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  1. Culture
27 November 2008

Crossing Timmy Mallett

Jungle warning - the 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here' participant shouldn't be crossed if my exp

By Ben Davies

It’s often said that we journalists are a despicable breed. After all we murdered poor Diana. We lie at the drop of a hat and we’d sell our grandmothers to the highest bidder.

Of course it occurs to no-one that you don’t go into this racket if money floats your boat. No. It’s a better story if the public think we hacks are all sweaty, greedy and evil.

And it’s true I’ve not always behaved ethically.

For example, when I was at the BBC I disgracefully tried to balance coverage of the illegal and immoral Iraq war by interviewing people who were opposed to it. I suppose that makes me a communist.

I only hope that’s offset by the obsequious treatment Lexus David Cameron gets from political editor Nick Robinson.

The other occasion I erred I’m afraid I trod all over Timmy Mallett’s moral compass.

A highpoint in the loveable entertainer’s career was his afternoon show at BBC Three Counties Radio where he was lucky enough to be produced by my wife.

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On one occasion we went out for a drink in Luton after they’d come off air and he told a very moderately amusing anecdote about fellow children’s presenter Michaela Strachan. His very good friend.

It was about Strachan’s reaction to a staged kidnap attempt while she was doing a hostile environment training course ahead of filming in some remote troublespot.

Apparently she screamed or fainted or got the giggles. Can’t remember which.

Mysteriously this tale appeared in a Daily Telegraph diary column quoting what the Mallett had said.

And my god the wrath. No sooner had I got home that evening than the phone started ringing.

“Timmy’s very angry,” came a voice down the line when I answered. “Timmy’s very angry.”

“Oh really Timmy? Why’s that,” I replied, weakly leaning against the wall.

“Guess what happened to me today,” went on the pint-sized funster. “I went to see my parents – my old pensioner parents – and they showed me a copy of the Daily Telegraph. What the hell’s wrong with you, selling a story you’d heard sitting in a pub…

“That’s a disgusting profession you’re joining. Really despicable. Now I’m going to have to ring up my friend Michaela and apologise. Timmy’s very, very angry.”

And I have to say I did feel a bit bad about upsetting him. I’m not sure the diary story did Strachan any harm – actually it gave them both some of the publicity they so clearly crave.

But I do worry that I provided a bit of the oxygen that kept his national profile high enough to see him pop up in the outback on this year’s ‘I’m a celebrity’.

The gnomic pot of insufferable jollity is once again on network TV and for that I apologise to you all.

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