Simon Beale's Blog

Celeb Spotting

What is our fascination with spotting famous people in public places?? We almost react like they shouldn't be there. Like they're not allowed to shop in Oxford Street or go for a walk in Hyde Park with the rest of us! It's a bit like when you were a kid and you saw one of your school teachers ... but NOT IN SCHOOL. Weird. They, like, do normal stuff. And we always thought they lived at the school and were never let out. Seeing them out shopping was nearly as exciting as finding out their first names.

I was flicking through Heat magazine in the office earlier and had a look at their "Spotted" page, where people send in the names of famous people (I use the word famous slightly loosely) and where they saw them doing normal everyday things. So, for example ... Justin Timberlake arriving at Heathrow Airport ... Thingy out of Hollyoaks shopping in Selfridges ... Chesney Hawkes in Starbucks ... you get the idea. Someone this week has sent in a photo of Fearne Cotton arriving at the BBC to do her radio show. Now, surely that doesn't count. That would be like me saying "Oooh, I spotted Madonna .... on stage at a Madonna concert". Bit poor to be honest.

The other danger of celeb spotting is you act like they'll know exactly who you are. I bumped into (and I do mean literally) Lenny Henry walking up Charing Cross Road once. So what did I do? Just keep on walking thinking "that's Lenny Henry"? No. Apologise for knocking into him? No. I opted for just saying "Oh, hi!!" as if he'd say "BEALEY!!! How are you?". What was I thinking?

So, prepare yourself. Particularly if you're walking around the West End or the posh bits of town over the Bank Holiday weekend. Stay calm. Realise they have no idea who you are. And have your camera handy so you can contact Heat magazine straight away!

Have a great Easter weekend.

Simon
x

Posted by Simon Beale on March 20, 2008 at 09:08AM

back to blog index

---