Been attending a lot of charity dos lately, which is no bad thing. The Lions Legends v French Legends for charity at the Stoop was a riotous occasion. My mate Michel Roux actually kicked off, he looked very smart in his French kit. He managed to get the ball 10 metres and then got off the pitch as fast as he could. It was amazing for me to share a beer with so many famous players; I enjoyed it so much I joined them all at the Sun Inn Richmond until 2 o’clock in the morning! Well, it was for charity.
Last weekend after work, I hopped on a train to Liverpool to watch the David Price fight. Not the outcome we all expected, but I am sure that’s just a blip. It was my first boxing match and I had a great time up there. The people of Liverpool are very welcoming and great fun. Looking forward to going back.
Staying with the charity theme, I have done something hugely enjoyable for Comic Relief, I really can’t tell you what and I don’t want to spoil the surprise. You will just have to wait until it’s aired.
I hosted an amazing dinner in The Crypt of a Church in Holborn for RememberaCharity.org.uk. 75% of us give to charity which proves how generous we all are, but only 7% of us remember to leave a small gift in our Wills. The money raised from gifts in Wills is enormous and makes up one third of the funding for Cancer Research and provides one out of every three guide dogs. So you can see a small increase in gifts in Wills would have a massive impact
I attended the Six Nations Dinner on behalf of the Matt Hampson Foundation. I have a huge amount of respect for Matt and this charity that most certainly has its roots in rugby, is now doing amazing work for young men and women that have suffered spinal injury. I have met up with Matt many times and have agreed to become an Ambassador for the Hambo Foundation. So you can look forward to me encouraging you to join in somehow in the future.
Had an amazing night out with my brother, Biffo on Friday. Actually reading this blog, it looks like my life is one big party! (I have to confess, some mornings I wake up and it does feel like it!). We went to the Theatre to see Book of Mormon; I laughed so loudly and cheered like an excited kid. Me and Biff had a wail of a time. I treated him to dinner at my new fave place, Green Man and French Horn, Covent Garden.
Next week sees me working down in Devon, beautiful part of the country, love it down there. And then the weekend sees me flying up to Edinburgh to attend the dinner with the SRFU and the day after watching Scotland v Wales at Murrayfield. All thanks to my mate, Rory Lawson, cracking scrum half. I will be up there with another cracking scrum half, my son Tom and my Welsh mate (and Solicitor by the way), Vincent who I helped celebrate his 50th birthday down at my place, Gregg’s Bar & Grill, Bermondsey.
You may have seen some of the abuse I received on Twitter. It was so nasty that I felt compelled to retweet it so that everybody could see. For what it’s worth and for my part, here’s the story.
On average, I get asked to retweet something for charity about 20 times a day. On average, somebody misspells my name, again, 20 times a day. My name is of course Gregg, G R E G G. People have been getting my name wrong for as long as I can remember. It strikes me as odd at best when people get it wrong on Twitter, especially as it is clearly visible to anybody sending me a tweet. Anyway, a chap asked me to retweet his cycle ride for charity, misspelt my name and I simply tweeted back, Gregg? That was all, I didn’t refuse to help him, I just thought it was polite that if he was asking me for something, he should at least get my name right. He tweeted back, well yes, getting your name correct is much more important than people dying of cancer, MasterT**t. I ignored it and he must have contacted many other people with a story of arrogance on my part. Why, I don’t know, all I asked him to do was spell my name correctly. I then received some of the most awful, ghastly, rude, offensive and very personal messages from people which only ceased when I started retweeting them so that everybody could see.
Ok, on a happier note and I never meant it to happen, whilst at the Café de Mort, journalists photographed me with my girlfriend, Anna. It’s very new, I am enjoying her company and we are both having fun.
Don’t forget, Masterchef starts 12 March, BBC1 at 9 pm. It’s a great series, fantastic competition.
See you there.
