My first publication
On three, let’s all blink…
In a talk I’m giving this morning, I included a slide mentioning my first publication before realising it was actually my second. So I revised the slide to say ‘My second publication’, and don’t want to leave you wondering about the first.
My very first publication was in fact a letter to the editor. It was written in my late teens, when I was really too old for that sort of thing. On reading it, you might express surprise that I ever published anything else1.
If you don’t know who Gareth Gates is, he was fleetingly a pop star from one of the early reality shows in the UK (I’m tempted to say Pop Idol). He famously stuttered when he spoke, but not when he sang; he sang like an angel, and better than his rival on the show, Will Young. At some point, I was with two friends and someone commented that Gareth was quite a good singer and it was outrageous that Will Young had pipped him to win the show… our praise for Gareth grew, becoming competitive, eventually reaching the stage of saying we would do anything for Gareth’s career, die to protect him, and so on. It soon became a thing to talk about how amazing Gareth was – all the time, whether it was in front of other people or just us. Around other people, some immediately joined in. Others were bamboozled, asking, ‘Do you really love Gareth or is this a weird joke you can’t quit?’
To the first publication. I said you might be surprised that I ever published anything again. You see, it was a letter-to-the-editor of Smash Hits magazine. They had recently announced National Gareth Gates Day and included flags and other merch. On the day, we styled our hair spiky like Gareth’s, put a line of gaffa tap down our middle top teeth (to mimic Gareth’s gap), added Sharpie dimples to our cheeks, and took a Polaroid which we posted to Smash Hits. So without further ado, here it is (sorry that I can’t tell you the volume or issue number, but it was 2002 and around the time of International Gareth Gates Day)2.
(Our submitted version actually ended with a line I’ve forgotten and then “The best, the best, the best”. The magazine changed it to the last two lines you see above. As anyone who has published a paper will know, copy-editors love to change your carefully crafted words willy-nilly.)
Eventually, one of my friends broke ranks and told us that actually he did not like Gareth actually, he was sick of the joke and could we please stop now. As any good friends would, we listened, acknowledged his frustration and doubled down. ‘Joke??! You snake. Gareth not a joke to us. No-one asked you to lie!’
Only two of us left in the running to be the ultimate Gareth fan. It felt funnier now that one person had broken. At some point I signed us up for a talent show and managed to persuade like 20 slightly confused friends to sing a Gareth Gates song together on stage. There were maybe 200 people in the audience and my other friend just couldn’t force himself up there. He finally cracked and said the joke had gone too far. At that point it stopped being entertaining for me and the whole thing stopped.
Anyway, since you got this far, you have probably realised you could substitute ‘AI’ for ‘Gareth’ and it would all sound very familiar. My real question is, do we need everyone in the world but one to blink before the whole thing fizzles out and AI ends up on Celebrity Driving School?
Not least because about this time, Mrs Spikes kicked me out of her A-level statistics class for arguing with her (about statistics)
This is the only reason it’s not in my scholar profile