Lucky old me, I went to see Fame the musical the other day in Dartford (when I said I was going to Dartford, someone in the office said to me, isn’t that just a tunnel? Well I can confirm that it’s not just a tunnel, there’s a theatre, a car park and a bridge. Ooh and a train station) and apart from a constant refrain of ‘Fame! I’m gonna live forever’ running round my head (and an urge to jump in the air and touch my toes like the guy on the poster) it’s also got me thinking about claims to fame.

My favourite one is from Tom, who is the IT wunderkind here at BioRegional (where The Laundry lives). While in sixth form, and for want of better forms of entertainment in Bedford, he and a mate set up The Ugly Gardens Project, a website chronicling all the Ugly Gardens in Bedford. Innocent teenage fun you may think, but it managed to whip up a small media frenzy culminating in multiple newspaper articles and an invitation to appear on Richard and Judy! Which had to be turned down, they were worried that R&J’s motivations weren’t entirely pure and that instead of a chance to discuss the serious issues of unattractive gardens they’d be made out to be some mad eccentrics who kept a website about gardens. Which would be entirely unjust. Readers of Bedfordshire on Sunday also got a bit upset about the apsersions that were being cast over their gardens, but that’s another story.

Anyway, I think nearly appearing on Richard and Judy is a great claim to fame.

Another friend of The Laundry was an extra in The Last King of Scotland (he was going to be a hijacker but then got downgraded at the last minute to hostage) and gets a whole three second screen shot to himself. When he heard that Forest Whitaker had won an Oscar for best actor he shrugged modestly and said that he was glad one of them had won it.

There was also a guy at my university who appeared on Pop Idol and became mildly and briefly (in)famous for a not-very-good performance of Great Balls of Fire and then milked this by making star appearances at every student event going. The highlight came when he donated the shirt that he wore on the show to be auctioned off to raise money for charity, which raised the princely sum of £3.50.

As for me, I’ve never really had a claim to fame. I’m happy with my little brush with stardom that The Laundry blog brings me… so tell me, when were you nearly famous?

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