Claim to fame (deux)

Back in January, I noted the slightly icky fun to be had from the innocent game variously known as 'claim to fame', 'my brush with greatness' - or 'top tenuous'.

It's all about dredging up a connection (the ropier the better) between oneself (non-entity) and an, er, entity (aka 'celeb').

And, in my version of the game, when it comes to magnitudes of fame, B-list definitely trumps A-list.

Which brings me to the splendidly bespectacled, fag-dangling gentleman pictured above: the roi soleil of avant-gard French cinema Jean-Luc Godard.

Way back in the gloomy winter of 1969-70 I found myself briefly sharing a table in a coffee bar with the celebrated auteur.

Left-bank of the Seine? Sadly not. The setting for this richly random rendez-vous was the bleak concrete campus of the University of Essex.

I've no idea what J-L G was doing there. But him, it most definitely was. I drank my coffee in silence. So did he. He puffed. I didn't.

In terms of studenty melancholy and alienation, this was, I guess, something of an epiphany.

Afterwards I reflected, maybe he was casting for his new movie L'etudiant qui souffre.

Drat.

Claims to fame

Ever indulged in that deliciously embarrassing game of 'claim to fame'?

The activity involves swapping stories of encounters (the more tenuous the better) between oneself (in the role of 'nonentity') and a person who may be described, however loosely, as a 'celebrity'....

For example, exiting the gentlemen's lavatory at Warwick Arts Centre, I found myself holding the door open for pocket-sized film director Mike Leigh.

Or, even more thrilling, I once entered a Little Chef restaurant to find the staff in a state of be-twitterment. Had I arrived five minutes earlier, I would have encountered pop legend Alvin Stardust. That close.

Such random encounters with, er, greatness also enable one to play the linked 'How tall?' quiz.

My revelations on that score reveal: actor Nigel Havers (tiny), Alan Bennett (tall), David Hockney (very tall).

Way back in 1980 I was travelling in Canada's Yukon Territory. We made a brief stop in the town of Whitehorse and I nipped in to the general store to make some minor purchases.

And there, working her way through jumpers in the menswear section, was iconic Blue Peter presenter Valerie Singleton.

How one wishes one had been able to offer a cheery 'Hello Val!' But, as ever, one's innate reserve had the upper hand and I left La Singleton to her sweater selection.

(Apologies to overseas readers - if any! - re the fact that majority of names mentioned/dropped are not exactly 'household' outside the UK.)

Diva fever?

As a micro-celeb himself, Mr Gnome casts a gently sympathetic eye on the follies of 'celebrity culture'.

The HB was recently recounting a long-ago 'meeting' with the peerless American operatic soprano Jessye Norman.

The HB seems to have valued the meeting to the extent of having engineered a picture of himself with the Diva, which, almost twenty years on, remains a treasured item.

If Mr Gnome thinks 'Sad', he keeps his own counsel.

But he did gently point out two easy-to-miss aspects of the picture.

Background right. Has spooky-ish lady gazing over HB's shoulder wandered in from the set of a Harry Potter movie?

And what about the splendid gent, left background?

Munching happily on his fish and chips, and beaming cheerily into the lens, he's clearly in no doubt that this set-up is about no other celeb than his own remarkable self.

Hurrah for random celebrity, says Mr G.