I am pretty sure that some of you read that title and wondered what on earth this blog would be about. Golden Balls? Well, it was a nickname for David Beckham, coined by his wife, Victoria Beckham (née Adams aka Posh Spice), after he turned his image around after being sent off during the 1998 World Cup. Unsurprisingly, David is now widely known under the moniker….
One thing is for sure, those of you who are non-UK residents will never (I sincerely hope!) have heard of a game show aired on the ITV network (2007-2009) called Golden Balls. Who comes up with these ideas?! The show was presented by Jasper Carrott OBE. Her Majesty did not award him his OBE for this particular piece of his comedy work – though he has featured in some highly entertaining shows and films. The Officer of the Order of the British Empire award was actually for “charitable services“.
According to Wikipedia (so it must be right), “the first show opened with 1.6 million viewers. Viewership climbed to a steady 2 million viewers” and in the 5pm timeslot, “eight of the first eleven episodes beat Channel 4’s Richard & Judy, and The Weakest Link (with Anne Robinson) on BBC2 also took a dent from the show’s success”. The popularity of the show fell in the Summer of 2009 and this led to the termination of the show in December 2009. A sad loss to the ITV network? I’ll let you decide.
What I did not know before today was that there is a supermarket brand of cereal called Golden Balls – in fact, two different ones! Asda has plain Golden Balls but Morrisons has Golden Honey Balls. It could be argued that both are perhaps just a slight rip off from the Nestle brand Golden Nuggets, but what do I know?
At this point in proceedings, I do feel myself steering slightly towards discussing those people in the public eye whose surnames are Balls and how one might consider changing one’s name (in the same way that I would if my surname was Bastard …. I could go on), but let’s stick with the plan.
Golden is not as rare as a first name as you might think and my favourite golden find to date is Golden L. Cross who married in Thurrock RD in 1961 – indeed, he is still alive! I wonder what his wife calls him? Looking at the current Electoral Rolls, there are actually a significant number of people with Golden as a first name, although many have surnames which perhaps indicate the non-UK origin of their forebears.
And so, the big day is almost upon us. What will tomorrow bring? Watch this space….
