[Fiction] Britain's Most Daring

[alli55]

Author's Note

This story is rather different from my two previous efforts, in a number of ways...

The first is the sheer scale of this one. I didn't set out with the intention of writing a story of near-epic length, but once I'd got going it just grew and grew! To be honest, it took on a life of its own and kind of took over mine as well! But, I just got hooked ... what can I say?!

This, in turn, gives rise to the second difference. This time there will be a new section posted daily, so you'll need to stay on your toes to keep up! It's either this, or we'll still be ploughing our way through the story next Christmas!

That I don't want to do, because I want to keep this story moving along and also give it a feel of being posted almost in real time! It's a story about a TV show that goes out once a week, so I want to keep to the time scale.

Then there is the nature of the story, which doesn't allow for as much character interaction and development as I usually include. That doesn't mean there isn't any, just that it's not as prominent as in the other stories I've written.

I know stories about dare-based TV shows have been done before, but I hope I've found a slightly different approach for my version! As before, if you want a sex-fest, then don't bother reading this. Curtis, if you're reading this, in this story there really is no sex at all!

I've also used this story to let my craziness loose! This means it will have a very different feel to it than my other stories, though there are moments of drama, pathos, and suspense thrown in.

Anyway, if a light-hearted, sex-free, fun story based entirely on dares, piques your interest, then I hope you will enjoy this.

So, beginning tomorrow, expect a daily posting for the next few months (fingers crossed, technology permitting).

Cheers,

Alli

P.S.
For any non-UK readers, I apologise in advance for loads and loads of references which will leave you either bewildered or googling like mad! Sorry!

[kmacroxs]

Sounds interesting. Looking forward to seeing how it goes.

[alli55]

I arrived home last Tuesday evening, after staying late at work, and was greeted by a very unusual sight: Madeleine, my eldest daughter, was waiting at the front door for me. She twirled the end of her hair round a finger, absent-mindedly, as she watched me park the car. I looked at her and marvelled at how she’d transformed from a slightly awkward adolescent into a beautiful young woman. I’m biased, of course, but she looked gorgeous in the fading light, with the sun’s last rays reflecting off her milk-chocolate-coloured hair. Although she doesn’t like the colour of her hair, I think it compliments her brown eyes and light complexion well. She also insists she’d prefer to be a bit slimmer, but, to me, she has a healthy body shape, with curves where a young woman should have curves! I waved to her, as I got out of the car, and elicited a wave and a broad smile in return.

Like I said, she was waiting at the front door for me. She hadn’t done that since she was around seven years old, and, bearing in mind she’s 17 now, that’s a long time! It immediately aroused my suspicion, as it would in any good mother!

“Mam,” she greeted me with a hug, “it’s so exciting!” She, literally, couldn’t keep still, such was her excitement over what she was about to tell me.

“What is, pet?” I asked.

“The TV show!” she replied, hopping from one foot to another, grinning from ear to ear.

“What TV show?” I enquired.

Maddie, for that’s what everyone calls her, gave me one of those disapproving looks that teenage daughters reserve especially for their parents.

“You know,” she insisted, “the one I told you about!”

I looked blankly at her. She may have told me about it, but I certainly didn’t remember!

“Ma-am!” she said, despairingly, “you remember, I told you that Gemma had gone to an audition for a TV show and …”

“Oh! Yes!” I interrupted. “Yes, I do remember! You said she’d got on to the show, didn’t you?”

Maddie’s face broke into a broad smile, displaying her happiness at knowing that I had actually remembered something she’d told me; something that had been so exciting to her.

“Yes, that’s right!” she affirmed. “Well, it’s going to be on this Saturday! Stacie told me today!”

“Oh, right!” I said. Stacie was Maddie’s best friend, and Gemma’s younger sister.

“Stacie and her Mam are going as well!” Maddie continued. “They’re going to be in the studio audience!”

“Oh, that must mean it’s a live show, then!” I told her.

“We’ve all got to watch it!” Maddie instructed. “I’ve already told Lissie! But, you’ve got to tell Dad!”

Lissie, or Melissa as we actually named her, is the younger of my two girls, a bubbly 12-year-old who is on the cusp of exiting childhood and heading into adolescence. Maddie adores Lissie, and Lissie worships her older sister, planning to use her as a living guidebook to being a teenager.

“I take it Lissie is nearly as excited as you!”

“She can’t wait! She looked up the show on the Channel 4 website to see what it said, and she’s super-excited about it! She said that, even if Gemma wasn’t on it, she’d definitely want to watch it, ’cos it looks really good!” Catching sight of her younger sister coming down the stairs, she added, “Didn’t you, Lissie?”

“What?” her sister asked.

“You said Gemma’s TV show looked really good, didn’t you?!”

“Oh, yeah,” Lissie replied, excitedly, “it looks brilliant! There’s, like, loads of dares and stuff, and it looks so cool, and a bit mad, and I can’t wait, it’s gonna be fab! We’ve all got to watch it, and, obviously, I want Gemma to win it!”

Gemma is now a smart 19-year-old woman, who has decided to forego university and work her way up through the business world instead. But, as Maddie and Stacie have been friends since nursery, I’ve known Gemma from when she was a clever-but-cheeky five-year-old. After their Dad died when Gemma was 9 and Stacie just 7, we took the two girls under our wing as their Mam struggled to cope. They’ve been on holiday with us many times; they lived with us for nearly six months when their Mam had a breakdown a year or so later; and were constantly in and out of our house all through their early teens. Naturally, then, we are all very fond of both Stacie and Gemma.

“Woah, slow down, Lissie,” I told her. “Let’s just enjoy the fact that Gemma’s on it, shall we!?”

“Yeah, but there’s no point being on it, if you’re not going to win it!” she insisted.

