Communication With A Celebrity By Proxy!

My girlfriend Ella works in tv and film. She’s currently working with Kris Marshall, who’s 6 feet 2, as you’re about to get sick of hearing, and plays Nick in popular UK weekend sitcom “My Family”, and also stars in “Murder City”. He was, fantastically, also in “Love, Actually”.

The character Nick told one of my favourite ever sitcom jokes. He met a vicar, who introduced himself to Nick by saying something like: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew, five six.”

Nick replied:
“Hi. Nick, six two.”

It’s a height/biblical reference joke.

I’ve been irritating my friends, especially Ella, with this joke for some time now, because it’s very funny and original writing, and he really is 6 feet 2, so it seemed like the joke had been written especially for him. Imagine my delight when Ella informed me that she was working with him!

I mention this because firstly, when Ella met him, she said she asked him how tall he was, and he said, “Six two.” She replied “Ella, five six”.

Apparently, he immediately knew exactly what she was talking about. It’s one of his favourite jokes too. Although, according to him, as you’ll discover later, it’s a “gag”.

Then, today, I had a text from Ella saying that, according to Kris, my team (Spurs) are 9th and his team are 8th in the Premiership. Rather excited that I was being spoken about and was communicating by proxy with a celebrity, I immediately checked the BBC website to find out who was in 8th place. To my disgust, I discovered that it was Aston Villa. I quickly replied that one of my favourite football chants is a rather disparaging one about Villa.

Quick as a flash, Ella replied that Kris had informed her that one of his favourite chants was “Glory, glory Man United.”

I was stunned that a Man U fan wouldn’t know what position his team were in the league. I checked again, and Man U are clearly in 5th, not 8th. I sent back a text to Ella, to pass on to my celebrity buddy Kris, that if he’s a true Man U fan, he should know where his team are in the league.

Still with me?

It finally dawned on me. I remembered that Man U beat Spurs on Sunday, and that was why he made that comment. It was a bit of typical “my team may be useless, but at least another team beat yours” type banter. Too late I realised that he really is a Villa fan. I sent back the text:

“Got the wrong end of the stick. He really is sharp, isn’t he?”

I’ve been badgering Ella ever since to give me Kris’ phone number so I can get a quote for my website from the horse’s mouth. She didn’t feel comfortable asking him if she could pass on his phone number for some reason, so I did a bit of investigative journalism, and asked Ella to ask him why the “Nick, six two” gag is one of his favourites.

In the end, imagine my delight: I got a quote by proxy. The reply:

“He likes the “gag” (not “joke”) because it’s very funny and original writing. They wrote the gag for him because he is in fact 6”2... (My italics and inverted commas) Are you gonna write about me one day?"

Ella, I just have.

Finally, I asked Ella to pass on the address of my website to Kris so that he could post a comment on the story. Kris, even if you just confirm that you are, in fact, 6 2, you would make a very sad man very happy.