It was in February 2009 that I got my first proper taste of being the Debt Monkey.
For the purposes of this reminiscence I will slam you straight into the mindset of the producers with this evil little gem of a blind date “challenge” from Valentine’s Day:
It quickly cemented all that I had feared throughout my first two weeks as the Debt Monkey.
I'd suspected from the beginning that by getting into bed with a reality show production company I was probably signing my soul away to the Devil, but one thing I hadn't realised was just how strapped for cash the Devil would turn out to be.
For instance, I'd assumed that I'd be relocated to special Debt Monkey House, complete with cameras and a reassuringly regional voiceover artiste, but it wasn't until this meeting that I realised that the whole thing would be filmed on a shoestring in my own flat.
And far from being a “fly on the wall” style of documentary, this was more of a “fly in your face” approach progressing quickly to a “fly interfering with your stuff” aesthetic.
On the very first day they stripped all the nice, tasty food out of my flat and replaced it with that watered-down “value/basic/simple” stripey bollocks. Have you ever tried getting pissed on 2% lager? It's just about possible but it's very hard work.
It was clear from the moment I was told about the Blind Date Challenge that privacy would not be a major consideration and that the camera would try to linger until the bitter end. And I was left in no doubt that my date Emily was prepared to go all the way.
To be fair to Emily, she's probably a lovely girl — or at least was, at some point in her life. But since then a string of disappointments has obviously left her a few cuddly toys short of a toy shop window display. This much is clear from her original Debt Monkey audition video.
I'll admit the date left me pretty grumpy for a few days afterwards and the producers, in a rare display of kindness (or perhaps realising that chronic grumpiness is not great entertainment), set me a fun challenge to cheer me up. So, set the task of producing my own spoof versions of each of the Oscar nominees of Best Picture, I set about unleashing my creativity to produce this minor masterpiece:
I had a whale of a time but unfortunately the feedback from my viewing public was rather less positive.
Perhaps realising too late that they hadn't sorted out a challenge for the end of the month, the producers waved goodbye to February with a compilation of previously unseen moments from my few weeks as the Debt Monkey, including a rather embarrassing tantrum about a Curly Wurly.
With February over, there was not much I could do but wait to see what March had in store. Little did I know at that stage it would include: almost getting arrested, doing an appeal on behalf of Comic Relief, and being reunited with a long lost family member...
