In reality, I’m not a secret millionaire, potential president or GAA celebrity

BEING topical without talking about the presidency or the economy requires me to let you know that I was invited to be a Secret Millionaire.

I was sworn to secrecy at the time, but now that the series is actually on air, I figure it’s safe to put on record that I could’ve been a contender. I could’ve been famous for my informed altruism, admired by all for my modest ways, untainted by vast wealth.

The woman who called me worked up to it nicely. Had I seen the programme? No, but I knew what it was about. English, wasn’t it? Well, this was going to follow the same pattern, but in Ireland. Would I consider being one of the millionaires, she asked. Laugh? I almost cried. When a letter has just arrived from the bank, inviting you to a meeting to review your loan, you’re not in a great position to hand over cash to community groups, however worthy.

The caller filled the stunned silence by addressing problems I didn’t have about the nature of the programme and how much I would have to divvy up. Clearly, some of the people she was inviting had taste issues.

I had no taste issues. I had poverty issues. She sounded personally disappointed in me when I laid out my level of insolvency, as if I had been letting on for years to be rich.

When I finally got her to believe me, she sounded a bit sorry for me (although not sorry enough to put me on the receiving end of the programme).

Another reality TV opportunity lost.

Another big break gone down the drain.

Like that programme where someone makes dinner for a bunch of highly critical eaters who don’t know the identity of whoever cooked their meal and give out about “how 70s” it is or how soggy the pastry has become. I got a chance at that, too, and was thrilled. Until the man in my life raised an eyebrow at me. The raised eyebrow that conveys “you might think this through” with ne’er a word being spoken.

You don’t want to be on a programme that reveals you essentially know three main courses, his expression said, one of them involving pork steak and tinned mandarin oranges. You don’t want to be exposed as the lousiest project manager ever to hit a kitchen, who can produce a perfect Grand Marnier souffle for the sweet course 10 minutes before the spuds are cooked.

You don’t want to alert the health and safety authority to the risks posed to anybody who eats anything you cook other than a boiled egg.

His silence left no choice other than to telephone the programme and tell them I was really too busy to take part. I lied.

What did you expect? That I let the independent TV production sector know I’m not only broke but a filthy slob as well?

Listen: Since I’m one of the few people not going for the presidency, I can tell white lies when turning down reality TV opportunities without fear that someone will shame me with it in the middle of the campaign.

Not that I’m in that much demand. Nobody’s ever invited me to do Celebrity Bainisteoir, understandably, since the only distinction I recognise between GAA and soccer is that David Beckham didn’t play Gaelic football. It does seem to be a programme to be taken seriously though, if you’re the bainisteoir. Ivan Yates, a few seasons back, got completely obsessive about it and personally wounded when things didn’t go the way he wanted.

Nobody’s ever invited me to be a judge on X Factor, either. It’s the age thing. Maybe also the weight thing. And the swearing thing. Possibly, also, the lack of real fame. Not that I’d consider it for a moment, I want you to know. Not since someone, the night it happened, sent me that clip of Susan Boyle blasting her way to world fame. The clip was sent by an American friend who felt it was a heart-warming demonstration of liberation and one woman’s capacity to cut through prejudice based on looks. On the contrary, what it demonstrated was a contempt for all women who look like Susan Boyle. The “Oh, Gosh, we’ll have to consider this poor oul stereotype as a human being” looks exchanged between the judges were nausea-inducing.

The latest manifestation of that casual contempt is manifest in the repeated outings offered to a woman who cannot sing and who makes herself ridiculous in her attempts. Now, the producers of the relevant programme will say that she’s an adult, capable of making her own decision, and that the fame consequent on her appearance on the telly turns her into an instant celeb with some saleability on the open market, like that bloke who snuck into the picture with the Sam Maguire-winning Dublin team.

And it’s true that circuses, in the past, displayed men and women with gross physical disabilities, including those astonishingly obese and shockingly emaciated, those with lobster claws instead of hands, those covered, head to toe, in hair. When such display was made illegal, some suggested that, while it made lawmakers feel better about consigning obvious deformity to obscurity, it did, in the process, remove from former circus “performers” the right to achieve an identity and an income from the uniqueness of their personal appearance, with the result that they could never be as independent as they had been when they made the choice to appear in the circus.

The law might ostensibly remove pejorative categorisation, went this thinking, but in reality, it delivered its own categorisation, un-chosen by the person whose status was reduced to that of anonymous welfare recipient.

I’M so hyper about the pointless cruelty of the reality TV shows setting out to caricature and humiliate that when a producer rang and asked if I’d go on Grumpy Old Women, I froze him to the spot like Lot’s wife and indicated I wouldn’t be seen dead. Turns out it wasn’t a reality TV show at all, but a theatrical entertainment. I had rejected the possibility of co-starring with Twink.

Along with not getting an invite from Celebrity Bainisteoir, I’ve never been invited to be on that programme where they find out about your rotten ancestors. All I know about my family is that on one side were Huguenots who fled persecution as Protestants, came to Ireland, and at a time when it was neither safe nor popular, converted to Catholicism. On the other side though, I’m directly descended from the High Kings of Ireland. So my grandmother (a Geraghty from Westport) always maintained, with the quiet certainty of those possessed of no probative evidence whatever. Of course, if the programme investigated my ancestry, they’d no doubt find I come from a long line of bawdy housekeepers and my sister would never speak to me again for revealing it and wrecking her respected position as a pillar of the community. The sibling relationship is probably in no danger, though.

Since turning down the Twink opportunity, I’m not even a household name in my own household. Which renders me safe from reality TV.