Gosh I cannot believe it is over a year since I wrote my last blog…it’s a bit like when you stop going to the gym, it’s really hard to get going again. At QVC we were strongly “encouraged” to write for the website and I did in fact really enjoy it.

So how have you been? I am pleased that so many of you keep me company on Twitter ( @debgreenwoodtv ) and I can only apologise for having maintained the truly appalling standard of my jokes there!!

Well, what a year it has been! After twelve years of working for QVC I moved on and am enjoying my life as a freelance presenter and trainer. I am still in touch with all my friends, especially of course Ali Keenan and Kathy, so now I have the best of all worlds. QVC was a brilliant experience and I learnt so much. People often ask what it was REALLY like working there and…well, ….I am saving all the best bits for my book!! I promise to change all the names to protect the guilty!!  Seriously, the world of Shopping Television is very special with lots of excitement and laughs but also with the many pressures of performing on TV for 3 hours live every day with no script, no autocue and just your wits and sales targets to get you through.

I took a short four month contract with Bid TV, one of the auction channels and that was an amazing experience too. It was a time of upheaval for the station  as they had realised that their style needed to change which is why they head-hunted me. I must admit at the beginning to feeling a little bit like a footballer who had been signed to a new team, and being asked to play rugby!! The falling prices were a mystery to me, the Klaxons, the unnerving music…it was definitely different!!! I was sad for the 300 people who worked there when the channel went into liquidation before it had made the changes it hoped to make.

In the dressing room at BidTV.

I have been offered jobs with other shopping channels since and I may well take one but at the moment with running training sessions for presenters and guests and other corporate work I am happy to pick and choose.

I had a wonderful experience a few weeks ago when I had the opportunity to go to Dubai to run a workshop for Citruss TV.  I had never been out to the Middle East before and I really enjoyed it. The guys out there made me so welcome that I hope they might invite me back. They are expanding their output to lots of live transmissions  over the coming months and it is a good time for a spot of training and an objective look from an outsider.

They had been conducting a Search for Presenters campaign so I also provided training for the applicants and ran auditions for them. Call me Simona  Cowell!! I was there when the temperatures were edging towards 50 degrees and it was also Ramadan, so that meant that most people were fasting from 3am till around 7pm, so things happened at a far slower pace than I expected!

I enjoyed being in studio observing the Citruss  presenters Rania, Sarah B and Sarah D.

Sarah B and Vanessa on set

They are very professional and do a wonderful job already and I think they will enjoy it all the more when they have to do their presentations live, because it is so much more fun than doing lots of takes. And besides viewers love it when things go wrong!

I had a wonderful time due to being looked after by shopping TV guru, Budd Margolis who took me everywhere. He picked me up from the airport and was waiting for me with flowers and a bottle of water.

Arriving at Dubai Airport

He’s a real character with a fabulous sense of humour and a real shopping telly nerd. He knows every statistic about every channel there is and ever has been. We shared many a meal together including one memorable one  at Operation Falafel on JMR beach. I say memorable because as we were quietly perusing the menu, there was the HUGEST, EARTHMOVING explosion!! I know I am a shopping telly presenter, but I truly am not exaggerating! My life flashed before my eyes and I was on the point of diving under the table, when one of the other diners casually mentioned that was just the way they announce the end of fasting!!! I know people are ravenous but to actually fire a cannon????  What’s wrong with tinkling a little bell?

I don’t know if you have ever been to any of the stunning hotels on the Palm, but I was luck enough to be treated to Iftar a couple of times. Once at the Waldorf Astoria and another at the Sofitel when the boss of Citruss, Nicolas, treated us to a lovely night out. 

Most of my work is in London, though, and I get a great deal of pleasure in coaching presenters and guests for auditions and special shows for Shopping TV. I watch, like a soccer mom, from the edge of my seat when my “pupils” are on the box and will them on! It is very rewarding to watch people start to fulfil their potential.

Now that I have written my first blog after a break, I will make a real effort to keep in touch on this website. And that’s a threat.

Take care

Debbie

Sorry it has been a few weeks since I have blogged, but I had a fortnight’s leave from work and I just don’t know where the time has gone!

