I have thought of a couple now. This one isn't particularly specific to being in an interesting job, but it's a crazy little story nonetheless.
When I worked at a large satellite/ TV company in West London, they would regularly scythe through the workforce and make departments or teams redundant. One area that seemed to have more of these rounds of redundo than any other was the Creative Services department (an area that made promos and such). During one such sweep, one guy - let's call him Mike - was forgotten about. So his entire team was made redundant - his boss, his colleagues - and yet he wasn't.
For the next nine months or so, Mike was paid as normal. He turned up for work. Milled about chatting to people, sat at his desk and watched cat videos on Reddit. Sometimes Mike would even attend meetings, as long as there were lots of people in there. But Mike had no work to do. He had no line manager, no department, no team. He just wandered around trying to look busy.
Eventually, Mike got a bit too cocky. The canteen was large and open so it was easy for the more light-fingered people working there to half-inch their lunch. So much so that cameras were installed to catch the culprits. Mike was a moron, because he fucked up the whole situation by stealing from the canteen. And when he was spotted, the superiors looked him up and realised Mike didn't have a manager. They panicked and started asking questions. But nobody understood what had happened. The bosses who were in the meetings Mike attended all said the same thing to each other - "I thought YOU invited him!".
Mike was summarily sacked, and didn't get his redundancy as I understand it. If he hadn't been so stupid, he might still be there to this day.
I once worked on a junket for the first attempt at a movie adaptation of The Suicide Squad.
Normally a junket involves the interviewer turning up at a hotel, finding the check-in room, waiting for 30-60 minutes, then being moved to another chair in the corridor, before finally being led into a hotel room where a load of cameras and lights are set up, and a Hollywood star is sitting there patiently waiting for you to spend 3-4 minutes asking questions they've been asked several dozen times already.
This one was different. My company had a deal with Warner Bros. so rather than us queue up to interview the cast, they had to come to us. So we had a hotel room all set up with cameras and lights. I was in there with my colleague, Matt, and we were to take it in turns interviewing the actors as they came in one at a time. Matt did the main interview (with questions that were agreed with by Warners) and I would do the second part, which was to be a social media quiz thing.
The quiz I came up with was to be five quotes from the actor's own movies, and the actor had to name the movie. They would get 10 points for getting it right, and 5 points if they needed a clue.
We had told Warners in advance that this was the plan, and the actors (or their publicists) had to approve the idea. Most of the 'Squad' were fine with it. But some weren't. Namely, Jared Leto and Cara Delevingne. But that worked for me, cos I can't stand either of them.
The first to do the quiz was Jai Courtney, the Aussie actor who has been in a series of increasingly bad films (not including Jack Reacher!). He didn't do very well, but to my great surprise, he was a top guy. When he got his final score of 25, he shouted very loudly "It's cos I make so many shitty action movies mate!"
Margot Robbie had only made 3-4 films at that point, and so she got top marks. Will Smith then came in and introduced himself to every single person in the room, and said he was not great at such quizzes but would give it a shot. Afterwards as he left, he asked "Hey Jimmy85, what score did I get!?" so I told him he got 45 points (I think) and he was annoyed at not getting 50.
It would seem he went and spoke to the others about this, because I then get called to talk to Jared Leto's publicist. She told me "Mr Leto would like to do the quiz now." Given my dislike of the man, and the fact that it took me all evening to write the questions, I wasn't about to agree to this. I refused. She got very stern with me and told me in no uncertain terms Mr Leto was to be involved in the quiz. I was later told he wanted to beat Will Smith's score.
I flatly refused, and so he got moody. We had already been told we were not allowed to make eye contact with him, and that he's a germaphobe so he would not be shaking hands. He came in, complained about the set-up and insisted the cameras be switched around to get his “good side”. He then refused to answer most of Matt’s questions insisting they were pointless and didn’t need answering.
The rest of the squad were good fun, and quoting his own lines at Mr Eko from Lost was a highlight for me. It’s a shame Leto was anywhere near the event. Twat.
Not much an interesting job, but more of an interesting environment to work in.
Several years ago I worked for FCO Services, a service provider to the Foreign Office. I was based in the Old Admiralty building in The Mall as IT support to about 150 people.
This building for obvious reasons has some history attached to it and is an absolute maze of corridors and underground rooms many of which have now been converted for more up to date use.
If you look on the roof there is a very primitive radio antenna which is now a listed item, I believe it still works. Having an amateur radio licence this was always of intrigue to me.
Anyway, I was looking after upgrades/restacks of laptops and general break fix stuff which meant I had a store room in the basement. The room in which I stored all the gear was room 13. Unlucky you may think.
Room 13 in the Admiralty basement was the actual room where Operation Mincemeat was planned. The deception operation in 1943 for the invasion of Sicily which had a major consequence in the direction of WWII. The book 'Operation Mincemeat' and the film 'The Man Who Never Was' will give you all the details of the deception involving Captain William Martin, or Glyndwr Michael as he was later recognized.
In fact Room 13 lost it's number soon after the war and all that was there was a room between numbers 12 and 14 in the basement. The room itself wasn't that big and how they got all the people involved and the all the equipment is quite a feat. Plus it's in the basemet so there are no windows and several of the factual pictures I have seen there are people smoking.
I felt quite privileged each time I had to go into the room with all that history in the surrounding walls, knowing what a big gamble the previous occupants were taking to shorten the war.
Further along the corridor is room 40 which is where the first code breakers of WWI were intercepting German naval communications traffic. Known as M11(b) at the time, it too was quite a small room crowded with people trying to decipher Morse Code signals. There is a book by Paul Gannon called Inside Room 40 which goes into more detail of what went on inside the room.
