It happened the other week when I went on Big Brother’s Big Mouth, and I’ve had some time to recover from the shock, but BBBM host-for-the-week Bianca Gascoigne did indeed call me Bod. On national telly. As you can see and hear from this embarrassing clip. Now, I don’t expect her to know who the hell I am. It’s not like I’m a famous celebrity or anything. But she did have my name properly spelt on the autocue, complete with that all-important “Y” in the middle, and she did seem to know what I was really called when I met her an hour before we went on air in the make-up room while she was adjusting her bosoms. So why suddenly refer to me by the nickname some annoying kids used when I was in primary school many, many years ago?
Luckily, a nice producer did come up to me as soon as the recording had finished to apologise. Apparently, Bianca was especially nervous that night, what with having to deal with a typically over-excited Belinda Belinda Belinda and having her dad Paul staring down at her from among the studio audience. So she accidentally stumbled over my name. At another point in the show she referred to “heats magazine”. It was all very confusing.
As I sat there with a fixed semi-grin staring at the lovely Ms Gascoigne, I did wonder what the professional response is on live TV when the host gets your name wrong. Do you politely correct them? Storm out of the studio in a huff? Ignore it as if it had never happened? I went for the latter option, based on the assumption that if I said “Hold on a minute, Bianca, I’m called BOYD not Bod, you silly bint”, then I’d come across as an ungrateful, grumpy, old bald bastard.
The producer told me I’d done the right thing.
Anyway, since this blog entry has all but ignored Big Brother itself, it is a chance for you to express your thoughts about this year’s BBBM and BBLB hosts. What did you think of Bianca? Or this week’s presenter Jamelia? Or the great news that Mat Horne and James Corden are back hosting BM next week. Who have been your favourite BM hosts of all time ever? Tell me!
Yours gratefully, Bod Hilton.