Welcome to the Real World by Carole Matthews

ritual just to please him.

    Despite my misgivingsand there are many of themwe join the back of the queue. A camera crew wanders up and down, recording our misery. Everyone else waves and pouts in a suitably hysterical manner. I can't be the only one who feels like giving them the finger. Even Carl gives them a peace sign and a goofy grin for heaven's sake! The only solace I can take is the fact that it isn't raining. Which is just as well, because an hour later than the auditions were due to start, a couple of harassed-looking assistants totter out on impossibly high heels and slap stickers bearing numbers on us all. Carl and I are, collectively, number 342. How long, I wonder, is it going to take to get through all the 341 acts before us? Darkness will surely have fallen. We'll have to take it in turns to go out of the queue to visit the loo in the Kentucky Fried Chicken place down the road and to get sustenance. I glance down at our number.

    'We haven't got a name,' I say suddenly.

    Carl looks shocked, while I panic. In the pub we're just known as Carl and Fernnot exactly cool. Shouldn't we have spent more time thinking about calling ourselves something suitably trendy and happening to grab the judges' attention?

    'Bollocks,' Carl mutters.

    'Not catchy enough.'

    My friend gives me what I can only class as 'a look'.

    'The Winning Couple?' I suggest, trying to bolster my rapidly failing bravado.

    '"Just the Two of Us",' Carl says. 'That's what I feel it's always been like. Just the two of us against the world.'

    I can see that he's serious, so I say, 'Okay. Just the Two of Us, it is.' Or do I mean Just the Two of Us, we are. And, rather late in the day, our duo is born. It doesn't sound very showbiz to me, but I say nothing.

    And then, with nothing much else to do, we settle in for the long wait. Carl amuses himself throughout the day by smoking a dozen fags and strumming his guitar. I amuse myself by thinking of Evan David in faintly erotic situations until I realise that it is doing me absolutely no good at all. I wonder if he's noticed my absence today. Does he think that I'll be back on Monday as if nothing has happened? I have no idea, and I'm sure that he won't mark it down as a significant loss in his life when I'm not. Still, I can't help wondering what might have been. In my fantasy land, Evan David would have been so impressed by my personal assistant skills that he would have sacked the chicken-poxed Erin and would have given me her job instead, whisking me around the world in five-star comfort for the rest of my days. And we would have flirted endlessly and hopelessly, like James Bond and Miss Moneypenny.

    After a while, when Carl and I are bored with each other, we chat to a couple of the other hopefuls in the queue, and it's fair to say that none of them are blessed with our wealth of experience, as Carl predicted. We've been singing in pubs for years. Too many years. For most of them, this is the first time they've ever auditioned for anything. And I can't help but admire their sheer optimism that all they need is a belief in themselves to carry them through. A lot of the people queuing for their five minutes in front of the judges seem to have no particular talent but are here fuelled only by blind ambition and a desire to grab fame in whatever shape they can get it. None of them seem to have my inhibitions despite the fact that I could probablywhen I'm feeling confidentsing most of them under the table. But so many people want to achieve celebrity status these days without having to work for it and without doing anything of merit to warrant it.

    The Fame Game phenomenon has gripped the nation and, whether we like it or not, the entire population of the UK is glued to the telly at six o'clock every Saturday night to watch the struggling pop artists of the future in their quest for fame. Sometimes it is a supportive and fun show. Sometimes it's positively gladiatorial. But I guess, as they say,