My life as a Gogglebox star

Thanks to Stephen Fry I had never wanted to be on television. Around the time Fry made the transition from print to screen, and hence real fame, he wrote a piece lamenting the irreversible step he had taken.

Now, as a result of his face being familiar, he explained, he could never again complain in a restaurant without being accused of throwing his weight around. To put his bins out risked snoopers going through the contents. He even feared cutting his toenails, he said, in case someone got hold of them and knocked up ‘an army of clones’.

Joking aside, Fry knew he had lost the precious gift of privacy and would never regain it. ‘If only I’d stuck to radio,’ he said. His words had a terrible ring of truth and I’ve always remembered them. So I was unmoved when a telly-addict friend rang to gush with excitement that she had put my husband and me forward to appear on Gogglebox and that the production company, Studio Lambert, was interested.