JR MEETS R&J!    08/04/04

I've survived shin kicking, bog snorkelling and mob football, but I wasn't sure I'd last eight minutes on the sofa with "Richard & Judy".

While listening to the clueless clues during 'You Say, We Play', I worried that I, too, might freeze once the big cannon of Camera #4 zoomed in on me.

"Famous film actor... American," stumbled Derek the caller, eventually narrowing it down to Ben Affleck.

"We... all have one... on each hand..." he said, guiding Richard to the answer (thumb).

This was live TV-no ten-second delay-with two million people watching.

The production assistants had begged me twice not to swear, apparently pegging me as a reject from Jerry Springer.

Fortunately, there were no attacks of Tourette's-or wardrobe malfunctions-suffered either by me or my hosts.

Richard and Judy guided me ever-so-gently through the interview, cutting away every so often to footage you can see here on truebrits.tv.

Judy wasn't very impressed by my stamina vs. the Burry Man ("You're an American wimp," she joked), though both she & R were shocked by naked shin kicking ("What?! You amaze me!" Richard exclaimed.)

The latter prompted this stern warning to the cameras: "We should point out to our younger viewers: don't kick each other's shins."

In the end, my debut on live national TV was relatively painless-and even pleasurable.

Many thanks to R&J and the team at Cactus for making me feel at ease, or at least as relaxed as I could while talking to two national institutions in front of half a dozen cameras, 20 production staff and millions of viewers.

(And no, for those of you who saw the programme, unfortunately I did not get to mingle in the green room with the other guest, actress Charlize Theron ...)