I once worked on a junket for the first attempt at a movie adaptation of The Suicide Squad.
Normally a junket involves the interviewer turning up at a hotel, finding the check-in room, waiting for 30-60 minutes, then being moved to another chair in the corridor, before finally being led into a hotel room where a load of cameras and lights are set up, and a Hollywood star is sitting there patiently waiting for you to spend 3-4 minutes asking questions they've been asked several dozen times already.
This one was different. My company had a deal with Warner Bros. so rather than us queue up to interview the cast, they had to come to us. So we had a hotel room all set up with cameras and lights. I was in there with my colleague, Matt, and we were to take it in turns interviewing the actors as they came in one at a time. Matt did the main interview (with questions that were agreed with by Warners) and I would do the second part, which was to be a social media quiz thing.
The quiz I came up with was to be five quotes from the actor's own movies, and the actor had to name the movie. They would get 10 points for getting it right, and 5 points if they needed a clue.
We had told Warners in advance that this was the plan, and the actors (or their publicists) had to approve the idea. Most of the 'Squad' were fine with it. But some weren't. Namely, Jared Leto and Cara Delevingne. But that worked for me, cos I can't stand either of them.
The first to do the quiz was Jai Courtney, the Aussie actor who has been in a series of increasingly bad films (not including Jack Reacher!). He didn't do very well, but to my great surprise, he was a top guy. When he got his final score of 25, he shouted very loudly "It's cos I make so many shitty action movies mate!"
Margot Robbie had only made 3-4 films at that point, and so she got top marks. Will Smith then came in and introduced himself to every single person in the room, and said he was not great at such quizzes but would give it a shot. Afterwards as he left, he asked "Hey Jimmy85, what score did I get!?" so I told him he got 45 points (I think) and he was annoyed at not getting 50.
It would seem he went and spoke to the others about this, because I then get called to talk to Jared Leto's publicist. She told me "Mr Leto would like to do the quiz now." Given my dislike of the man, and the fact that it took me all evening to write the questions, I wasn't about to agree to this. I refused. She got very stern with me and told me in no uncertain terms Mr Leto was to be involved in the quiz. I was later told he wanted to beat Will Smith's score.
I flatly refused, and so he got moody. We had already been told we were not allowed to make eye contact with him, and that he's a germaphobe so he would not be shaking hands. He came in, complained about the set-up and insisted the cameras be switched around to get his “good side”. He then refused to answer most of Matt’s questions insisting they were pointless and didn’t need answering.
The rest of the squad were good fun, and quoting his own lines at Mr Eko from Lost was a highlight for me. It’s a shame Leto was anywhere near the event. Twat.
Love tales of celebrity egos and dicks. Should be a thread to itself...If I had a story I'd start one..
Not much an interesting job, but more of an interesting environment to work in.
Several years ago I worked for FCO Services, a service provider to the Foreign Office. I was based in the Old Admiralty building in The Mall as IT support to about 150 people.
This building for obvious reasons has some history attached to it and is an absolute maze of corridors and underground rooms many of which have now been converted for more up to date use.
If you look on the roof there is a very primitive radio antenna which is now a listed item, I believe it still works. Having an amateur radio licence this was always of intrigue to me.
Anyway, I was looking after upgrades/restacks of laptops and general break fix stuff which meant I had a store room in the basement. The room in which I stored all the gear was room 13. Unlucky you may think.
Room 13 in the Admiralty basement was the actual room where Operation Mincemeat was planned. The deception operation in 1943 for the invasion of Sicily which had a major consequence in the direction of WWII. The book 'Operation Mincemeat' and the film 'The Man Who Never Was' will give you all the details of the deception involving Captain William Martin, or Glyndwr Michael as he was later recognized.
In fact Room 13 lost it's number soon after the war and all that was there was a room between numbers 12 and 14 in the basement. The room itself wasn't that big and how they got all the people involved and the all the equipment is quite a feat. Plus it's in the basemet so there are no windows and several of the factual pictures I have seen there are people smoking.
I felt quite privileged each time I had to go into the room with all that history in the surrounding walls, knowing what a big gamble the previous occupants were taking to shorten the war.
Further along the corridor is room 40 which is where the first code breakers of WWI were intercepting German naval communications traffic. Known as M11(b) at the time, it too was quite a small room crowded with people trying to decipher Morse Code signals. There is a book by Paul Gannon called Inside Room 40 which goes into more detail of what went on inside the room.
Mrs Plum worked there for several years. She loved it as it was so handy from Charing Cross station.
Not much an interesting job, but more of an interesting environment to work in.
Several years ago I worked for FCO Services, a service provider to the Foreign Office. I was based in the Old Admiralty building in The Mall as IT support to about 150 people.
This building for obvious reasons has some history attached to it and is an absolute maze of corridors and underground rooms many of which have now been converted for more up to date use.
If you look on the roof there is a very primitive radio antenna which is now a listed item, I believe it still works. Having an amateur radio licence this was always of intrigue to me.
Anyway, I was looking after upgrades/restacks of laptops and general break fix stuff which meant I had a store room in the basement. The room in which I stored all the gear was room 13. Unlucky you may think.
Room 13 in the Admiralty basement was the actual room where Operation Mincemeat was planned. The deception operation in 1943 for the invasion of Sicily which had a major consequence in the direction of WWII. The book 'Operation Mincemeat' and the film 'The Man Who Never Was' will give you all the details of the deception involving Captain William Martin, or Glyndwr Michael as he was later recognized.
In fact Room 13 lost it's number soon after the war and all that was there was a room between numbers 12 and 14 in the basement. The room itself wasn't that big and how they got all the people involved and the all the equipment is quite a feat. Plus it's in the basemet so there are no windows and several of the factual pictures I have seen there are people smoking.
