Infamy, infamy, no one's got it infamy

Working at a hotel, we often get varying degrees of celibrity through the door.

We've had entire football teams (some are lovely, though the lads who attended a wedding here were so bloody awful,  it ended up with my dragging one of them out of the fountain by his ear and depositing him outside the front door. True story), athletes, artists, musicians (again, with varying degrees of fame or lack thereof), actors (recently a fellow West Ham fan attended a wedding here, for which there was much excitement all round).

The general rule is "the bigger the star, the nicer they are" (bar two, one of whom was The Andorra football team.  They were lovely, unassuming, very decent men, who got shit from a small group of English morons; the latter of whom were later ejected from the hotel for being giant twats).

What is always amusing to watch, regardless of whether they have fame or not, is the view that people have of themselves.

Some are desperate to be noticed, need to have everything that they do commented on, praised.  Others pass by, walk on the earth gently, are assured of their worth without seeking their peers to put a value on them.

Recently, we had a guest who I remembered playing a character that shares a name with a former prime minister.  The penny didn't drop immediately, and apparently he has done a number of higher profile things since then, but it is for his earlier role that I remember him. 

We bantered gently, then he told me who he was, and offered to have his picture taken with me.  I wasn't interested, but didn't want to appear rude.  I duly dug through my bag filled with crumpled tissues, train whistles, chopstick holders, glitter, broken mp3 player and general gunk to retrieve my phone.  It then transpired that we were going to have a mini photo shoot, as I tried unsuccessfully to disengage myself by claiming such mundanities as "er, I've got to work", "give me back my bloody phone you mental", "fucking seriously, piss off".

He was, genuinely, a lovely and charming man, comfortable with himself and clearly used to a much higher recognition factor than just the one middle aged woman.

His evening continued - he engaged a group at the bar, who were duly charmed senseless by him, and rightly so.  He was recognised by similar old farts, who knew him for those later, higher profile, roles.  This recognition did not extend throughout the bar.

Specifically, it did not extend to the teenage barman, who, upon seeing and hearing said lovely and charming man announce himself as being Mr "Such and such film reference", looked at him blankly.  Said man followed this with "yeah, you know who I am, I am such and such person, I was in such and such film."  Teenage barman remains looking blank, though he responds with a slightly inappropriate "I don't know who are you, but I'll pour you a drink."  The conversation continues, with the teenage barman completely bewildered as to why a strange man is insistent he knows who he is when clearly he has little idea of who he is let alone anyone else, and said lovely and charming man is genuinely bemused as to how there can be someone alive who doesn't know who he is, especially one who has no idea of his film credits.

Laugh? I nearly shat. Suit yourselves...