“You mean, try to win it,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, that!” she said, dismissively. “Oh, it’s going to be so, so-oo cool!” Her eyes widened with her excitement, allowing their soft, brown warmth to radiate out. She flicked her head back, returning her fringe to its proper position, and scooped a handful of light-caramel-coloured hair off her shoulder and dropped it behind her back. Sometimes, I thought, she really would be better off taking a leaf out of her sister’s book and adopting a slightly shorter hairstyle! But she’s adamant, so that’s that; and it does, at least, give the pair of us some nice mother-daughter time together, when we experiment with different ways of tying, pinning or otherwise shaping it. This particular evening, she was wearing it loose, allowing it to fully bring out her golden complexion. Although she’s not quite yet a teenager, I’m certain she’s going to end up even prettier than her older sister. I fully predict she’ll be fighting the boys off by the time she’s Maddie’s age, in a way that Maddie hasn’t had to do, much to her relief!

“We’ve all got to watch!” Lissie insisted again.

“You’ll make sure Dad watches with us, won’t you?” Maddie checked, making it clear that her father was going to be my responsibility.

“Yes,” I assured her, “I’ll make sure he does!”

Good Friday saw me and him begin our first proper tidy-up of the garden this spring, and a lovely, sunny Easter Saturday allowed us to finish the task. Two days of gardening, though, took its toll on our ageing bodies! Now that we’re well into our forties, things that we could do in our younger years, without a second thought, require a lot more recovery time than ever they did! So, with the clocks having gone forward last weekend, we decided to take advantage of the longer evening to put a couple of garden chairs on the patio and sit and relax our aching muscles.

“You haven’t forgotten we’re watching Gemma’s TV show this evening, have you?” I reminded Phil, my husband of 21 years.

“Oh!” he muttered. “Is it compulsory?” Phil hates the Saturday-evening programmes that he calls soppy garbage. He can’t stand talent shows anyway, but even shows where he might have liked the challenges that the contestants are set, he says are spoiled by all the gushiness surrounding the back-stories. So, he leaves me and the girls to it, though even we’ve become more picky in the last couple of years. We like Strictly, mainly for the outfits, and we’ve stuck with X-Factor largely because of the back-stories, but we no longer bother with the others.

“Yes! It is very much compulsory!” I told him. “Gemma’s on it, so it’s really important to Maddie and Lissie,” I pointed out, “and to me!”

“Hmmm” he replied, in a very non-committal manner.

“I know how fond Gemma was of you,” I informed him. “Probably still is, if the truth is known, so the least you can do is watch her big moment!”

“Okay, I’ll watch it” he sighed, resigned to losing the argument. He reached over and gave me a squeeze. “You could make it worth my while tonight, you know, Emma!” he suggested, with a naughty twinkle in his eye.

Although he has developed a little middle-aged spread, and his hair is flecked with grey, in my eyes he is still every bit as handsome as the day I first clapped eyes on him, at a restaurant where I was helping my best friend celebrate her 21st birthday. His friendly round face, warm brown eyes, and disarming smile had made it easy for him to win my heart, and none of those things had changed in the intervening years; in fact, if anything, age had improved his best features!

“I might just do that!” I flirted. “If you’re a good boy!” I turned my head as I sensed him leaning in, and we shared a tender kiss. A kiss that was interrupted by a slightly-embarrassed seventeen-year-old.

“It’s nearly time … oh!” Maddie began, catching us in our moment of loving tenderness.

We didn’t break the kiss immediately, both because we were enjoying the moment and also to satisfy a naughty desire to further increase Maddie’s awkwardness! After lingering slightly too long for her comfort, our lips parted, and I looked up at her staring into space, hands on hips, waiting impatiently.

“Yes, Maddie, you were saying?” I prompted her.

“The TV show’s going to start in 5 minutes!” she told us. “You need to come in!”

“Okay, we’ll be right in!” I promised her, and poked Phil, to get him moving. He didn’t respond, showing no desire whatsoever to get out of his seat.

“Come on, Dad!” Maddie urged, pulling on his arms to encourage him to get up. “You’re watching it, too!”

“What’s this show called then?” he asked, as he playfully resisted her tugging.

“Britain’s Most Daring! It’s going to be brilliant!”

[Bea]

Very excited to read on! I'm guessing the characters are in the North based on the dialects?

[alli55]

Maddie goes back in, and, after Phil’s finished putting the garden chairs back in the shed, we follow suit. As we head for the living room, two hands place themselves on my bum, and I feel them give it a gentle squeeze.

“What did I do right, to end up with a cracker like you?!” Phil murmurs in my ear.

“Don’t you remember?” I tease.

He chuckles, and replies, “I thought that came after!”

“You naughty man!” I reproach him, playfully. We enter the living room, where Lissie is sprawled across the floor, her head supported by her hands which are resting on a pillow she’s brought down from upstairs. Maddie sits in ‘her’ chair, as Phil and I plop ourselves down on the sofa. I look down and can see Lissie’s foot wiggling frantically. It’s the giveaway sign that tells me she really is super-excited!

I move a little closer to Phil, as we sit together, waiting for the start of Gemma’s TV show, wishing to continue the closeness we had been sharing before Maddie dragged us in from the garden. He responds when I snuggle against him, placing his arm around my back and giving my side a gentle squeeze. I notice Maddie roll her eyes as she spots us cuddling. Lissie is too focussed on the TV screen to take interest in anything else, her foot still wiggling away! Maddie returns her attention to the TV, as I place my hand in Phil’s.

“Seriously, Emma,” he whispers, “how is it that I’m going flabby and grey, and you’re still as drop-dead gorgeous as you were when we were going out together?”

“Because I’m careful about what I eat, and I actually go out and take a walk at lunchtime, unlike some people I know!” I tell him. Which is all true; but I think, really, I’ve just got lucky in life’s gene lottery, and held onto the lovely honey-brown hue of my hair longer than maybe I should have, by rights! The diet and exercise help keep me slimmer than I would otherwise be, and also keep Phil’s favourite part of me firm and peachy!

He is about to comment but is interrupted when our attention is grabbed by the continuity announcer’s voice.

