Who's signing Davina McCall?

This post won't mean a lot to anyone who lives outside the UK, except in terms of its general principles. They will apply anywhere.

A few years ago, when I used to go to the gym regularly, the gym TV was always tuned to (UK) MTV, and I used to see a young woman called Davina McCall interviewing various deadbeat pop stars. And I thought at the time that Davina was a great deal more interesting than the Snoop Doggy Doggs of this world.

Then she got a job hosting Big Brother, which I watched when it started (Jade days) but haven't seen while Davina's been in charge. And last week I saw her twice in Gordon Ramsay's F Word show; once in the first broadcast and once in the Saturday night repeat.

Now I have to say that Davina struck me as absolutely beautiful. She is not really young -- damn near forty -- but these days she is wonderfully well groomed, and the camera seems to love her. Not only that, but she is very much at ease. Marriage and two kids seem to have calmed her down.

Davina reminisced with Gordon Ramsay about the days when she worked as a singing waitress in Paris. She went and did a bit of waitressing to prove it, and also sang a lovely version of Georgia On My Mind. And, of course, as any fule kno, she has just been signed up to host a major chat show on the BBC.

And the thought that struck my mind is this: If I was a big-time publishing executive in a major UK firm, I have been would be on the phone to her agent long since, talking about a book. So I looked her up to see if anyone had beaten me to it.

Well, they have. Sort of. Six years ago Davina did a book called The Dating Game, an Arrow paperback which was a guide to how to get girls/boys to go out with you, and so forth. And in February next we shall get Sex in the Classroom. This is published by Channel 4 books and not surprisingly seems to be based on a TV programme of that name.

I'm glad to see that someone in publishing has been thinking along the same lines as myself. And it would be interesting to know who dreamed up the dating book. Was it a publisher, Davina's agent, or Davina herself?

Of course Davina could do the standard celeb autobiography -- she's had an interesting enough life. But that's a bit too simple. And in any case it could come later. No, what I would do is discuss the possibility of getting her to do two or three novels. To be ghosted, of course, because she's pretty busy, apart from the small problem that she doesn't seem to have written any fiction so far. But the plots would get input from the gal herself.

Now what sort of novels they would be would require some thought. But if it happens, remember that you read it here first.