What I’m about to say may come as a shock to you. I am, after all, that trusted voice on the radio, a beloved son and respected father of two. But several years ago I did something I’m not proud of.
I ‘phone hacked’.
With all of these revelations about celebrities having their voicemail hacked into by journalists, some horrible memories came flooding back to me. In 2001, I found myself spending an entire afternoon trying to hack into the voicemail box of a lady very well known to me. My mother’s.
At one stage or another, we’ve all sent a text message to the wrong person. Whether it was a crude joke sent to the boss rather than a friend, or a picture message intended for the other half which ended up on your older brother’s iPhone. What happened on this fateful day was the audio equivalent of this: I left a voicemail message on my mother’s phone which was very much intended for my good lady. Without stating the obvious, this was quite a detailed voicemail message, with lots of essential information that only a spouse would require. It was only after I’d hung up did I realise my error, when immediately I wanted to recoil into the foetal position and just die.
I can hear you laughing from here. Even when I think about it now I get that feeling of impending sickness in my stomach. That afternoon I spent hours trying to find the voicemail pin, pretending to be a woman and then masquerading as my Father in order to delete that message. After what seemed like days I finally struck gold and managed to delete the message. Relief.
However, even to this day I’ve never quite satisfied myself that Mum DIDN’T hear the message… but it’s never been mentioned. If English reserve was something real, I could kiss it. I take a lot of comfort knowing that even if my mother DID know about my rather dark mind, she’d never mention it.
So, armed with my intimate knowledge of telephone voicemail systems, I found time to indulge my expertise earlier this week and dabble in a bit more phone hacking. After all, it’s all the rage right now. PLUS – if it’s good enough for a tabloid newspaper, it’s good enough for me.
Whilst we’re on the subject of ‘that sick feeling’, on Wednesday’s show I asked you what you have thrown away in error. I’ll never forget taking a coat to a charity ‘bin’…feeling great about myself… only to remember that I’d left £20 in the pocket. Gutted. Amanda in Hemel’s story was even more sickening though!
Have a great weekend, on Monday’s show you can hear both Simon Cowell AND Alan Carr.
Dx