“And now, on Channel 4, I dare you to watch our brand-new show for the audacious at heart, Britain’s Most Daring. Viewers of a nervous disposition, well, just hold tight!”

The opening titles for Channel 4’s new edgy gameshow flash across the screen, promising hints of what might be to come. As the titles end and the music fades, the two presenters step forward. Typically of Channel 4, the show is being fronted by two TV newcomers, plucked from obscurity to give the show the desired freshness. They are both young, and dressed casually with just a hint of allure, particularly on the part of the female presenter.

She is blonde, blue-eyed, mid-20s, and a little shorter than her male co-host, and would be more so without her heels. She’s wearing a dark sleeveless top and a pencil skirt that sits on her knees. The top has a plunging neckline, that reveals enough skin to indicate that her bust is in proportion with her slim figure. She has a large mole on her upper right arm that, unusually, the show’s make-up people haven’t tried to cover up. Her legs are shapely, and her lightly-freckled face is framed by her shoulder-length hair and filled by a broad smile.

Beside her stands a slim man, about the same age, with tousled dark hair and a well-tanned face. He is toned but shows no noticeable muscles either on his torso or his arms. His eyes are quite deep-set, but sparkle as he smiles, their slight green colour giving him a distinctive appearance. He is clean-shaven, having rejected the current trend for facial hair, a decision that, on reflection, probably fits his face’s shape better than a beard would have done. He is wearing a cream-coloured polo shirt and slightly-worn skinny jeans. It’s a look that suits the edginess of the show well, which, undoubtedly, is why the costume manager chose it for him.

Again, with it being a Channel 4 show, the long-standing, unwritten TV rule about how a male-female host-pairing works best is deliberately being broken. On this show, the woman is the lead presenter. Both she and her co-host appear slightly nervous, which is understandable given that this is their first appearance on national TV. But they have both been through a rigorous selection procedure and have shown themselves to be more than capable of hosting the show together.

“Hello, …” she begins, “… hello, …”. Three times she starts her sentence, but each time has to pause whilst the audience continue to applaud enthusiastically. As the cheering and clapping finally die down, she is able to carry on.

“Hello …, and welcome to Britain’s Most Daring, with me Trixie Stonehill, …”

“… And me, Joe Denecker,” her co-host says. It is immediately very obvious that he hails from Newcastle-upon-Tyne or somewhere close-by.

“Have we heard of him?” I ask. “He’s obviously from round here!”

“Ssshhh!” instructs Lissie.

“This is the show where we challenge people to go past their limits and do things they wouldn’t normally dream of, as we attempt to find the person who is Britain’s Most Daring,” Trixie enthuses. Her voice gives little away as to which part of the UK she hails from, with her perfectly presentable and pleasant-sounding standard English verbalisation contrasting well with Joe’s broad Geordie accent.

“It’s the show that does what it says on the tin!” quips Joe.

Trixie continues to introduce the show’s concept to the watching public. “Each week our daredevils will be given a new dare to complete, and failure is not an option if they want to be crowned Britain’s Most Daring! Is it Joe?”

“It most certainly isn’t!” Joe agrees. “On this show, if you flop you’re dropped!”

“That’s right,” explains Trixie, “every week we’ll say goodbye to the person who least impresses with their dare attempt until we whittle it all the way down to the last one standing: Britain’s Most Daring.”

The script has clearly been written to imprint the show’s title onto the viewers’ minds at the earliest opportunity.

“We wanted to give you, the great British public, every possible chance to take up our challenge and be hailed Britain’s Most Daring,” Trixie continues, “so we took our team out and about across the length and breadth of these isles to let you come and show us how daring you were.”

She turns her head to Joe as he takes up the story. “Yes, we divided the country into 10 regions, and held auditions in each region. Each of wor regional winners will take their place on these chairs right here.” He indicates to three rows of chairs. Puzzlingly, there are five chairs in each row.

“Now,” Trixie takes over once more, “the more observant of you may well have noticed that there are more than 10 chairs! That’s because, as well as our regional winners, we have our 5 ‘wonderful wildcards’. These are five people, who aren’t regional winners, but who we wanted to join us on the show anyway, because we were so wowed by their performance and personality.”

“They’re like wor own ‘w.w.w.’,” Joe adds, “wor ‘wonderful wildcard wowwers’!” It is already clear that Joe is going to be providing the show’s comedy element, as he is coming across as the cheeky-chappie type, whilst Trixie appears to be taking things a little more seriously.

Trixie gives just the hint of a smirk, before moving on. “So, let’s get going on our very own Tour of Britain! Where are we heading first, Joe?”

“We’re off to the North-West, home of the mad Mancunians and loopy Liverpudlians!” he tells her and the viewers. “We should be able to find plenty of people crazy enough to try wor dares in that neck of woods! Let’s go over to Lisa and find out!”

A buxom blonde, another twenty-something, with a round face, appears on the screen, standing outside a warehouse-type building that is obviously the venue for the North-West regional auditions. She’s wearing a figure-hugging light-blue roll-neck jumper and skinny jeans, and has her long hair tied back in a tight ponytail. A queue of wannabe daredevils snakes away from the doors just behind her.

“Hello, and welcome to Manchester, or as we prefer it, Madchester!” Lisa begins. On cue the wannabes cheer wildly, throwing their arms in the air and leaping about. “As you can see, they’re very much up for it, so let’s go inside!” Lisa continues, over the background noise. It is pleasing to note that, judging by her accent, the producers have picked a local Manchester lass to preside over the auditions in her city.

The scene changes to the entrance lobby of the building. Lisa speaks into camera once more.

“Before we let them in properly, we’ve given them a test of nerve!” she explains. “Our very own Ice Bucket Challenge. Obviously, they didn’t know anything about this beforehand, so they haven’t come prepared! Only those who are willing to get a soaking will be allowed in!”