Paul and I drove up to Cheshire for a family wedding at the very swish Mere Spa and Golf Resort in Knutsford. My cousin Rachel was marrying her long-standing beau, Rob, and the wedding had been brought forward from the summer because her dad, my uncle and Godfather, has fairly recently been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and was determined to walk her down the aisle (to make sure he got rid of her, he said).

There was a lot of drama as Peter had been rushed to hospital the night before and it was touch and go whether he would be able to be there. We all waited with bated breath to see not just the beautiful bride, but also the burning question was…would the Godfather appear? The room was buzzing with anticipation as we waited. 10 minutes late, 15 mins…but then the door burst open and he was there. A flourish, a royal wave , and a burst of applause! The Godfather knows how to make an entrance.He was temporarily in a wheelchair but did manage to stand to give Rachel away. There were damp eyes of course, but being Scousers the most sympathetic anyone got was to murmur “drama queen” as he grinned around the room and the real tears were saved for the romance of the occasion. He was in good hands anyway as Rachel is a midwife and his son, Nick, a doctor. Do I sound proud? Ok then, I’d better mention that my other cousin Claire is a teacher. They are from the clever side of the family!The reception was magnificent with delicious food, copious amounts of very good wine and great speeches accompanied by lots of heckling. None of it from me or my dad, you understand! Peter was hilarious and spoke without any notes, explaining that as he hadn’t even been sure he was going to make it to the ceremony he hadn’t prepared anything as he abhors wasted effort!

The evening was great, too, with a band called ‘Dazed and Confused’ doing all kinds of classics from T.Rex to Led Zeppelin. My cousin Claire’s husband, Andy, was on lead and rhythm guitar and boy did that golf club rock! I’m still a bit deaf from it!

Pete insisted on having his photo taken with Paul buying him a drink, claiming to need photographic evidence of a “Jock buying a drink”. I can’t believe it was more than 40 years ago that I was a bridesmaid at Anne and Pete’s wedding in Liverpool. I loved everything about it from all the dress fittings, having my shoes dyed pink to match, the excitement of the day, and I can still smell the carnations in my posy!

Good memories like this last a lifetime and I cherish them. Shortly after, Anne and Pete went off abroad and my aunt would regularly write to me. I can still remember the thrill of receiving her long letters on crisp blue airmail paper.

No sooner were we back in London than it was time to pack our bags for a short break in Portugal. At this point it is traditional for me to moan about budget airlines. I had been very encouraged by Easyjet’s now allowing you to book seats in order to avoid all that stress and last-minute panic at the boarding gate where the sharpest elbows won the best places, and the weakest were simply trampled underfoot.

Relaxed and confident, we quietly enjoyed a stress-free breakfast at Garfunkel’s, and were therefore taken completely by surprise when our names were suddenly announced on the PA. Apparently our flight was now “fully boarded” and we had four minutes to get on the plane or our bags would be off-loaded and we would be denied access!

Well, we legged it up escalators (full credit to my pelvic floor), and along travelators, knocking elderly couples to the ground on our way. We made it to Gate 111 within the four  minutes, expecting to get on a full plane with tuts of disapproval from the other passengers. Not a bit of it. Sweating, exhausted and panting like…panting things, we were met by a queue to board of about half a mile long! Four minutes to board or we’ll throw your bags off? My bahooky! Beware. Airlines tell fibs.

We had a great five days in Portugal just relaxing and although sunny in the daytime it was FREEZING in the evening. The first night we slept under two duvets with four hot water bottles! We celebrated Valentine’s Day in a typical Portuguese restaurant called Fernanda’s in the hills behind Tavira. Paul was on very good romantic form.

We may have been married for twenty years but he still knows how to charm a girl. After a wonderful meal he leaned across the table, gazed deep into my eyes and said,

“Nice cardie”

LOC,

Debbie xxx

Ho ho ho, it’s nearly time for Santa to be loading up that sleigh. Are you ready? Don’t worry if you’re not because we still have plenty of great Christmas shopping shows to come on the Nation’s Number One! Thank heavens for home shopping and the Internet, I say!

The tree is now up at Greenwood Towers. We have now gone faux, despite all the palaver we had last year. Team Coia, headed by Captain Paul, always erects the evergreen on the first weekend of December in order to get maximum enjoyment for the maximum length of time from the baubles, lights and general Christmassyness…

None of that malarkey you see in American films where they drag the tree through the snow late on Christmas Eve to enjoy for one day only! That’s not what I call value for money at all! We are waiting till The Undergraduate comes home before we put the Angel on the top.

