"Three seconds until the trumpets" yelled the producer and we were off, our fleeting moment of stardom was about to begin.
As the UK's premier Audax Club, it was only a matter of time before the media wanted a piece of the ACME phenomenon. Oaky had been hoping for a Netflix reality series and had gone as far as growing a novelty moustache and beard in anticipation but first through the door was good old Auntie.
It had started with a casual conversation at last week's MEMWNs. OD, our resident master of mayhem, had somehow managed to turn a befuddled query about how to work the interweb into an invitation for us to appear on the One Show. In his own words he had "warmed up" the assistant producer, the mind boggles (and then you try to stop it boggling if at all possible).
So it was that OD, the person related to someone famous, Soupy, Swiss Tony, Oaky and I ended up standing in the lobby of the Peel Wing at Broadcasting House last night in our formal ACME uniforms. OD takes a cavalier attitude to many aspects of life and it would appear that security is but another item on that long list. We were under strict instructions to bring ID in order to be admitted but quite how "Andy Clowd" and "Nick Bruno" were going to prove those identities I do not know. Fortunately the security guard had assessed OD as being on the eccentric rather than dangerous scale.
The Green Room was something of a disappointment being neither green nor really a room and, more particularly, containing no Essex Energy Drinks. Somehow or other some of us were going to have to manage to cycle on water alone, we volunteered OD and TPRTSF.
While we were waiting there we had the chance to meet some of the thousands of people that seem to be required to sit two people down on a sofa to talk to someone. They were very cool and media though. Who knew dungarees were even a thing. One of the beautiful trendy people led us down to the studio where Mike and Al (as we know them) were already on the sofa, presumably having been guided there by half a dozen people each. OD and TPRTSF were put onto their bikes while Oaky and I tried to distract them so the other person could turn up the resistance setting. Then we got into trouble for making the bikes go beep so we had to stop that.
Before we knew it, the show was over and we were having pictures taken on "the sofa" - we managed to sit down on it without any help though.
Fortunately, there was still plenty of time to grab some Essex Energy Drinks before the train home. Fame hasn't changed us, we passed the delights of the Groucho Club and our showbiz friends by and made our way to a 'Spoons. We did pick a corner table though so that our security detail could stop us being pestered for selfies, our new agent is very strict about access particularly while he negotiates our endorsement deals and ties up the deal for the new ranges of ACME action figures and dressing up outfits.
Wednesday's MEMWNs might be a bit different.