There follows a montage of people being drenched with buckets of ice-cold water, interspersed with the occasional one refusing and walking away. The reactions of the victims vary, but shrieks from the women and gasps from the men are most common as the iciness hits them. One man dramatically overreacts when the freezing water soaks him, running around in circles like a complete maniac, crying, “Oh my God! Oh my God! So cold!” The montage concludes with a young, dark-haired girl, drenched from head to foot, who looks into the camera and states, “Just a normal day in Manchester!”, grinning from ear to ear.

“Once they were in, we gave them a cosy bath-robe each and sent them off to the changing rooms,” Lisa reveals, when the montage ends. “We’re not completely heartless, you know!”

The scene changes again, as we move into a large hall with rows of tables and chairs.

“Well, they’ve dried off, so it’s time for some lunch! And what better way to warm up than with a traditional Lancashire Hotpot!” Lisa pauses and grins at the camera. “Only we didn’t have time to cook it! So, it’s more like a Lancashire Not-Hotpot!”

Another montage follows as the wannabes attempt to eat the mess confronting them on their plates. The pieces of raw carrot aren’t a problem, if you ignore the suspicious dark-red streaks running through them, and the bits of raw turnip are manageable as well. But the uncooked slices of potato prove to be a divider, with a surprisingly large number of would-be daredevils unable to face eating them. The main problem, however, is with the lumps of raw meat. Traditionally mutton was used in a hotpot, though nowadays it is more usually lamb. But exactly what animal the meat has come from is the least of their worries; they are more concerned with the blood that oozes out when any pressure is applied. Several simply get up and walk away, whilst others nervously poke and prod at the lumps. A few begin nibbling, and we see one man simply open his mouth and stuff one straight in.

“Eeuurgghh! That’s disgusting!” exclaims Lissie. “How can he eat that?!”

As the montage comes to an end, there are clearly a few who have eaten at least a fair part of the dish, including several lumps of meat, but the final shot shows that one man, the one we saw stuffing meat in his mouth earlier, appears to be the only one to have emptied his plate.

Lisa re-appears on-screen, in close-up, and announces, “When the time was up, the judges measured how much everyone had eaten, and we had a clear winner!”

The shot widens to reveal the man that we’re all expecting to have won standing next to Lisa, who he towers over, being well over 6 feet tall.

“Matt, well done,” she says to him, “you are our North-West Dare Champion!”

Back in the studio, Trixie takes up the introductions, saying, “Here he is, 27-year-old labourer from Bolton, Matt, our North-West regional winner!”

Matt enters to the sound of applause from the audience, and joins Trixie and Joe for a very brief interview. He has the typical appearance of someone who works outdoors all year round: he is tanned, and his face is slightly weather-beaten, underneath his designer stubble. His short-sleeved shirt allows us to see that he has prominent muscles on his upper arms.

“So, Matt,” Joe enquires, “how did you enjoy your Not-Hotpot?”

“It wasn’t the nicest thing I’ve ever had!” admits Matt. “But after 4 years of my missus’ cooking, I’ll pretty much eat anything!”

That’s brave of Matt, to come up with a one-liner like that straight away! He may just have alienated the female half of the audience!

“Are you looking forward to being on the show?” Joe asks him, ignoring the fact that the question is pointless: if Matt wasn’t looking forward to it, why on earth had we auditioned for it?!

“Yeah,” Matt tells him, “it’s going to be a real crack! I can’t wait to get going!”

“Well, Matt,” Trixie says to him, pointing him in the direction of the chairs, “if you’d like to go and take your seat over there.” Addressing the audience, she adds, “Everybody, … Matt!” The audience applaud wildly once more.

“So,” Trixie continues, “we’ve got our first regional winner. Join us after the break as we continue roaming the country for Britain’s Most Daring!”

As the adverts begin, I look at Phil to try to gauge his reaction to what he’s seen, but even 21 years of marriage doesn’t help me read his expressionless features.

[Bea]

Loving how realistic this is. Could totally picture a show like this on Channel 4, you’ve got the bad one-liners down to the tee.

[Curtis]

You had warned us that this was coming, so I can hardly claim surprise, but you happened to launch this just as I was beginning a renovation in our front bedroom, so I was away from keyboard for three and a half weeks. Back now, but it'll take me a while to get caught up. I finished the first Weekly Update installment and decided that was a good place to break for now. Thank you for this:

Originally Posted by alli55

As before, if you want a sex-fest, then don't bother reading this. Curtis, if you're reading this, in this story there really is no sex at all!

I much appreciate the warning! Some notes from the first week:
a) I see you've resolved the font issue. I like your use of color, and you've got the bold type down to perfection.
b) I have had to look up a few words; 'wor' bothers me quite a bit, for no good reason, and I admit to some surprise at discovering that 'yokel' means the same thing there that it does here! I didn't bother with the food dishes, as you explained them quite well in the text. It's amazing how different foods bother different people. The vegetables would've given me the most difficulty, whilst uncooked bacon isn't bad at all. My father used to eat (really drink) raw eggs, so I don't think I'd've failed at that… or the raw dough, but most of those dishes would've sent me packing. I'm not the least bit daring.
c) I find the most pleasant British accent to be what we call 'the BBC accent'. I read once that Britain has fifty recognizable accents. Of those, I only find half a dozen to be really intelligible. I have an uncle who's from (I think) Seaford (Lewes district, East Sussex), and I have no difficulty understanding him, but that might be from force of long habit. When I watch a movie with regional accents, such as "Gosford Park", I have to rewind and start again half an hour in, as it takes my ear that long to begin comprehending what's being said. I found that to be true even when watching the movie for the third time in a year.

You've done a wonderful job of evoking the feeling I get when listening to other people discussing these unscripted shows. I can't speak from experience as nobody in my family watches them, and we don't understand what the attraction is supposed to be, but you seem to really have this down… and I can see why it's going to take you months to reach the end of the show's season, though I doubt you'll let reaching the end stop you from continuing the story!

