BNP mayoral candidate Richard Barnbrook speaks to eyebrow magazine… and we got threatened with several warm turds in the process…AND I get propositioned by him with a rather suggestive text message!
Now this was an amusing interview, if ever there was one. Barnbrook arranged to meet us in Becontree:
‘There won’t be any problem with us doing our piece in that cafe’, he barked. ‘I did one for The Times recently; we’ll do it there’.
We arrived at the cafe a couple of hours early, to set up the interview and to scout around for best light quality etc (actually that’s a bit of a lie, we wanted to gorge on English brekka). We started speaking to the lady who owned the place and when we mentioned we were interviewing Barnbrook in an hour or so, she went potty.
‘I had them guys from The Times last week, and we’ve only just finished scrubbing the shit off the walls which someone came in and smeared everywhere after they heard we had let him in here’, she shrieked.
‘I’m sorry but you can’t do it in here.’
‘Ok then’, our plaintive voices echoing, as we backed out the door.
We ended up doing the interview in a nearby park. Someone walked past Barnbrook and waved. He fattened up with pride, grinning at us in a ‘I told you so, I’m really popular here’ manner. Unfortunately, his crumpled suit meant he couldn’t carry it off with as much panache as say, Mugabe.
Interview went without hitch. BUT – and this is the amusing bit, two weeks later, I texted a friend of mine; Richard, who was under my phone as, well, Richard. The text went something like this: ‘Richard when are we meeting up, are you around next week’.
The reply came back, within two minutes, asking me not to contact him for the next two weeks, but suggesting that after the newspapers had calmed down (This story had just come out about him) he would MORE than make up for lost time (etc.etc.)
I was rather affronted that an old friend had taken it upon himself to act like such a dirty dog, until I realised my mistake.
