Diary – 31 December 2011

At last, 18 years after leaving university, the call comes to appear on the University Challenge Christmas Special. A wonderful boost for my intellectual vanity. Not so good for the physical sort. Halfway through filming, at Granada Studios in Manchester, a man in props approached me in the make-up room. ‘I’m afraid you’re strobing,’ he said, pointing at my checked shirt, which produced a blurring effect on telly. ‘Do you mind wearing the studio shirt?’ The studio shirt was bright grey — if that’s not an oxymoron — with a highly varnished sheen. At lunchtime, I rushed off to Brooks Brothers and bought myself a non-strobing, non-shiny blue shirt, for £89. It didn’t do much for my appearance. Halfway through the programme on Boxing Day, I got a text from a friend I hadn’t seen for years: ‘Where’s all your hair gone?’ Telly doesn’t add on two stone, like it’s supposed to.