Well, enjoy yourself. I'll read a bit more tomorrow and in a few days, but can't promise I'll stick with it, as (as you anticipated) the subject matter doesn't appeal to me. Still, you've done a good job with it through post #13.

[alli55]

Hope the renovations [are going]/[went]* well! Unfortunate timing, since, once you've got behind with this story there's an awful lot of catching up to do!

*delete as appropriate

and I can see why it's going to take you months to reach the end of the show's season, though I doubt you'll let reaching the end stop you from continuing the story!

Haha! Actually, this story ends at precisely the point that the final episode ends!!

Well, enjoy yourself. I'll read a bit more tomorrow and in a few days, but can't promise I'll stick with it, as (as you anticipated) the subject matter doesn't appeal to me.

If you do keep going, you might be pleasantly surprised. That's one of the things I've most enjoyed about this story being broken into episodes like it is: each episode is similar-yet-different (very different in some cases!), which has made it a lot of fun to write!

So why not stick with it ... go on, I dare you!!

[alli55]

For the first time since it began, Britain’s Most Daring was the centre of positive media attention, thanks to the BMD Northern Singers’ performance at the Heads Together concert. Phil’s Sunday paper had a very complimentary review of the concert in its Arts section, including a paragraph praising the choir’s contribution, and had a lovely picture of Gemma and company on stage. It also ran the story in the main part of the newspaper, under the headline ‘TV dare show choir wow royals at charity concert’, and accompanied the article with two pictures: another one of the choir performing, and, much more interestingly, a picture of them being introduced to the young royals backstage, in which Gemma appeared to be talking to Prince Harry! As soon as she was shown the picture, Maddie went to the online version of the newspaper, found the picture, downloaded it onto her phone, and sent it to Stacie. Lissie insisted that Maddie sent it to her as well; once she’d received it, she posted it to all the WhatsApp groups she belongs to!

The warble of Maddie’s phone brought us news that made us switch on the TV on a Sunday morning for the first time ever. Stacie’s text, as well as thanking Maddie profusely for sending the picture, which Stacie didn’t know anything about, told us that Gemma and the others were guests on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. Although Tim Lovejoy is not someone I would choose to watch on a regular basis, the fact that Gemma was on kept me and the girls glued to the screen for the whole three hours! The five daredevils tried their hand at cooking with Simon, the show’s chef, though I’m not sure I’d want to eat Peanut Butter & Jelly Pie and, judging by the look on her face when she tried it, nor will Gemma want to eat any ever again! In a series of short interviews, Tim chatted to Gemma, Eilidh, Ayla, Matt, and Tommy, mainly about being on Britain’s Most Daring and taking part in the Heads Together concert. Lissie got her second mention on national television, when Tim asked Gemma to “tell us about the inspiration behind your amazing rendition of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’”. Our youngest daughter was, once again, beside herself with excitement. After each picking a song for the Sunday Brunch Playlist – Gemma chose ‘Symphony’ by Clean Bandit and Zara Larsson – the five were asked what they were up to this week. It was a passable attempt by Tim to get them to reveal what their latest dare involved, but none of them were falling for it. As 12:30 approached, the show ended with the BMD Northern Singers performing ‘Stand By Me’ live in the Sunday Brunch studio.

The next day, the tabloids all featured the choir prominently, as they each reported on the success of the dare and the popularity of the download of their performance. Needless to say, the girls downloaded it straight after last week’s show; I went out and bought three CDs on Monday, partly because I don’t do downloads, preferring to have something physical to keep permanently, but also because the cover of the CD featured a lovely picture from the concert with Gemma looking really pretty. One copy was for me, and I gave one to each of the girls as well. If I needed any further justification for my indulgence, I reminded myself that all the money raised was going to an extremely good cause.

As the week went on, so each newspaper went looking for a different scoop relating to one or other of the daredevils. Gemma’s childhood trauma, which she had mentioned at the concert, was, of course, of great interest to the tabloid press. It didn’t take long for them to track us down, and we were inundated with emails and phone-calls asking for our story, with each paper trying to outbid the other to get an exclusive interview. Phil and I talked about it, and we decided to politely decline all offers of interviews and stories. If Gemma wanted to talk to the press about it, that was up to her; but we didn’t think the intrusion would be good for us as a family, and we especially didn’t want Maddie to get distracted from preparing for her ‘A’ Levels. I made a particular point of warning the tabloids against going after ‘little Lissie’. Stacie and her Mam were getting even more attention, so much so that on Tuesday Stacie got a text from her Mam telling her to go to her Auntie Clare’s after school instead of coming home. Stacie stayed with her Auntie for the rest of the school week, as her Mam tried to fend off the hacks. I phoned Justine and offered our spare room for her and/or Gemma, in case either of them wanted to escape from the siege outside their house, but they didn’t take up the offer.

Fortunately for us, but tragically for those caught up in it, a terrorist atrocity in London took Britain’s Most Daring off the news agenda on Thursday, and things calmed down after that, at least for us. Not, though, for Lissie.

Following last weekend’s show, Lissie was very much in demand at school! All her classmates and schoolfriends, and plenty of other pupils who only vaguely knew her, wanted a piece of her. At first she really enjoyed the attention, but as the week dragged on she was getting fed up of being ‘little Lissie off the telly’. Her closest friends, once they’d had their curiosity sated, let the subject drop and just treated her as the same old Lissie they already knew and liked. But the hangers-on just kept coming. So much so that, on Saturday afternoon, when she and Rayna had been planning to go to the leisure centre together, Lissie didn’t want to leave the house. So, instead, Rayna came round and the two of them chilled out together and forgot all about Britain’s Most Daring, if only for a few hours.

Maddie’s opportunities to see Gemma were severely limited by schoolwork and the fact that Stacie was staying at her Auntie’s. She did learn, from Stacie, that Gemma was back at work, but that she was out most evenings doing stuff for this week’s dare. Stacie, though, didn’t know what the dare was; at least, not until Thursday teatime. After that, we all had a pretty good idea of what she was up to, as did almost everyone on social media, thanks to a tweet that went viral. ‘OMG! Just been photobombed by Gemma off of @BritainsMostDaring’ read the tweet, which was accompanied by a picture of Gemma, arms aloft, standing behind two young women, one of whom, presumably, was the tweeter.