I felt quite privileged each time I had to go into the room with all that history in the surrounding walls, knowing what a big gamble the previous occupants were taking to shorten the war.
Further along the corridor is room 40 which is where the first code breakers of WWI were intercepting German naval communications traffic. Known as M11(b) at the time, it too was quite a small room crowded with people trying to decipher Morse Code signals. There is a book by Paul Gannon called Inside Room 40 which goes into more detail of what went on inside the room.
Mrs Plum worked there for several years. She loved it as it was so handy from Charing Cross station.
So true, out of the door at 5 and on the platform by 5 past for the 5.10 fast Waterloo East to New Eltham.
Not much an interesting job, but more of an interesting environment to work in.
Several years ago I worked for FCO Services, a service provider to the Foreign Office. I was based in the Old Admiralty building in The Mall as IT support to about 150 people.
This building for obvious reasons has some history attached to it and is an absolute maze of corridors and underground rooms many of which have now been converted for more up to date use.
If you look on the roof there is a very primitive radio antenna which is now a listed item, I believe it still works. Having an amateur radio licence this was always of intrigue to me.
Anyway, I was looking after upgrades/restacks of laptops and general break fix stuff which meant I had a store room in the basement. The room in which I stored all the gear was room 13. Unlucky you may think.
Room 13 in the Admiralty basement was the actual room where Operation Mincemeat was planned. The deception operation in 1943 for the invasion of Sicily which had a major consequence in the direction of WWII. The book 'Operation Mincemeat' and the film 'The Man Who Never Was' will give you all the details of the deception involving Captain William Martin, or Glyndwr Michael as he was later recognized.
In fact Room 13 lost it's number soon after the war and all that was there was a room between numbers 12 and 14 in the basement. The room itself wasn't that big and how they got all the people involved and the all the equipment is quite a feat. Plus it's in the basemet so there are no windows and several of the factual pictures I have seen there are people smoking.
I felt quite privileged each time I had to go into the room with all that history in the surrounding walls, knowing what a big gamble the previous occupants were taking to shorten the war.
Further along the corridor is room 40 which is where the first code breakers of WWI were intercepting German naval communications traffic. Known as M11(b) at the time, it too was quite a small room crowded with people trying to decipher Morse Code signals. There is a book by Paul Gannon called Inside Room 40 which goes into more detail of what went on inside the room.
Mrs Plum worked there for several years. She loved it as it was so handy from Charing Cross station.
So true, out of the door at 5 and on the platform by 5 past for the 5.10 fast Waterloo East to New Eltham.
And arrive at New Eltham at 7pm after being stuck at a broken signal. **
Many years back I worked on an injection mould tool that made plastic fragments for anti-personnel mines. Small flat flag shaped pieces of plastic about 15mm long that were packed within the device. About 5 years ago I helped out making bits for a guy doing research in ground penetrating radar for finding anti-personnel mines.
Here’s another one from the Creative Services team at that aforementioned West London TV company.
This time it’s a guy we’ll call Dom. Dom was a loud fellow. Very full of beans and confident. He’d been to Brazil and fallen in love, and when he came back, he hatched a long term plan that I still can’t believe came off.
Dom was an editor. He spent his days in a dark edit suite making TV promos. His intention was to continue performing this duty in Brazil, but he wanted to work freelance. This meant he would need to build an edit suite at his new house in South America. On a shoestring budget. Which wasn’t really possible.
So Dom decided to set up an office before he got there by sending an edit suite from his current office, piece by piece. He would grab all the bits he needed from the suites around the building, and send them by post to Brazil. People would notice the odd piece missing, but they never quite figured out what was going on. And he did this using his department cost code, so it didn’t even cost him anything to send the suite. He really didn’t give a fuck. He knew that nobody was paying attention, and he knew there was no way he’d be extradited from Brazil even if the company did notice and decide to prosecute. I don’t know the value of the suite, but I think it was an Avid and we’re talking five figures.
I spoke to an old colleague a few weeks back and he said, as far as he knows, Dom is living happily in Brazil to this day.
I once worked on a junket for the first attempt at a movie adaptation of The Suicide Squad.
Normally a junket involves the interviewer turning up at a hotel, finding the check-in room, waiting for 30-60 minutes, then being moved to another chair in the corridor, before finally being led into a hotel room where a load of cameras and lights are set up, and a Hollywood star is sitting there patiently waiting for you to spend 3-4 minutes asking questions they've been asked several dozen times already.
This one was different. My company had a deal with Warner Bros. so rather than us queue up to interview the cast, they had to come to us. So we had a hotel room all set up with cameras and lights. I was in there with my colleague, Matt, and we were to take it in turns interviewing the actors as they came in one at a time. Matt did the main interview (with questions that were agreed with by Warners) and I would do the second part, which was to be a social media quiz thing.
The quiz I came up with was to be five quotes from the actor's own movies, and the actor had to name the movie. They would get 10 points for getting it right, and 5 points if they needed a clue.
We had told Warners in advance that this was the plan, and the actors (or their publicists) had to approve the idea. Most of the 'Squad' were fine with it. But some weren't. Namely, Jared Leto and Cara Delevingne. But that worked for me, cos I can't stand either of them.
The first to do the quiz was Jai Courtney, the Aussie actor who has been in a series of increasingly bad films (not including Jack Reacher!). He didn't do very well, but to my great surprise, he was a top guy. When he got his final score of 25, he shouted very loudly "It's cos I make so many shitty action movies mate!"
