It's surprising, the things you'll do for Michael Portillo...

I'm sleep deprived. Hell, I'm life-deprived right now.

Last week I was on the late shift, which naturally ended up finishing slightly later each night than planned. Then I worked the weekend. I was supposed to go and see New Moon on Saturday evening. But I had to work later. Then I worked 12 hours on Sunday. I got a free Thai meal out of it. But it still felt pretty rubbish.

On the up side, I did manage to watch the X Factor - since there wasn't a lot to do, I had it on in the background! And little lamb Lloyd got the boot, rightly so of course. Considering his..... quality of talent?... I had half expected them to start bargaining off Lloyd votes on offer. Perhaps a reduced price, or even two for one?

So. It's now the end of an eleven day week. All in all my first weekend of work went fairly well, but it is surprising the effect it has on you. On tuesday I nearly fainted, and had to go home early. That was nice. But I've been working in our second building all week, which is a really nice working environment; much more homely and relaxed.

Relaxed, of course, until it came to doing lunches on Thursday. Michael Portillo was in - a lovely fella really, though obviously well used to the somewhat 'celebrity' lifestyle. So here's a few things you might not have known about Michael Portillo (and probably wouldn't actually care to know, but clearly I'm going to tell you anyway!).

He likes a mixture of tea (white, no sugar) and cafatiere coffee (again, white, no sugar) throughout the day. Later in the day, after recording his VO for a good few hours, he opted for a camomile tea. I tried to ask if he wanted milk - which luckily I had brought along in a seperate jug - but he couldn't hear me through his headphones. Some very obvious hand signals later and we established that he didn't. All in all he was very polite, generally a nice guy.

I was slightly miffed when, after travelling in one direction for his colleague's lunches, I had to then sprint in totally the other direction for his food. Nothing to do with him, of course, just bad luck.

And when Michael Portillo wants his second chicken tikka masala (with pilau rice and mango chutney) of the week, what you gonna do?

(Well Overdue) Celeb Spots of the Week...

Apologies. This post is a tidge late. Well, two weeks late. But here's all the goss from my best week so far for celeb spots. I must admit I was dubious as to the future of Celeb Spots of the Week after a few days of celebrity-less-ness.

And then came David Haye. I was walking to work one morning down Regent St when a black cab stopped about 20 yards ahead of me and out stepped a tall, muscular man with corn-rows and a bandaged hand. I thought to myself, "No.... surely that can't be David "The Haymaker" Haye, Heavyweight Champion of the World, as of last Saturday's amazing win against the huuuge and ogre-like Nikolai Valuev?"

Ok, so it all happened a little quicker than that. I whipped out my notepad and pen and said "Excuse me? Can I please get your autograph?" He was really lovely. Really nice. I asked how his hand was and said I'd watched the fight, and he chatted away about how he'd done the same thing to his hand a few years ago too. And then we went our seperate ways.

I later pulled out the autograph to look at it, and had to laugh.


"To Ash. Stay sexy. David Haye x x x"


Awesome.

"So..." you're now asking yourselves, "...surely that's the only A-lister for one week's worth of celeb spots?" How wrong you are.

Whilst out on a run for work the following Friday I walked past HMV on Oxford St and saw a poster advertising Russell Brand's DVD signing that evening. So, naturally, I legged it round there after work and joined the ma-hussive queue of Russel-and-his-ball-bags fans. He did a half-hour Q&A sesh which was, of course, really bloody funny - at one point he plucked three-year-old Brendon out of the audience and - after being very cute with him - asked him if he thought the new DVD was any good, to which he replied "Mmmm." Russell said goodbye, passed him back to his parents and said to one of his guys, "That boy is not a good marketing ploy. Have him killed." In all it's inappropriateness, absolutely hilarious.

I finally got to meet him after queueing for an hour and a half. I passed him my DVD sleeve, said hello, and he said "Come in for a cuddle..." Awesome? Ya-huh. He said thanks for buying his DVD, I said thanks for signing it. And that was that. Short but very, very sweet.

And then. THEN. There was Cheryl. See earlier post named "Hey" for the deets. But there was eye contact. There was hand contact. There was a smile and a "Hey." Basically Ash = happy bunny.

Clearly with me being at The X Factor there were a few more spots, so here'y'are....

Simon Cowell, Dannii Minogue and Louis Walsh (obv.)
All 10 X Factor finalists.
Sinitta.
Brian Friedman (celeb? debatable)
Chico (again.... debatable)
Dermot O'Leary
Holly Willoughby
N Dubs (sat quite near them in the audience!)

"What? Not more A-listers, surely?"
Yup, 'fraid so....

Brian May & Roger Taylor (uuuuuber cool)
Mariah Carey

And that's yer lot.
Cheerio.

"Hey"

A bloody lucky friend of mine managed, after 3 years on the waiting list, to get tickets to the X Factor results show last sunday night, and the lovely lady invited me along. The tickets didn't guarantee us entry, but after nearly four very cold hours queueing outside we finally - whilst almost hyperventilating with excitement, I might add - were let into the studio.

For some strange reason, despite being in probably the last ten or twenty people let in, we managed to get amazing seats! We were sat on the front row of the blocks behind the judges and behind those smaller blocks in front of the stage. My friend, the ticket-finder, ended up in a faboulous seat by the stage... next to Sinita (who was Twittering all night and at one point turned to my friend and said "I love Dannii's hair." to which my friend replied, "No, I love Cheryl's dress...") and behind choreographer Brian Friedman (who, when Jedward got through, blurted out "Fucking Louis Walsh!") The studio is a lot smaller than it appears on TV but the whole thing was VERY cool. And who am I kidding, I was just excited to be that close to the judges - only about 20ft away; Yes. I was that close to Cheryl.

For those who by some wierd turn of events do not know how utterly obsessed I am with Cheryl Cole... well. I'll be brief. One day myself and Cheryl will be married. She just got the wrong Ashley the first time round (Yeah, it's that bad). More on that later... it gets more exciting.

Overall the show was definitely the best live show I've even been to. This week's guest - on the streamed show - was Shakira, but in fact her performance had been pre-recorded the week before. Instead we saw Mariah Carey pre-record her performance for next week, which was, of course, amazing! My favourite moment was when she was patiently waiting on stage for everything to be set up, and said, in a scarily accurate London accent: "I'll jus' wing it." That's not it. As you will know if you watched the show, the contestants performed their group performance of Bohemian Rhapsody live with Brian May and Roger Taylor from Queen. Sensational. Absolutely sensational. I'd seen Roger arrive earlier while we were in the queue, Brian May instead choosing to be driven onto the premises before leaving his car (a shame, because everyone was very excited to see him).

Jamie went, and rightly so (yes, yes, I know Jedward and Lloyd are both worse, but even so he was never going to win it - sorry Grandma). I screamed very loudly for Stacey and gave her a slightly cheesy thumbs-up when she passed by us later. I booed as loudly as I could at Jedward. Louis Walsh walked right past me before the sing-off and did some strange, fruity peace-sign dance, to which I pulled my best "Really? Really?!" face, and made sure he saw it. Fool.

Then.... THEN! In the first commercial break of The Xtra Factor, the judges, having always walked out to the right of their seats, this time exited to the left, directly in front of me. I seized my chance and held my hand out to Cheryl, who held it, smiled at me and said "Hey". Looking back I really wish I had said something. But in that moment, words failed me. I probably looked like a crazed fan, which admittedly I am.... but I could have at least added some credibility to it. But no, crazed fan was all that I could manage. And who cares? Cheryl Cole, the woman I love (yeah, yeah), held my hand and said "Hey."

Brilliant.