‘Because,’ bellowed my dad, ‘it isn’t Uncle Ben the rice man, it’s the great Nelson Mandela!’
I apologise profusely to the late, great Mr Mandela. I’ve since watched at least fifty hours’ worth of documentaries and YouTube videos on him and he is an amazing legend of a man.
Despite that slight slip-up, and much to my confusion, the next day I got a call from Studio Lambert telling me they want the Moffatts to be the new family on the third series of Gogglebox. Oh, and we would need to start filming on Monday, which was just two days away. Obviously we never actually planned to film and be on the television in real life and we were all baffled by the situation. It was actually my dad who was the most open to it. He just kept saying, ‘Well, what’s the worst that can happen?’ Famous last words.
If you have flicked over to Gogglebox in your time and seen me and my family, you may already have some of your favourite moments. If not, you are probably reading this like, ‘What the hell is Gogglebox?’ So the following highlights will give you an understanding of some of the shit me and my family talk about in the comfort of our front room.
• The age-old argument for DC Comic fans: Batman or Superman, who is the best? I voted Batman. ‘Superman looks exactly the same when he puts his glasses on and combs his hair … And everyone acts like it’s someone else. I don’t buy it. Batman has a proper disguise.’
• On that incident with Madonna nearly going arse over tit on stage at the Brits because one of the dancers stood on her cape: ‘Have you been in an accident at work? Where there’s a blame there’s a claim!’ (She should have got a good payout for that.)
• Me and my mam telling my dad to try these new nuts I’d just bought. We forgot to mention they were wasabi nuts and my dad, whose eyes are bigger than his belly, downed a fistful of hot nuts. (I’ve just realised how wrong that sounds when I say it out loud.) His eyes looked like someone had poured acid in them, his forehead started to sweat profusely and I am pretty sure at one point his nose nearly started bleeding.
• On Jeremy Corbyn being elected Labour leader. At the time, I hadn’t actually heard his policies, I simply did what we all do and judged him on face value alone. ‘He looks more like the next Doctor Who than the next prime minister, if I’m honest,’ I said. But don’t worry, I also have an opinion on Theresa May, that opinion being that it’s a misfortune for her to have the same name as the hair product ‘TRESemmé’. It must make hair appointments very confusing.
• As a family discussing the stress of results day for GCSE students: my advice was not to worry. After all, ‘In the number one hit song “Give Me Everything”, Pitbull rhymed “Kodak” with “Kodak” and look at him, he is a multi-millionaire.’
• The iconic scene in James Bond when ‘M’ dies. My logical thinking: ‘Well, “N” can just take over.’ I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about – in alphabetical terms they had at least thirteen other agents left.
• On Martin Freeman doing a political video for the Labour Party ahead of the 2015 general election. My response? ‘I’m not taking political advice from a fucking Hobbit.’ (Now at the time of filming I never thought I would actually get to meet any of the people I was slagging off every Friday night. I had the safety net of my sofa, my parents and my own front room. I didn’t have this safety net when I actually met Martin Freeman at Jonathan Ross’s Halloween party. Not that I think Martin – who played one of my favourite characters from a TV show ever in The Office – actually watches Gogglebox, but you just never know. So I said hello and smiled very politely whilst power-walking past him.)
• And finally, everyone can agree with me here, when I watch The Great British Bake Off I get that into it I start really feeling like I know the contestants. ‘I care more about some of these people than some of my own family by the end of it,’ I said.
Now all of this was said whilst having a television crew in the house. Yes, I’m going to let you into a little secret, as another question I’m always asked is ‘How does Gogglebox work?’ Contrary to belief, we don’t just switch a camera on and then start watching the TV. Unfortunately, it’s a little bit more complex than that. For the past two years of us filming we would have two cameras, lights and a crew of normally five or six people in our dining room. Our favourite and a guy who has been there from the start is Matt, a sound technician from Oxford. Excuse the pun but he genuinely is a sound guy. He made us laugh with his quick wit, sarcasm and his love of northern chicken kebabs.
There was a time when me and my family had one of those rare moments in life where we were reduced to being speechless and that’s thanks to one of the Gogglebox crew. We all just burst into a fit of laughter, staring at each other in disbelief. It was a moment off screen that I want to share with you all. We do laugh about it now but it is the most ‘northernist’ (definition: northernly racist) thing that’s ever happened to us. As we don’t have time to make tea or go and pop over to Asda
