A Londoner's Diary

For the past six months I have been a judge on Model Behaviour, the reality TV show that finds the Kate Mosses and James Goodings of the future.

It's been enormous fun, and for those who are interested, the denouement airs tonight. (We've chosen some seriously good-looking winners.) It's the biggest model search in the world, and since the beginning of June I have seen over 12,000 young hopefuls, most of whom have as much chance of being models as Winona Ryder does of running Selfridges. What makes a five-foot-nothing acneridden barmaid think she can be the next Heidi Klum? Crucially, any contestant who enters the world of reality television doesn't just think it will make them famous, they think it will transform them, too. After all, if Big Brother's Jade can become a tabloid star, surely anyone can.

The eventual winners of Model Behaviour have the two vital ingredients to make it as a working model. Firstly they have the malleable good looks that are essential for being successfully versatile. Secondly, and far more importantly, the cameras love them, reality TV cameras included. On the first day of auditions, back in June, I was giddy with excitement, thrilled to be involved in such a high-profile television show. However, on day two I had a complete crisis of confidence. What was I doing, ruining these poor youngsters' dreams in front of six million people, humiliating them in search of ratings? The feeling soon passed, though, and I realised that in order to do this sort of job you need to be ruthless. If you begin to feel sorry for the punters then you are dead, and so is the show. I wasn't going to feel sorry for anyone.

Last week I had dinner with Kim Cattrall, who plays the sexually charged Samantha in Sex and the City. She took self-deprecation to new levels, and was one of the most charming actresses I think I have ever met. And when she told me she'd faked more orgasms than she could possibly remember, she said it not with a scream, but a whisper, a fantastically sexy whisper.

How unlike Candace Bushnell, the demonstrative writer of the column the series was based on. Years ago, I broke bread with her and she was a nightmare, the sort of woman who makes a spectacle of herself by talking loudly ('No, no, enough about you. Let's talk about me! And then me again!').

As the evening drew on, and her voice grew louder, people started drifting away from the table, eager to be anywhere but sitting near Candace Bushnell.

Her retort was to talk even louder; finally, and at such volume that I doubt anyone in the West End had the good fortune not to hear it, about the most intimate ups and downs of her sex life. Even I left then.

Through mutual friends I met Steven Norris, the man who should have been the Mayor of London and hopefully one day will be. I met him in his St James's offices, his wrists gleaming with plenty of bling bling (he was wearing the biggest, most golden Rolex I've ever seen).

He is a man - a large man - full of self-deprecation, who, with a sly wink, acknowledges that he's only doing it to appear more personable.

He is one of those rare and particular people - George Martin is one, George Clooney another - who, when you meet them for the first time, make you feel as though you've known them all your life.

You somehow know you're being conned, but it's done with such panache that you don't care. If Steven Norris wants to make me feel like the most important person in London, then I - for one - am going to let him.

If I was ever in danger of becoming bigheaded over my new-found and short-lived television exposure, it was sure knocked out of me last weekend.

One of my wife's oldest friends, a woman who has never suffered fools gladly, especially those who make regular appearances on television, came to lunch on Sunday. Having polished off the best part of a bottle of Brouilly, she turned to me and said: 'You must be thrilled to have become an F-list celebrity.' As if this wasn't enough, the next day I was faxed a copy of a page from a local newspaper in Newcastle; above a large picture of myself there was the following headline: 'He's a snobby, gobby, nasty, balding faceache, and he's got the cheek to call us thick and ugly!' The picture caption was even worse: 'GQ's snobbish editor Dylan Jones,' it stated, rather prosaically, followed by a colon: 'No oil painting.' No oil painting, then. I almost felt sorry for myself. Almost.

Dylan Jones is the editor of GQ magazine

Copyright 2002
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