Maddie spent Saturday putting the final touches to her revision plan. With ‘A’ levels coming up, she knows that her social life will have to be put on hold for the next six weeks or so. She’s conscientious enough to be trusted to do this, and she’s determined to get the grades she needs to go to Uni in September, so we just give her any encouragement she requires as and when she seeks it.

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by alli55

Hope the renovations [are going]/[went]* well! Unfortunate timing, since, once you've got behind with this story there's an awful lot of catching up to do!

*delete as appropriate

I can't delete, as they're both appropriate! My part in them is done, but we need to get someone in to hook up the ceiling fan — either a professional electrician for $90 or the prospective son-in-law of the woman who owns the other half of the house for free. Free is our first choice, but he's devilishly hard to get ahold of, so we may end up springing for it… which would be bad, considering that we went $500 over budget already.

So, I'm through the second weekly update. Notes:

Originally Posted by alli55

Lissie is once again sprawled over the floor with her pillow for comfort! As before, her foot is wiggling away nicely!

This wiggling isn't just cute, it's helping to keep her slim. People who fidget regularly burn 5 to 10 pounds of fat per year, depending on just what they do and how often. I used to wiggle my feet, but gave it up in college, and now I'm sorry I did!

Originally Posted by alli55

… Each time we see Ayla, however, at least in the first half of the montage, she is at home practising her American accent.

From a later part of that paragraph we learn that by "American accent" Ayla really means 'General American' accent, as that's the one used by most actors. I mentioned the fifty distinguishable British accents last post, so I Googled 'number of American accents' and came up with one site (dialect blog) that lists a dozen, two of which are Canadian, whilst the Washington Post counts two dozen just in the U.S. Wikipedia agrees with dialect blog on major dialects, but also counts twelve minor variations in the U.S. and eight in Canada.

According to dialect blog I speak General American, but according to the Post I'm in the Inland Northern region. (Wikipedia has us outside all defined regions, specifically in a dead zone between Inland North and Western New England. It also says that General American got its start as Inland North, but IN has veered away from it over time. I find this all fascinating.) Supposedly we say 'fried cake' instead of 'doughnut' here, and pronounce 'roof' and 'creek' as 'ruff' and 'crick'. We do not.

Oh, and what I called 'the BBC accent' is apparently officialy termed 'Received Pronunciation'.

Originally Posted by alli55

… We see Tariq hanging around a series of hard-surface football pitches in various parts of London. He has decided to use his footballing skills to pass himself off as an up-and-coming player at top local professional club, Queens Park Rangers. He’s a keen QPR fan, so he knows enough about the club to convince the kids who are having a kickabout with him.

This could actually work, and goes along with the woman who convinced the 8 and 9 year olds that she was a children's illustrator. Children that age can be quite easily taken in. Certainly I was! Back when I was eight-and-a-half I met a couple of fellows on the (american) football field across the street from our house, and they had no difficulty convincing me that one of them was Joe Namath. That means nothing to you, but at that time he was as well-known here as David Beckham was a few years ago in England. What should have clued me in was that he was kicking field goals (and doing it very well), which would not have been in Joe Namath's skill set — he being a quarterback rather than a placekicker.

Originally Posted by alli55

Joe is able to shed some light on Tariq’s low score from Dan. “Unfortunately, Tariq,” he says, “you chose the wrong team! DAPA Dan’s a Chelsea fan, so QPR was never going to cut it with him!

My uncle is 'Chelsea for life', which apparently is an actual thing over there. He's followed the team since 1940, but has very little knowledge of non-Chelsea football. This mirrors my situation with the New York Mets. People assume I'm a baseball fan because I'm religious about the Mets, but I know almost nothing about any other teams… except that I hate the Yankees! (We have a real City vs. United rivalry going over here.)

Well, I'll finish through episode three tomorrow, then I'm off for a few days. Good luck!

EDIT: A fun little thing to try. I'm interested to see where a Brit would be placed. It did a good job of placing me. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-quiz-map.html

[alli55]

Thanks Curtis! I'll try the fun thing and see where it places me!

I see you edited the post and, really disappointingly, you did so before I had a chance to see the whore joke you were concerned about. I'm now intrigued to know exactly what you put; presumably it was a dig at Joe's use of "wor" instead of "our". This, I can assure you, is a very common Geordie thing! Please feel free to reinstate the joke, I won't (and wouldn't) have been the least bit offended by it!

[alli55]

As the time ticks closer to 8 o’clock, we are starting to gather in the living room, ready for our Saturday evening in front of the telly, catching up with Gemma’s latest exploits. Lissie comes down, with Rayna in tow.

“Mam,” she asks, “can Rayna stay and watch Britain’s Most Daring with us, please?”

“Has she asked her Mam if she can?” I enquire, conscious of the fact that it doesn’t finish till half-past nine.

“Yeah,” Lissie answers, “she said she’ll come and pick her up afterwards.”

“Okay, that’s fine!” I tell her. “Would you two like to sit on the sofa?”

“No, you’re okay,” she says, and disappears.

While she’s gone, Rayna thanks us for letting her watch the show with us. “My Mam doesn’t like it, so I have to watch it on my own on the small telly in my bedroom,” she explains.

Lissie’s soon back, with two pillows and her sleeping bag. She unzips it and spreads it out on the floor, and the two of them lay on top, side by side, heads propped up by elbows that are resting on the pillows.

It’s not long before the announcer alerts us to the start of the programme.

“Next on Channel 4, it’s the show that everyone’s talking about, Britain’s Most Daring. See what I mean? Even I’m talking about it!”