Margot Robbie had only made 3-4 films at that point, and so she got top marks. Will Smith then came in and introduced himself to every single person in the room, and said he was not great at such quizzes but would give it a shot. Afterwards as he left, he asked "Hey Jimmy85, what score did I get!?" so I told him he got 45 points (I think) and he was annoyed at not getting 50.
It would seem he went and spoke to the others about this, because I then get called to talk to Jared Leto's publicist. She told me "Mr Leto would like to do the quiz now." Given my dislike of the man, and the fact that it took me all evening to write the questions, I wasn't about to agree to this. I refused. She got very stern with me and told me in no uncertain terms Mr Leto was to be involved in the quiz. I was later told he wanted to beat Will Smith's score.
I flatly refused, and so he got moody. We had already been told we were not allowed to make eye contact with him, and that he's a germaphobe so he would not be shaking hands. He came in, complained about the set-up and insisted the cameras be switched around to get his “good side”. He then refused to answer most of Matt’s questions insisting they were pointless and didn’t need answering.
The rest of the squad were good fun, and quoting his own lines at Mr Eko from Lost was a highlight for me. It’s a shame Leto was anywhere near the event. Twat.
Jared Leto has always come across as a massive bellend.
That cult he started is at best a ridiculous ego trip, but wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be more dodgy than that.
Not much an interesting job, but more of an interesting environment to work in.
Several years ago I worked for FCO Services, a service provider to the Foreign Office. I was based in the Old Admiralty building in The Mall as IT support to about 150 people.
This building for obvious reasons has some history attached to it and is an absolute maze of corridors and underground rooms many of which have now been converted for more up to date use.
If you look on the roof there is a very primitive radio antenna which is now a listed item, I believe it still works. Having an amateur radio licence this was always of intrigue to me.
Anyway, I was looking after upgrades/restacks of laptops and general break fix stuff which meant I had a store room in the basement. The room in which I stored all the gear was room 13. Unlucky you may think.
Room 13 in the Admiralty basement was the actual room where Operation Mincemeat was planned. The deception operation in 1943 for the invasion of Sicily which had a major consequence in the direction of WWII. The book 'Operation Mincemeat' and the film 'The Man Who Never Was' will give you all the details of the deception involving Captain William Martin, or Glyndwr Michael as he was later recognized.
In fact Room 13 lost it's number soon after the war and all that was there was a room between numbers 12 and 14 in the basement. The room itself wasn't that big and how they got all the people involved and the all the equipment is quite a feat. Plus it's in the basemet so there are no windows and several of the factual pictures I have seen there are people smoking.
I felt quite privileged each time I had to go into the room with all that history in the surrounding walls, knowing what a big gamble the previous occupants were taking to shorten the war.
Further along the corridor is room 40 which is where the first code breakers of WWI were intercepting German naval communications traffic. Known as M11(b) at the time, it too was quite a small room crowded with people trying to decipher Morse Code signals. There is a book by Paul Gannon called Inside Room 40 which goes into more detail of what went on inside the room.
It’s being converted into a luxury hotel - I was given a guided tour by the developers in 2019 - really interesting place - they wanted funding from us, but it was a non starter for us, as they wanted to borrow too much money + we had major reservations about how well the hotel would trade - swerved a curve ball there, as a few months later COVID struck !!!
Not much an interesting job, but more of an interesting environment to work in.
Several years ago I worked for FCO Services, a service provider to the Foreign Office. I was based in the Old Admiralty building in The Mall as IT support to about 150 people.
This building for obvious reasons has some history attached to it and is an absolute maze of corridors and underground rooms many of which have now been converted for more up to date use.
If you look on the roof there is a very primitive radio antenna which is now a listed item, I believe it still works. Having an amateur radio licence this was always of intrigue to me.
Anyway, I was looking after upgrades/restacks of laptops and general break fix stuff which meant I had a store room in the basement. The room in which I stored all the gear was room 13. Unlucky you may think.
Room 13 in the Admiralty basement was the actual room where Operation Mincemeat was planned. The deception operation in 1943 for the invasion of Sicily which had a major consequence in the direction of WWII. The book 'Operation Mincemeat' and the film 'The Man Who Never Was' will give you all the details of the deception involving Captain William Martin, or Glyndwr Michael as he was later recognized.
In fact Room 13 lost it's number soon after the war and all that was there was a room between numbers 12 and 14 in the basement. The room itself wasn't that big and how they got all the people involved and the all the equipment is quite a feat. Plus it's in the basemet so there are no windows and several of the factual pictures I have seen there are people smoking.
I felt quite privileged each time I had to go into the room with all that history in the surrounding walls, knowing what a big gamble the previous occupants were taking to shorten the war.
Further along the corridor is room 40 which is where the first code breakers of WWI were intercepting German naval communications traffic. Known as M11(b) at the time, it too was quite a small room crowded with people trying to decipher Morse Code signals. There is a book by Paul Gannon called Inside Room 40 which goes into more detail of what went on inside the room.
It’s being converted into a luxury hotel - I was given a guided tour by the developers in 2019 - really interesting place - they wanted funding from us, but it was a non starter for us, as they wanted to borrow too much money + we had major reservations about how well the hotel would trade - swerved a curve ball there, as a few months later COVID struck !!!
Not much an interesting job, but more of an interesting environment to work in.
Several years ago I worked for FCO Services, a service provider to the Foreign Office. I was based in the Old Admiralty building in The Mall as IT support to about 150 people.
This building for obvious reasons has some history attached to it and is an absolute maze of corridors and underground rooms many of which have now been converted for more up to date use.
If you look on the roof there is a very primitive radio antenna which is now a listed item, I believe it still works. Having an amateur radio licence this was always of intrigue to me.
