A Benny Hill moment at Downton Abbey as Melissa turns a costume drama into a crisis
Telling someone that they're not very good at something they think they're very good at would test the skills of the most accomplished manager. So imagine how badly a rather panicked entertainment journalist on the front lines of the digital revolution – who as it happens is occasionally sleeping with the 'someone' – would deal with it. You have that idea in your head? Well whatever you are imagining can't be as bad as what really happened.
After the most exciting start to the silly season in the history of summer, courtesy of #hackgate, things were eventually beginning to slow downin the world of media and entertainment. Strangely there seems to be a correlation between the number of journalists on holiday and the amount of news in the world …
With this in mind, I didn't need asking twice when I heard ITV were running three buses up to Highclere Castle (that's Downton Abbey to the television aficionado) for a press day. In my wisdom, I thought taking Melissa along might sugar the pill when I told her she had been barred for life from writing her whimsical pieces on the website.
The day began happily. We strolled around the grounds snapping pictures of the castle and tweeting them to a receptive audience of period drama-celebrating micro-bloggers. And after a screening in the library, a 140 character review of episode one of the second series was also heavily retweeted, despite revealing almost nothing about the show.
It's harder than you think. 'Downton Abbey series 2 ep 1 review: ' – that's 36 characters on the title. ' 1st World War brings change and darker mood. Stakes raised. Love and loss. Beautiful. Brilliant. Watch' – not a character wasted – and for some reason, the punters loved it.
And what was to follow could easily have been a deleted scene from Julian Fellowes' creation.
While drinking as much free wine as I could get my hands on and eating cake in the grand hallway, I ran into an old colleague of mine. He inquired about the site, and the lady with whom I'd arrived.
'Does she write for Enter4entertainment too?' asked Mark, quite innocently.
'Well, yes, sort of,' I said. 'But between you and me, she won't be for much longer – she's not exactly Katharine Graham … '
'Well, I bet you've never brought in the Pentagon Papers,' Mark chipped in.
It was while we were laughing at how clever we both were that I noticed Melissa in the corner of my eye. She was standing in a doorway, listening – from the look on her face, she'd heard enough.
The next half hour involved chasing Melissa around the grounds of Highclere Castle in an upmarket Benny Hill-esque spectacle which attracted the attention of several of the 'real' staff at Downton – and a number of amused journalists. Eventually, when my general fitness and my diminished pride told me it was time to give up, I skulked back to the castle for a rather sweaty set of round table interviews with the cast.
A cream tea in the gardens later, Melissa was nowhere to be found as we were ushered back towards the buses, and our day out in the Greater Newbury area drew to a close. Shortly before my coach left, I received a text: 'I'm back in London. You're a knob head.' It was from Melissa, maybe she was a better writer than any of us had given her credit for, she'd certainly summarised this situation accurately and with feeling.
Back home, I checked the stats … it had been a slowish day, but after adding some pictures of Jessica Brown-Findlay et al and a brief review of the second series, things started to move in the right direction.
I sent Melissa another apologetic text. There was no reply. The evening was spent convincing myself it was all for the best. Without the distraction of a woman I could finally concentrate on achieving my goals.
There was of course the website – but there were also my side projects: the bad indie pop music, the sitcom pilots, the great British novel … I was free … this wasn't the end, it was the beginning.
Liberated, I opened a bottle of wine and began watching an episode of Road Wars I'd already seen. Carpe diem.
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