The familiar theme music accompanies the opening titles, which have, as always, been revamped to include clips from last week’s show. As they come to an end, and the applause begins, the usual fade-to-black occurs, and the caption, written in white lettering, appears once more: ‘Last week on Britain’s Most Daring …”

This week’s montage isn’t the usual rapid-fire mix of short clips that challenges the eye to keep up. This time we have three longer clips, one from each of last week’s group dares. We see first Keenan and Tariq, then Shanumi and James, encouraging sections of the Wembley crowd to out-chant each other; this is followed by Jaz singing ‘One Moment In Time’, accompanied by Mia on her keyboard, whilst Bradley, Dylan, and Lowri mingle with an enthusiastic crowd at Bristol Harbourside; and then we see last week’s crowning glory, Gemma singing ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ with Eilidh, Ayla, and Tommy backing her, and Matt adding some bluebird whistles. The last of these clips continues right to the emotional end to Gemma’s song, before the screen fades to black once more as a red number 13 appears. Behind the 13 we see a clip of Tariq being kissed on the cheek and patted on the backside by Aleksandra, before turning and exiting the show. As he does so, the 3 changes to a 2, before the screen fades to black again, and the number 12 follows suit.

Another rapturous round of applause accompanies the appearance on our screens of the show’s two main presenters. Joe, we see, has returned to his more familiar combination of slightly-worn skinny jeans and a t-shirt, which, this week, is a vivid purple colour. Trixie has on a lemon-coloured dress, sleeveless, as is usual for her, which billows out from her hips every time she moves, before falling back to rest midway down her thighs.

“Thank-you,” she says as the applause starts to end, “and welcome to Britain’s Most Daring, with me, Trixie Stonehill, …”

“… and me, Joe Denecker,” comes the familiar first line from Joe.

“After last week’s amazing Musical Extravaganza, we have so much to tell you!” Trixie informs us.

“Yes, we do!” confirms Joe. “As you may already know, the CD and download of last week’s performance by the BMD Northern Singers has only gone and made Number 1 on this week’s charts!” There is enthusiastic cheering, whistling and screaming from the audience.

“And,” Trixie continues, “I can exclusively announce that, so far, it has raised over half-a-million pounds for Heads Together!” Another raucous response from the audience greets this news.

“We had such a great time last week!” Joe recalls. “But, sadly, we also had to say goodbye to Tariq. His departure leaves us with a dozen daredevils doing dares … er … delightfully!” he adds, trying to make his alliteration go on as long as possible.

Trixie shakes her head slowly and rolls her eyes. “As always, at the end of tonight’s show we’ll be losing someone else, because, on this show, Joe …”

“… if you flop you’re dropped!”

“Exactly!”

“When we finally persuaded Lowri to stop partying last week,” Joe informs us, “the remaining daredevils were given their next dare. Let’s see what happened!”

We see the 12 daredevils, sat in their seats once more, with the glammed-up Trixie and Joe-in-a-tuxedo standing alongside. Each daredevil is holding an envelope.

“This week,” the glammed-up Trixie reveals, “there are two different dares, ‘A’ and ‘B’. Can you all open your envelopes and reveal which dare you’ve randomly picked!” The envelopes are opened to reveal 6 ‘A’s and 6 ‘B’s.

As always, we look immediately at Gemma to see which letter she’s holding. It’s ‘A’ this time.

“Okay,” says Joe-in-a-tuxedo, “to explain what the two dares are, here’s the woman that can make the telephone directory sound sexy, wor very own Dare Deliverer!”

“Hello again, my little daredevils!” the voice begins. “This week, I want you to meet some more new people, and have the meeting recorded with a nice little picture! If you have Dare ‘A’, you must photobomb as many strangers’ pictures as you can, and please try to be as creative as possible! Those of you who chose Dare ‘B’, I dare you to get as many selfies with strangers as you can, without telling them who you are or why you’re asking! Good luck, and be daring!”

“Photobombing!” exclaims Lissie. “You were right, Maddie!”

“Yep! That tweet made it pretty obvious!” her sister remarks.

Live in the studio, Trixie says, “As always, the daredevils have had all week to get their dares done.”

“So, if you’ve been photobombed by some maniac this week,” Joe warns, “you might well see yourself on TV in the next hour or so!”

“Right,” Trixie says, “let’s see how they got on, shall we?!”

“Just before we do,” Joe interrupts, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to do!”

Trixie watches as Joe heads over to the DAPAs. He stands between them and pulls them closer in to him. Putting an arm around Danielle’s waist, he pulls out his phone and snaps a selfie. His mission accomplished, he returns to Trixie’s side.

“You quite finished now?” she enquires.

“Uh-huh,” he tells her, showing her the picture on his phone.

“What are we going to do with you?” she asks, rhetorically.

We see the DAPAs looking mystified, as Danielle offers a shrug of her shoulders in response to Trixie’s unanswerable question.

“Right,” says Joe, “let’s crack on! Who are we going to see first, Trix?”

“First up,” she tells him, “let’s go over to Richie and find out how Jaz’s dare went!”

Richie, in his standard tatty jacket and jeans, is sat on one end of a see-saw. It is at its lowest point, meaning his knees are almost banging into his chin. The camera pans up and along to the other end of the see-saw, where we see Jaz, her legs dangling in mid-air, looking down at us. As the interview progresses, the camera gradually pans up until, by the end, Jaz fills the bottom half of the screen.

“So, Jaz,” we hear Richie say, “you’ve got to go selfie-hunting. Have you had any thoughts about how you might do that?”

“Yes,” Jaz replies, “I thought I might hit the Bullring and just pester people!”

“Great! Shall we go then?”

Jaz looks alarmed. “Don’t just get off! You’ve got to let me down gently!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” we hear him tell her, “I’ve never been any good at doing that!”

Jaz suddenly disappears off the bottom of the screen, with a squeal.

Richie provides the voiceover for a montage of clips showing Jaz doing just what she told us she would: pestering people for a selfie at the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham.

“True to her word, Jaz is wandering the Bullring looking for selfies from anyone who happens to be coming the other way!” he tells us. “But she’s not having much luck!”

