Chapter 20: Prestatyn

Carol Vorderman in Prestatyn

It's no wonder Carol Vorderman couldn't wait to get out of Prestatyn, is it? The lovely Carol, the beautiful brainbox who made her name on the long-running TV quiz programme Countdown alongside Richard "Twice Nightly" Whiteley, spent her formative years in this jewel of the north Wales coastline. She is described as having an IQ which seems to vary between 154 or of 169, depending which fanzine you read, and is a member of MENSA; she is used by government agencies to promote maths teaching; and last year she was awarded the MBE for services to broadcasting, despite only getting a third-class degree in engineering at Cambridge.

Makes you think, eh?

Actually it's only in the last few years that La Vorderman has become a serious celebrity. She has been appearing on Countdown since it began in 1982, after being persuaded by her mother to apply for the number-crunching job advertised rather than remaining as a shop worker in Leeds. Over the years she has been promoted as being a bit of a know-it-all, even, some like to think, as the brainiest person on television. The transformation in her fortunes began with her decision to wear a revealing, low-cut, thigh-length, turquoise dress at the BAFTA Awards ceremony in 2000, thus showing off her new skinny figure (allegedly the result of imbibing nothing other than grass juice for several months) and being featured in just about every newspaper the following day. Before that she was a mumsy, size-14 brainbox who wore nice, sensible blouses, and knee-length skirts. Now she is one of television's favourite bits of eye candy, always fronting some dreadful new programme like Better Homes or Better Budgie Cages or Better Loos, wearing spray-on leather trousers or PVC mini-skirts.

That dress and that transformation led to the break-up of her marriage, with her husband claiming that he was fed up with her constant late-night boozing and schmoozing and that the dress made her look tarty and him feel humiliated. As an indication of how famous she now is - and for nothing other than being a celebrity - in 2001 there were 758 major newspaper headlines about her, outmentioned only by the vile Anne Robinson. More encouragingly for us mere mortals is the fact that in the same year she won the "Worst Celebrity Haircut" title, beating such luminaries as Bob Geldof, Ann Widdecombe and Victoria Beckham.

Treading a path made familiar by other skinny female celebs, Carol produced her own dieting video last year, in which she gives advice on how you (or me for that matter, if I were daft enough to believe her) can lose loads of weight in 28 days and end up looking like her. It's called Carol Vorderman's 28 Day Detox Diet and here's what one happy customer, who was so enthused by it that she wrote it on the internet, thought of it:

This video did not help me AT ALL! I'm still eating as much junk food as ever but can no longer watch my favourite programme Countdown as I keep remembering how patronising she really is. Just accept that you're fat and ugly, no video will change this. Spend the money on chocolate instead.

Good advice, if you ask me. And just in case you think I'm being too hard on the voluptuous number-cruncher, let me state here and now that I too have a third class degree and you will know from reading these pages that they could not have been written by anyone who was not a genius. So:

"Give me a consonant, Carol."

'Nuff said.

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