Channel 4's Countdown programme attracts the unemployed, pensioners, students and people who should be writing their Edinburgh show. I fall into this last category. The cure for my addiction was to actually go on the programme.
Eating some lunch on the day of departure for Media City I bit on something hard. Is it a fish bone or a bit of my tooth? It's a fishbone. Phew can't feel any teeth missing. Oh no. I can. I retrieve a fragment of tooth, toss it on the ground and rush to the mirror. A broad smile reveals a black cavity. The front half of a back tooth is missing, leaving just filling.
No time to think about this, I'm late for the airport. I dash off, forgetting my glasses. I now won't be able to see close up and won't be able to smile.
Meanwhile, amazingly, my middle son has found the bit of tooth on the ground and texts me to say he is keeping it in milk in case it can be bonded back on. Unlikely. Then he texts to say the youngest son has drunk it. And expects me to believe him.
The Holiday Inn Express makes me glad I didn't take up eldest son's half-hearted offer to accompany me. Although the next day in the Countdown studios I get the pitying – 'Oh you came on your own. You're very brave.'
A 16-year-old walking Countdown encyclopaedia is on first. Beforehand we go to dressing room, where 'Dictionary Corner's' Susie Dent and presenter Nick Hewer (him off the Apprentice) look tiny in real life. Rachel Riley (the numbers whizz) looks about the same size. She is buoyantly young.
'Rachel's been shopping,' says a nice young man at an ironing board. Her dresses hang alluringly on a rack.
Susie looks diffident. She is naturally, almost painfully polite. Out of her depth here in the shallows but a trouper.
The trip has already been worth it. The young man at the ironing board asks what my next outfit will be if I get through. I hand him a T-shirt which I say doesn't need ironing. He takes one look and says it does. And proceeds to iron it for me.
In the audience I watch the 16-year-old beat two contestants. And in the audience I'm doing quite well. When I'm actually against him myself I've wilted a bit and go blank at the numbers and most of the letter rounds, offering a French word in desperation in one of them.
I lose 50 something to 80 something and am relieved I didn't score zero. I'm next to Nick who's chatty in the breaks and who I like in real life.
Susie talks over to me saying she's sorry we haven't spoken but she likes my dress. My day is made. The make-up lady had already said she liked my eye make-up as she covered up the bags under my eyes and gave me a bit of blusher.
I bought a couple of cans of beer on the way back to the Holiday Inn Express and drank them from my Countdown mug. Then I did a google search of Manchester dentists for the next day.
The last words I heard before leaving the Countdown studio as the 16-year-old tore into his next victim were, 'Carious is usually associated with dental decay.'
There’ll be a preview of Maxine Jones: Full Circle tonight (23rd June) at Wicked Wolf, 2 Main St, Blackrock, Co Dublin, 9pm. Free entry.
[ channel4.com/programmes/countdown .Opens in new window ]
