Hignfy

The other week I made my first trip up to London without adult supervision. When I say without adult supervision I mean without a teacher or my parents. To say if I’m an adult at 17 is a whole other debate. Although I can’t legally do everything an adult can, like vote, many places seem to think that my being over the age of 15 gives them the right to charge me adult prices. Occasionally I may be able to wave a student card and get slightly reduced prices but wait... I think I’m straying off the subject here...
The other Wednesday, I braved the train with my friends to find myself sitting in the audience at the recording of “Have I Got News for You.” It was a long afternoon and evening but totally worth it!

The journey up was awesome. Me, Terrie (who I am all too aware gets a mention almost every blog) and Rosanna (who was awesome enough to get the tickets and invite me along) had a wide range of discussions: From me and Terrie’s excited babble about John Green’s books to Rosanna’s amazing Rubik’s skills. (Which I hasten to add, I taught her! She’s just managed to take my instructions and get amazingly fast!) Once we arrived in London, we grabbed a McDonalds and wet to queue up, ready for HIGNFY.

I’m not totally sure how we whittled away the couple of hours we were in that queue as most of it seemed to be spent talking about nothing. Whether it was taking random photos or debating whether the guy in front looked like Gordon Ramsey, we certainly had fun. I think a large proportion of the time was spent trying to persuade Terrie to ask some strangers if she could have a photo with them. (As a punishment for not noticing a failing in my blog soon enough, Terrie is to be noticed herself by taking her photo with a “unique” member of the public. A photo with a complete stranger but she is yet to complete this...)

The most exciting part of the queuing was probably when we went to the loo. Not the toilet itself – however soft the Kleenex loo roll was – but who we saw when we came out. Casually standing at the reception nearby, we saw Marcus Brigstocke. (In a hat!) Terrie and I just sort of looked at each other, speechless, before walking back out to the others in the queue; a mixture of the burly body guard and being star-struck stopped us going over to say “hi” or whatever you say to people who you know by first name but who don’t even realise you exists. We then spent subsequent conversations discussing what we would have done if it had been a) David Tennant, b) Charlie McDonnell, c) Alex Day, d) any other YouTuber/celebrity we admire. (We came to the conclusion that Terrie would do a good impression of a stone angel while I would probably try to form some sort of coherent sentence with the focus somewhere along the lines of getting an autograph/photo.)

Finally, we got into the studio and got seated on the third row. After deciding that the music playing was almost definitely Now 60, we got to watch the warm up act. This guy was really good and I’m sure I’ve seen him before but I can’t remember where and I now can’t remember his name... always helpful.

Watching the filming was amazing. Robert Webb mucked up enough times to make it interesting but not so many it went on forever! The iminant elections gave a lot of news for them to discuss and mock and it was just generally ace.

Eventually, it had to end and we filed out of the studio. We tried waiting for the ‘stars’ to leave but we had a train to catch and none of them came out. So we headed home on the train, excited as ever and still nattering ten to the dozen!

Somewhere on the journey home, Rosanna pulled out a pack of Doctor Who playing cards and games of cheat and sevens commenced. Eventually I got off the train and drove home...

(Yes, I drove! Dad in the passenger seat as I haven’t actually passed yet... but still!)

Next to watch the actually episode...

DFTBA, Terrie, I have not forgotten.