Apologies for the lack of blogging recently but since my three weeks away I am finding life very busy as the mother of an undergraduate. I thought I’d just slip that in quietly so as not to appear to be bragging about Annalie doing well in her A levels and getting her place at uni. Too late, proud mum just couldn’t keep it to herself!

I’ve just found out that it is apparently pretty much the law to go to Ikea with your mum before you start college to buy stuff. I’m not sure what stuff exactly yet, but we have a shopping trip planned for Thursday. Heaven help us. Heaven help Ikea. At this very moment the Undergraduate is at the kitchen table making a list as long as the Amazon, which reminds me, there will be a reading list, too.

We had a brilliant holiday, not least because it was just so good to escape from the rain. Travelling by budget airline is such tremendous fun, isn’t it? We had a slight delay, which Luisa took advantage of to have a beauty make-over in the duty free shop at Gatwick.She looked lovely, but being sweet 15, disappeared to the loo to ‘adjust’ it afterwards. When she emerged twenty long minutes later I could’ve strangled her because now we were running late, which condemned us to the end of the longest queue in the world, with the result that the four of us were dotted about the plane nowhere near each other. Oh, how we laughed.

I don’t get this policy at all – wouldn’t it be quicker and easier for everyone if the airline just allocated seats? Actually, one night we were out at The Marina Bar in Cabanas de Tavira when the resident Irish singer, Gary, sang this tribute to the budget airlines.

We had a great time at a place called Villa Cana in Spain with the girls and their best friends. Annalie and Marina had been working in The Marbella Club for a couple of weeks before we got there so it was lovely to see them. It also gave us a chance to catch up with our friends Julie and Guy who live in Estepona.

We drove to Portugal and the night we arrived we popped into our local, Ronaldo’s Bar, and found ourselves taking part in a quiz night to raise money for the Red Cross. I must say that the Chocolate Miser was on top form and we did very well, scooping the top prize of two bottles of local red wine, worth at least 7 Euros! I was useless as usual and Paul will never let me forget this “doh!” moment. The quiz master asked this question;

“What is the more common name for The London Derrière ?”

Being a linguist (moi?) all kinds of things went through my mind. The London Eye I’ve heard of, naturally, but the London Bottom? Was it a cryptic clue? Had there been something in the news about a new Borris Bottom initiative while we had been away? Who in London had a famous bottom? The girls and I wracked our brains and came up with a big fat zero. Mr Coia was at his most smug, not to mention incredulous,and calmly wrote down;

“Danny Boy is the more common name for…The Londonderry Air!!!”

Blush, blush!

LOC

Debbie xx

I have had a lovely week, which began with Joe McElderry coming in to sing a couple of tracks from his new Classic Christmas album. It really got us in the Christmas mood!

Joe Mac has become a firm favourite with us at QVC because  he is just such a nice person. He does have a problem with drink, though, as he was knocking it back as early as 8am. Diet Coke, that is!! I suppose he’s too young for a cappuccino! He is genuinely delighted and a little amazed at the amount his ‘private performance’ prize for Breast Cancer Care raised in the auction. I hope we can get a film crew out for that when it happens.

My daughters are X Factor addicts and I think even I went up the cool scale a little when Joe started to come to us at QVC. They are HUGE fans of his. So, imagine their excitement when Joe’s lovely mum, Eileen, invited them to the launch party of the Christmas album in Soho on Monday night.Weesa had to miss her Latin lesson, but she’s a brave soldier and didn’t let her disappointment show at all. Joe spent a long time talking to them-they loved his accent of course – and they are not going to Cleanse and Polish ever again because he kissed them! 

Joe must be exhausted at the end of his tour and if you missed that you will still get a chance to see him at the O2 over Christmas as he is singing before the Nutcracker Ballet.

I would highly recommend the album, too, with its great classics like White Christmas, O Holy Night with Rolando Villazon, Last Christmas, and Driving Home for Christmas, which gets the Big Band treatment. He’s got a lovely voice and the album will be our background music as we put up the tree at Greenwood Towers this year.

Over the decades I have interviewed a fair few stars – from Elton John to Margaret Thatcher, to Tom Hanks to Fanny Craddock!! Too many to remember, in fact, and whilst they all manage a wonderful on-air persona, not all of them are the same sweet people off screen.

