tricks in the television presenting game is to ensure whoever stands in for you during your time off is less popular.
In that regard, ‘comedian’ Adil Ray has been my perfect occasional replacement on GMB.
(I’m told he was recently inexplicably introduced to Prince William at a charity event as ‘the Pakistani Piers Morgan’, to which William apparently replied: ‘I’m not sure that’s a good thing.’ I presume His Royal Highness meant it was disparaging to me...)
Tonight, Ray hosted Have I Got News For You and sneered: ‘The best thing about filling in for Piers Morgan on Good Morning
Britain is you don’t have to meet Piers Morgan!’
The best thing about Adil Ray filling in for me is that he always tanks the ratings and leaves viewers begging for my return.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11
Ian McKellen, arguably Britain’s finest living actor, was a GMB guest today for the first time while I’ve been hosting.
After a fascinating chat about his career, during which he cited playing Gandalf in the Lord Of The Rings movie trilogy as the highlight — I turned to lighter matters.
I’d heard Ian was a good cook, so asked him if he had a culinary speciality.
‘Fish pie,’ he replied.
‘Really?’ I exclaimed. ‘What do you put in it?’
Ian peered at me like I was Gollum without the brains, then responded with a devastating sigh: ‘Fish, mainly.’
When the interview was finished, and we went to a commercial break, he walked around the studio personally thanking all the camera crew. I can count on one hand the number of stars I’ve ever seen do that. (Fergie, Duchess of York, was another.)
Classy guy, albeit not a man to suffer imbeciles.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17
When my GMB colleague Kate Garraway told me she was doing I’m A Celebrity Get
Me Out Of Here... I knew I’d be on the receiving end of more jibes than her from my old Britain’s Got Talent muckers Ant and Dec.
It didn’t take them long.
Announcing on tonight’s launch episode that Kate faced a ‘huge challenge’, Dec chortled: ‘But before she goes back to work with Piers Morgan, she’s got three weeks in the jungle!’
This was mild compared to another exBGT colleague Amanda Holden’s observation: ‘Kate will deal with the creepy crawlies and snakes very well... because she works with Piers.’
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18
A text arrived from Sharon Osbourne: ‘Hi darling, my plastic surgeon has offered me a free facelift voucher to use before Christmas as I am his most loyal customer, but I think my current face should get me through until at least Easter. So I thought it could be my present to you. In fact, the last time I saw you, I nearly suggested it. Fancy a new face for Christmas? Big Kiss.’
It took me longer than usual to realise this was one of Michael McIntyre’s ‘Send to All’ stunts, where he gets celebrities to text an outlandishly fake message to all their phone contacts — because this is exactly the kind of message Sharon would send me.