Anyway, I was looking after upgrades/restacks of laptops and general break fix stuff which meant I had a store room in the basement. The room in which I stored all the gear was room 13. Unlucky you may think.
Room 13 in the Admiralty basement was the actual room where Operation Mincemeat was planned. The deception operation in 1943 for the invasion of Sicily which had a major consequence in the direction of WWII. The book 'Operation Mincemeat' and the film 'The Man Who Never Was' will give you all the details of the deception involving Captain William Martin, or Glyndwr Michael as he was later recognized.
In fact Room 13 lost it's number soon after the war and all that was there was a room between numbers 12 and 14 in the basement. The room itself wasn't that big and how they got all the people involved and the all the equipment is quite a feat. Plus it's in the basemet so there are no windows and several of the factual pictures I have seen there are people smoking.
I felt quite privileged each time I had to go into the room with all that history in the surrounding walls, knowing what a big gamble the previous occupants were taking to shorten the war.
Further along the corridor is room 40 which is where the first code breakers of WWI were intercepting German naval communications traffic. Known as M11(b) at the time, it too was quite a small room crowded with people trying to decipher Morse Code signals. There is a book by Paul Gannon called Inside Room 40 which goes into more detail of what went on inside the room.
It’s being converted into a luxury hotel - I was given a guided tour by the developers in 2019 - really interesting place - they wanted funding from us, but it was a non starter for us, as they wanted to borrow too much money + we had major reservations about how well the hotel would trade - swerved a curve ball there, as a few months later COVID struck !!!
Not much an interesting job, but more of an interesting environment to work in.
Several years ago I worked for FCO Services, a service provider to the Foreign Office. I was based in the Old Admiralty building in The Mall as IT support to about 150 people.
This building for obvious reasons has some history attached to it and is an absolute maze of corridors and underground rooms many of which have now been converted for more up to date use.
If you look on the roof there is a very primitive radio antenna which is now a listed item, I believe it still works. Having an amateur radio licence this was always of intrigue to me.
Anyway, I was looking after upgrades/restacks of laptops and general break fix stuff which meant I had a store room in the basement. The room in which I stored all the gear was room 13. Unlucky you may think.
Room 13 in the Admiralty basement was the actual room where Operation Mincemeat was planned. The deception operation in 1943 for the invasion of Sicily which had a major consequence in the direction of WWII. The book 'Operation Mincemeat' and the film 'The Man Who Never Was' will give you all the details of the deception involving Captain William Martin, or Glyndwr Michael as he was later recognized.
In fact Room 13 lost it's number soon after the war and all that was there was a room between numbers 12 and 14 in the basement. The room itself wasn't that big and how they got all the people involved and the all the equipment is quite a feat. Plus it's in the basemet so there are no windows and several of the factual pictures I have seen there are people smoking.
I felt quite privileged each time I had to go into the room with all that history in the surrounding walls, knowing what a big gamble the previous occupants were taking to shorten the war.
Further along the corridor is room 40 which is where the first code breakers of WWI were intercepting German naval communications traffic. Known as M11(b) at the time, it too was quite a small room crowded with people trying to decipher Morse Code signals. There is a book by Paul Gannon called Inside Room 40 which goes into more detail of what went on inside the room.
It’s being converted into a luxury hotel - I was given a guided tour by the developers in 2019 - really interesting place - they wanted funding from us, but it was a non starter for us, as they wanted to borrow too much money + we had major reservations about how well the hotel would trade - swerved a curve ball there, as a few months later COVID struck !!!
I once worked on a junket for the first attempt at a movie adaptation of The Suicide Squad.
Normally a junket involves the interviewer turning up at a hotel, finding the check-in room, waiting for 30-60 minutes, then being moved to another chair in the corridor, before finally being led into a hotel room where a load of cameras and lights are set up, and a Hollywood star is sitting there patiently waiting for you to spend 3-4 minutes asking questions they've been asked several dozen times already.
This one was different. My company had a deal with Warner Bros. so rather than us queue up to interview the cast, they had to come to us. So we had a hotel room all set up with cameras and lights. I was in there with my colleague, Matt, and we were to take it in turns interviewing the actors as they came in one at a time. Matt did the main interview (with questions that were agreed with by Warners) and I would do the second part, which was to be a social media quiz thing.
The quiz I came up with was to be five quotes from the actor's own movies, and the actor had to name the movie. They would get 10 points for getting it right, and 5 points if they needed a clue.
We had told Warners in advance that this was the plan, and the actors (or their publicists) had to approve the idea. Most of the 'Squad' were fine with it. But some weren't. Namely, Jared Leto and Cara Delevingne. But that worked for me, cos I can't stand either of them.
The first to do the quiz was Jai Courtney, the Aussie actor who has been in a series of increasingly bad films (not including Jack Reacher!). He didn't do very well, but to my great surprise, he was a top guy. When he got his final score of 25, he shouted very loudly "It's cos I make so many shitty action movies mate!"
Margot Robbie had only made 3-4 films at that point, and so she got top marks. Will Smith then came in and introduced himself to every single person in the room, and said he was not great at such quizzes but would give it a shot. Afterwards as he left, he asked "Hey Jimmy85, what score did I get!?" so I told him he got 45 points (I think) and he was annoyed at not getting 50.
It would seem he went and spoke to the others about this, because I then get called to talk to Jared Leto's publicist. She told me "Mr Leto would like to do the quiz now." Given my dislike of the man, and the fact that it took me all evening to write the questions, I wasn't about to agree to this. I refused. She got very stern with me and told me in no uncertain terms Mr Leto was to be involved in the quiz. I was later told he wanted to beat Will Smith's score.