However, with Joe McElderry, what you see is what you get. I know he’s only young, but with the support around him from his lovely down-to-earth family I am confident that he’s not going to change.

What a year he’s had, too, with his triumph on Operastar and with his Classic album going double gold and possibly platinum by Christmas. Not bad for a twenty-year-old, eh?

No matter how much you beg me I’m not going to say anything about my experience with Fanny Craddock on Breakfast Time. I definitely didn’t cry! In any case,  Frank Bough delivered the definitive  line many years ago on Nationwide. Following a cookery item on baking, he ad-libbed, straight-faced,

“And may all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny’s.”

Thank Heavens for the apostrophe.

LOC

Dx

Do you have a favourite shopping joke? This is one of mine – it’s all about a woman’s dark side..

A woman was at home watching QVC. It was her day off and she was making the most of it. Her husband was out test-driving a Lamborghini, but he’d put the bins out before he’d left, so she didn’t mind. Anyway, she could do with some ‘me’ time. Six months would be good!

She began by finding the most perfect pair of Birkenstocks, just right for the spring. Lazily she made herself a cappuccino with her Illy espresso machine. Just as she was sprinkling the finishing touch of  chocolate powder on top, she looked up to see the most stunning Tiana B maxi dress at a Super Bargain price. She used Q Cut. It was only 10am and the day was off to a pretty good start. Then the phone rang.

I had an interesting night out recently at the Ambassadeur Club in Mayfair. It was to celebrate 65 years of the Miss Great Britain Contest. The evening was full of lovely young twenty-somethings with legs as long as the Northern Line, and a few of us oldies, too, with shorter legs but longer memories.  You might have seen the pictures in OK magazine?

I hate being late and you never know how bad the traffic is going to be in London,  so I inadvertently   arrived in Mayfair well before the  6.30pm start. As I tumbled out of the cab at 5.30pm, dressed in a short black silk dress with killer heels, black fishnets  and jewellery that  made Butler and Wilson look understated, I became acutely aware that I looked like…well….how can I put this?……I looked like a Lady of the Night arriving for her shift.  I began to feel distinctly uneasy about how I was going to spend the hour before the party began.

“Nil desperandum” I thought, “I’ll just pop into this nice hotel for a drink.”

It might have been my imagination but I thought I noticed a slight smirk on the lips of the young, wild-haired ginger doorman as I entered the hotel and asked where the bar was. The lobby was swarming with tourists, all dressed casually in sneakers and hoodies, as was appropriate for early evening in late summer and I began to lose my nerve slightly. I steeled myself and strode purposefully through reception, sat down in an armchair and asked loudly for the most respectable-sounding thing I could think of, a cup of tea. I really wanted a vodka and lemonade, you understand, but it was far too early and anyway I didn’t want to give any more ammunition to the Mick Hucknell-type on the door. In a bid to feel less conspicuous I laid my cardigan over my knees, took out my earrings and tried to merge with the background. I relaxed a little and was quite relieved when a friendly American businessman started chatting. He had just arrived and needed change of a £50 note which I could just about manage. I scrabbled about in my purse, gave him the change, and just as he was handing over the said £50 note, guess who walked past? Yes, it was the Flame Haired Smirker!!!!  Talk about timing.

Thankfully at the party everyone else was also dressed up to the nines and I had a lovely evening. I met up with Jill Saxby whom I had crowned Miss Great Britain in 1985. I was on my own because the organisers had not told me I could bring a guest so she and her family adopted me for the evening and we had a great time catching up and talking about the old days when we were young and innocent.  She now is (unbelievably) a grandmother and runs a successful agency called JamJar Promotions. She and her family were driving all the way back to Leicester that night but were totally horrified at the idea of me getting the tube home on my own so insisted on driving me home, which was SO kind and miles out of their way. We stopped at a fab Thai restaurant, Thai Tho in Wimbledon village, where they enjoyed a lovely meal and I imposed for a glass of champagne and more gossip. It could have turned into a very late night but I had to be up at 5am the next day for the Morning Show!

Now, just for fun have a look at the photo and can you tell me who Jill’s famous husband is? If you are a sports fan, you’ll recognise him straight away!

Have a great week!
LOC
Debbie x