Across the Room from Greatness

I've been saying for some time now that I'm bored with Royalty. That is the novelty of saying that you've served members of the British aristocracy has sort of worn off, I'm bored of it now. It's actually surprising how many people have Lord, Lady, or Baron on the placecards we put on the tables at AYS events; it rather dilutes the effect over time.

That is why I'm pleased to say I was just twenty-five feet away from the table of Sir Michael Caine and Kevin Spacey the other night at the Pride of Britain awards! Two of my favourite actors, sitting side by side at an awards night honouring the common Briton, from the young child who called 999 (the British 911) to the soldier who thew himself on a grenade to save his fellows and survived.

Sadly I was not in a position to get any closer to Caine and Spacey, as my job for the night was heading up the Dinner Bar . . . meaning providing all the wine and water to the table waiters from a station at the back of the kitchen (!)

This plum role is a hallmark of a curse which afflicts both me and Brianne -- the curse of RESPONSIBILITY. We've both made such a good impression on the managers we work for that they know they can give us the important tasks and we'll handle it with ease. It's a load off their minds, but it does irk us every now and again, knowing that other perfectly-nice-yet-less-keen servers are getting to brush elbows with the greats! Phooey.

A little story about Michael Caine. His real name is Maurice Micklewhite, and in fact that's what his official knighthood states and he does use it legally to this day. As a young actor he had been using the stage name "Michael Scott" - which is kind of weird-sounding to anyone out there who is a fan of the The Office - but his agent told him that there was another actor named "Michael Scott" and that Micklewhite had to choose a different pseudonym immediately. Micklewhite was on a payphone at the time, so he looked up the street he was on and saw a cinema marquee advertising the film The Caine Mutiny. That's how "Michael Caine" came to be. Caine would later joke that if he'd looked down the street the other way and saw another cinema, his name might have been "Michael 101 Dalmations."