I flatly refused, and so he got moody. We had already been told we were not allowed to make eye contact with him, and that he's a germaphobe so he would not be shaking hands. He came in, complained about the set-up and insisted the cameras be switched around to get his “good side”. He then refused to answer most of Matt’s questions insisting they were pointless and didn’t need answering.
The rest of the squad were good fun, and quoting his own lines at Mr Eko from Lost was a highlight for me. It’s a shame Leto was anywhere near the event. Twat.
Love tales of celebrity egos and dicks. Should be a thread to itself...If I had a story I'd start one..
Very niche but fair enough each to their own. Look up the Tommy Lee Pamela Anderson one and you'll be delighted.
This is the last one from me. It’s a tough one to tell because it’s pretty embarrassing. But I learnt from it and moved on!
We once arranged a junket for the lead actors from X-Men Days of Future Past. It was done through a different media outlet but we effectively paid for it. The other team had arranged for a presenter (Jenny Falconer) and set it up at the Soho Hotel in one of their screening rooms.
I turned up ahead of time and had a chat with Jenny and the filming crew. Jenny wasn’t an X-Men expert so I gave her some geeky pointers, told her what sort of stuff we were hoping to get, and then awaited the talent’s arrival.
The first one in was James McAvoy. He went straight over to chat to Jenny (probably a Scottish thing) and got mic’d up by the sound guy. I was hovering around while taking pics on my phone for social media purposes. Then the rest came in. Stewart, Fassbender and McKellan. They got mic’d up and the cameras were focused and arranged and so on. I remained on the stage taking pics and listening to them tell stories. I wasn’t often involved in the shoots back then, I used to farm them out to freelancers, so I was a little bit more awkward than I would be today. Still, it all seemed to be going well.
I like to get unposed pics when I’m on my camera phone, so I crouched behind a pillar to get a fancy shot of the group, who were sitting in the first row of seats facing where the cinema screen would be, with Jenny on the stage facing them. Sadly, just as I crouched down, they got started. So I was stuck behind a pillar, in an awkwardly painful position, wondering how I could get out of there.
We had about 12 cameras set up, so when I peered around the pillar, the camera guy frantically waved me back. I couldn’t get out. I had to stay there for the duration of the shoot - about 15 minutes. Worse still, I needed to cough. Really badly. It reached the point where I was retching as I held back a relentless tickle in my throat. I’d have killed for a drink.
Anyway, I listened the Q&A and it seemed to be going well. I was entertained by the answers and figured we had a good piece. When it finally ended I got to cough a lot and loiter in the hope of getting to meet the actors but I didn’t get the chance.
We packed up and off I went.
On the way home, I was thinking about the day and I started piecing things together. There was one question that they always got asked - if you had a superhero power, what would it be? - and they all agreed on the answer; to have the ability to delete the pictures taken on mobile phones, specifically, without their permission. Then it hit me - they meant me. I think they thought I was just some bloke who’d sneaked in before weirdly crouching behind a pillar for fifteen minutes.
I decided I was being paranoid, and looked through my phone to see what the pictures were like. And my heart dropped through the floor. In pretty much every pic the actors looked unimpressed. Fassbender and McAvoy especially looked furious. All I had to do was introduce myself, explain why I was there and ask if it’s okay to take some pics for social. But because I didn’t, these guys all thought I was an absolute git.
To this day I can’t watch McAvoy or Fassbender without thinking about how much they hate me. And the first thing I do on a shoot now is introduce myself to whoever I need to and make sure they’re okay with me shooting them. And every time I do I see these images in my head.
Rarely boring being a radiographer. You certainly see both the best and worst of people under very often quite difficult circumstances. All of human life is here. I never get tired of seeing just what people ( both sexes) are prepared to shove up or insert and then can’t remove. Not a common occurrence but not that rare either.
Right, park up the years as a oncology consultant let's got down the puerile route
Two questions
1) largest foreign object found in a human body, specifically the anus 2) most unconventional object discovered in a human anus
I know that you are the lead swordsman of the group mate - but I think you will be disappointed to discover that 'false fingernail' will not win any prizes here!
This is the last one from me. It’s a tough one to tell because it’s pretty embarrassing. But I learnt from it and moved on!
We once arranged a junket for the lead actors from X-Men Days of Future Past. It was done through a different media outlet but we effectively paid for it. The other team had arranged for a presenter (Jenny Falconer) and set it up at the Soho Hotel in one of their screening rooms.
I turned up ahead of time and had a chat with Jenny and the filming crew. Jenny wasn’t an X-Men expert so I gave her some geeky pointers, told her what sort of stuff we were hoping to get, and then awaited the talent’s arrival.
The first one in was James McAvoy. He went straight over to chat to Jenny (probably a Scottish thing) and got mic’d up by the sound guy. I was hovering around while taking pics on my phone for social media purposes. Then the rest came in. Stewart, Fassbender and McKellan. They got mic’d up and the cameras were focused and arranged and so on. I remained on the stage taking pics and listening to them tell stories. I wasn’t often involved in the shoots back then, I used to farm them out to freelancers, so I was a little bit more awkward than I would be today. Still, it all seemed to be going well.
I like to get unposed pics when I’m on my camera phone, so I crouched behind a pillar to get a fancy shot of the group, who were sitting in the first row of seats facing where the cinema screen would be, with Jenny on the stage facing them. Sadly, just as I crouched down, they got started. So I was stuck behind a pillar, in an awkwardly painful position, wondering how I could get out of there.
We had about 12 cameras set up, so when I peered around the pillar, the camera guy frantically waved me back. I couldn’t get out. I had to stay there for the duration of the shoot - about 15 minutes. Worse still, I needed to cough. Really badly. It reached the point where I was retching as I held back a relentless tickle in my throat. I’d have killed for a drink.
Anyway, I listened the Q&A and it seemed to be going well. I was entertained by the answers and figured we had a good piece. When it finally ended I got to cough a lot and loiter in the hope of getting to meet the actors but I didn’t get the chance.
We packed up and off I went.
On the way home, I was thinking about the day and I started piecing things together. There was one question that they always got asked - if you had a superhero power, what would it be? - and they all agreed on the answer; to have the ability to delete the pictures taken on mobile phones, specifically, without their permission. Then it hit me - they meant me. I think they thought I was just some bloke who’d sneaked in before weirdly crouching behind a pillar for fifteen minutes.
I decided I was being paranoid, and looked through my phone to see what the pictures were like. And my heart dropped through the floor. In pretty much every pic the actors looked unimpressed. Fassbender and McAvoy especially looked furious. All I had to do was introduce myself, explain why I was there and ask if it’s okay to take some pics for social. But because I didn’t, these guys all thought I was an absolute git.
To this day I can’t watch McAvoy or Fassbender without thinking about how much they hate me. And the first thing I do on a shoot now is introduce myself to whoever I need to and make sure they’re okay with me shooting them. And every time I do I see these images in my head.
Have you never had the opportunity to come across either of them ever again Jimmy?
This is the last one from me. It’s a tough one to tell because it’s pretty embarrassing. But I learnt from it and moved on!
We once arranged a junket for the lead actors from X-Men Days of Future Past. It was done through a different media outlet but we effectively paid for it. The other team had arranged for a presenter (Jenny Falconer) and set it up at the Soho Hotel in one of their screening rooms.
I turned up ahead of time and had a chat with Jenny and the filming crew. Jenny wasn’t an X-Men expert so I gave her some geeky pointers, told her what sort of stuff we were hoping to get, and then awaited the talent’s arrival.
The first one in was James McAvoy. He went straight over to chat to Jenny (probably a Scottish thing) and got mic’d up by the sound guy. I was hovering around while taking pics on my phone for social media purposes. Then the rest came in. Stewart, Fassbender and McKellan. They got mic’d up and the cameras were focused and arranged and so on. I remained on the stage taking pics and listening to them tell stories. I wasn’t often involved in the shoots back then, I used to farm them out to freelancers, so I was a little bit more awkward than I would be today. Still, it all seemed to be going well.
I like to get unposed pics when I’m on my camera phone, so I crouched behind a pillar to get a fancy shot of the group, who were sitting in the first row of seats facing where the cinema screen would be, with Jenny on the stage facing them. Sadly, just as I crouched down, they got started. So I was stuck behind a pillar, in an awkwardly painful position, wondering how I could get out of there.
We had about 12 cameras set up, so when I peered around the pillar, the camera guy frantically waved me back. I couldn’t get out. I had to stay there for the duration of the shoot - about 15 minutes. Worse still, I needed to cough. Really badly. It reached the point where I was retching as I held back a relentless tickle in my throat. I’d have killed for a drink.
Anyway, I listened the Q&A and it seemed to be going well. I was entertained by the answers and figured we had a good piece. When it finally ended I got to cough a lot and loiter in the hope of getting to meet the actors but I didn’t get the chance.
We packed up and off I went.
On the way home, I was thinking about the day and I started piecing things together. There was one question that they always got asked - if you had a superhero power, what would it be? - and they all agreed on the answer; to have the ability to delete the pictures taken on mobile phones, specifically, without their permission. Then it hit me - they meant me. I think they thought I was just some bloke who’d sneaked in before weirdly crouching behind a pillar for fifteen minutes.
I decided I was being paranoid, and looked through my phone to see what the pictures were like. And my heart dropped through the floor. In pretty much every pic the actors looked unimpressed. Fassbender and McAvoy especially looked furious. All I had to do was introduce myself, explain why I was there and ask if it’s okay to take some pics for social. But because I didn’t, these guys all thought I was an absolute git.
To this day I can’t watch McAvoy or Fassbender without thinking about how much they hate me. And the first thing I do on a shoot now is introduce myself to whoever I need to and make sure they’re okay with me shooting them. And every time I do I see these images in my head.
Have you never had the opportunity to come across either of them ever again Jimmy?
No, I’ve not done a junket with any of them since. I’d definitely bring it up if I did!
Comments
When I worked at a large satellite/ TV company in West London, they would regularly scythe through the workforce and make departments or teams redundant. One area that seemed to have more of these rounds of redundo than any other was the Creative Services department (an area that made promos and such). During one such sweep, one guy - let's call him Mike - was forgotten about. So his entire team was made redundant - his boss, his colleagues - and yet he wasn't.
For the next nine months or so, Mike was paid as normal. He turned up for work. Milled about chatting to people, sat at his desk and watched cat videos on Reddit. Sometimes Mike would even attend meetings, as long as there were lots of people in there. But Mike had no work to do. He had no line manager, no department, no team. He just wandered around trying to look busy.
Eventually, Mike got a bit too cocky. The canteen was large and open so it was easy for the more light-fingered people working there to half-inch their lunch. So much so that cameras were installed to catch the culprits. Mike was a moron, because he fucked up the whole situation by stealing from the canteen. And when he was spotted, the superiors looked him up and realised Mike didn't have a manager. They panicked and started asking questions. But nobody understood what had happened. The bosses who were in the meetings Mike attended all said the same thing to each other - "I thought YOU invited him!".
Mike was summarily sacked, and didn't get his redundancy as I understand it. If he hadn't been so stupid, he might still be there to this day.
Normally a junket involves the interviewer turning up at a hotel, finding the check-in room, waiting for 30-60 minutes, then being moved to another chair in the corridor, before finally being led into a hotel room where a load of cameras and lights are set up, and a Hollywood star is sitting there patiently waiting for you to spend 3-4 minutes asking questions they've been asked several dozen times already.
This one was different. My company had a deal with Warner Bros. so rather than us queue up to interview the cast, they had to come to us. So we had a hotel room all set up with cameras and lights. I was in there with my colleague, Matt, and we were to take it in turns interviewing the actors as they came in one at a time. Matt did the main interview (with questions that were agreed with by Warners) and I would do the second part, which was to be a social media quiz thing.
The quiz I came up with was to be five quotes from the actor's own movies, and the actor had to name the movie. They would get 10 points for getting it right, and 5 points if they needed a clue.
We had told Warners in advance that this was the plan, and the actors (or their publicists) had to approve the idea. Most of the 'Squad' were fine with it. But some weren't. Namely, Jared Leto and Cara Delevingne. But that worked for me, cos I can't stand either of them.
The first to do the quiz was Jai Courtney, the Aussie actor who has been in a series of increasingly bad films (not including Jack Reacher!). He didn't do very well, but to my great surprise, he was a top guy. When he got his final score of 25, he shouted very loudly "It's cos I make so many shitty action movies mate!"
Margot Robbie had only made 3-4 films at that point, and so she got top marks. Will Smith then came in and introduced himself to every single person in the room, and said he was not great at such quizzes but would give it a shot. Afterwards as he left, he asked "Hey Jimmy85, what score did I get!?" so I told him he got 45 points (I think) and he was annoyed at not getting 50.
It would seem he went and spoke to the others about this, because I then get called to talk to Jared Leto's publicist. She told me "Mr Leto would like to do the quiz now." Given my dislike of the man, and the fact that it took me all evening to write the questions, I wasn't about to agree to this. I refused. She got very stern with me and told me in no uncertain terms Mr Leto was to be involved in the quiz. I was later told he wanted to beat Will Smith's score.
I flatly refused, and so he got moody. We had already been told we were not allowed to make eye contact with him, and that he's a germaphobe so he would not be shaking hands. He came in, complained about the set-up and insisted the cameras be switched around to get his “good side”. He then refused to answer most of Matt’s questions insisting they were pointless and didn’t need answering.
** Copyright MrLargo
About 5 years ago I helped out making bits for a guy doing research in ground penetrating radar for finding anti-personnel mines.
That cult he started is at best a ridiculous ego trip, but wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be more dodgy than that.
https://www.admiraltyarch.co.uk/
Although connected, they are. The hotel was being touted when I left there in 2017.
Very niche but fair enough each to their own. Look up the Tommy Lee Pamela Anderson one and you'll be delighted.
This is the last one from me. It’s a tough one to tell because it’s pretty embarrassing. But I learnt from it and moved on!
We once arranged a junket for the lead actors from X-Men Days of Future Past. It was done through a different media outlet but we effectively paid for it. The other team had arranged for a presenter (Jenny Falconer) and set it up at the Soho Hotel in one of their screening rooms.
I turned up ahead of time and had a chat with Jenny and the filming crew. Jenny wasn’t an X-Men expert so I gave her some geeky pointers, told her what sort of stuff we were hoping to get, and then awaited the talent’s arrival.
The first one in was James McAvoy. He went straight over to chat to Jenny (probably a Scottish thing) and got mic’d up by the sound guy. I was hovering around while taking pics on my phone for social media purposes. Then the rest came in. Stewart, Fassbender and McKellan. They got mic’d up and the cameras were focused and arranged and so on. I remained on the stage taking pics and listening to them tell stories. I wasn’t often involved in the shoots back then, I used to farm them out to freelancers, so I was a little bit more awkward than I would be today. Still, it all seemed to be going well.
I like to get unposed pics when I’m on my camera phone, so I crouched behind a pillar to get a fancy shot of the group, who were sitting in the first row of seats facing where the cinema screen would be, with Jenny on the stage facing them. Sadly, just as I crouched down, they got started. So I was stuck behind a pillar, in an awkwardly painful position, wondering how I could get out of there.
We had about 12 cameras set up, so when I peered around the pillar, the camera guy frantically waved me back. I couldn’t get out. I had to stay there for the duration of the shoot - about 15 minutes. Worse still, I needed to cough. Really badly. It reached the point where I was retching as I held back a relentless tickle in my throat. I’d have killed for a drink.
Anyway, I listened the Q&A and it seemed to be going well. I was entertained by the answers and figured we had a good piece. When it finally ended I got to cough a lot and loiter in the hope of getting to meet the actors but I didn’t get the chance.
We packed up and off I went.
On the way home, I was thinking about the day and I started piecing things together. There was one question that they always got asked - if you had a superhero power, what would it be? - and they all agreed on the answer; to have the ability to delete the pictures taken on mobile phones, specifically, without their permission. Then it hit me - they meant me. I think they thought I was just some bloke who’d sneaked in before weirdly crouching behind a pillar for fifteen minutes.
I decided I was being paranoid, and looked through my phone to see what the pictures were like. And my heart dropped through the floor. In pretty much every pic the actors looked unimpressed. Fassbender and McAvoy especially looked furious. All I had to do was introduce myself, explain why I was there and ask if it’s okay to take some pics for social. But because I didn’t, these guys all thought I was an absolute git.
To this day I can’t watch McAvoy or Fassbender without thinking about how much they hate me. And the first thing I do on a shoot now is introduce myself to whoever I need to and make sure they’re okay with me shooting them. And every time I do I see these images in my head.