We see a succession of people either refuse her request or, more frequently, move across to avoid her altogether. A mother, with two children in tow, gives Jaz a rather unfriendly glare, which Jaz ignores; the older girl says something to her mother, who shakes her head and increases her pace, forcing the two kids to half-run half-walk to keep up.

“Eventually, her persistence starts to pay off,” Richie says, as we see Jaz getting selfies from a young woman, a middle-aged man, and a middle-aged woman. “But, her antics attract unwanted attention!”

As Jaz asks another young woman for a selfie, we see two security guards approaching her from behind. One of them grabs her arm and manhandles her away from the other woman.

“What exactly are you doing?” the other asks.

“I was just talking with her,” says Jaz, trying to shake her arm loose from the guard’s grip.

“Don’t come the little innocent with me,” he tells her, “we’ve been watching you on CCTV, and you’re causing a nuisance!”

“Can you let go of my arm, please?” she asks. “You’re hurting me!”

If he loosens his grip, it’s not by much, and he certainly seems to have no intention of letting go, presumably in case she decides to leg it!

“You need to come with us, while we decide what to do with you!” the one doing all the talking informs her.

“I told you,” she repeats, raising her voice, “let go of me!”

A young man, in jacket and trousers, stops, his attention grabbed by the commotion. “What’s going on?” he asks the guards.

“It’s nothing to do with you! Move on, please!” the guard orders.

“They’re hurting me!” Jaz tells him.

“I think you should let go of her!” he calmly suggests. “Two burly blokes like you don’t need to be using that sort of force on a young woman!”

“I told you, it’s nothing to do with you,” the security guard repeats.

The man takes out a pen and finds a scrap of paper in one of his pockets. “I’m making a note of your ID!” he informs the guards. “And I will be making a complaint to your company if you don’t let go of her!” Reluctantly, the guard releases Jaz’s arm. “Thank you! Now, what say I accompany the young lady to her car, and that removes your problem for you, and we say no more about it?”

He turns, allowing us to see the front of him for the first time, and we notice that he is wearing a dog collar. He’s a vicar! No wonder the guards were reluctant to pick an argument with him!

The vicar puts a hand on Jaz’s back and gives her a little push-start, and they walk off, leaving the guards to wander away, muttering to each other.

“Thank you, vicar,” she says to him, after they have walked for a moment.

“Tom,” he tells her.

“Jaz,” she responds.

“Well, Jaz, I don’t know what you did to upset them, but you look like you could do with a coffee! Shall we?!” Jaz agrees, and we see the two of them sitting at a table, chatting as they drink.

“Not one to waste an opportunity,” Richie says, “Jaz manages to grab one last selfie!” The montage ends with a shot of Jaz getting a selfie with Tom the vicar!

Returning to the studio, we find Trixie and Joe have been joined by Jaz.

“So, Jaz,” remarks Trixie, “right from the start that looked like a bit of a struggle!”

“Yeah, it was!” she agrees. “People just don’t want to be interrupted when they’re out shopping! They were all like, ‘leave me alone’, ‘stop bothering me’. I thought I’d get more people than I did! It was quite disappointing, really!”

“And then you had the run-in with the security guards …!” Joe says, leaving a pause for Jaz to fill.

“Yeah, they were really nasty! I don’t know what their problem was! But luckily Tom rescued me!”

“Yes,” Trixie interrupts, “I was going to ask about that! How did you feel when he stepped in?”

“I saw straight away that he was a vicar, so I thought, well, vicars are supposed to be nice, aren’t they?! So, I just kind of let him talk to them. And then he just sort of took control, and, because he was a vicar, I decided I could trust him, so, yeah!”

“And you even got a selfie with him!” Joe remarks.

“Yeah, he was really sweet about that!” Jaz says.

“Well, we saw how tough it was, but let’s find out how wor DAPAs rate your effort!” Joe says. “D ’n’ D, what’s it to be?”

The DAPAs are not terribly impressed, with Dan awarding 5 points and Danielle only 4. Jaz’s total of 9 points means she is at risk of ending up in the Dare-Off.

“Yeah,” she admits, when asked by Joe, “I thought it might be quite a low score. Maybe I’ll be alright if some of the others found it hard as well!”

“And we’ll find out if they did, in part 2,” Trixie informs us. “Join us after the break for more Britain’s Most Daring!”

“What would you do if someone came up to you and asked for a selfie?” Lissie asks Rayna.

“Probably run away!” her friend replies.

“But they wouldn’t ask you,” Maddie points out, “because you’re obviously a child.”

“What d’you mean?” Lissie asks her sister.

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by alli55

I see you edited the post and, really disappointingly, you did so before I had a chance to see the whore joke you were concerned about. I'm now intrigued to know exactly what you put; presumably it was a dig at Joe's use of "wor" instead of "our". This, I can assure you, is a very common Geordie thing! Please feel free to reinstate the joke, I won't (and wouldn't) have been the least bit offended by it!

The e-mail notifications I receive from getDare when posts are made to threads in which I've posted include the full unedited text of that post, so in the future you could try looking there first. This time I'll give it to you, but don't expect much, as it didn't sound as funny whilst well-rested at 2pm as it had at 7am on no sleep: "Supposedly we say 'fried cake' instead of 'doughnut' here, and pronounce 'roof' and 'creek' as 'ruff' and 'crick'. We do not. We do, however, avoid whores who say 'wor'." See? Not really worth asking after.

I'm not totally unfamiliar with the use of 'innit'; it's a word commonly used by John Constantine, a Cockney wizard from DC Comics. He, however, uses it specifically to replace 'isn't it?' whilst you use it in this week alone in place of 'couldn't you?' (once), 'haven't I?' (twice) and 'aren't I?' (twice). Is it really that versatile where you live?

Dan catching the blown kiss is simply too precious by half. I've only ever seen that done in movies, and then it was always to put the point across to the audience that the couple involved were ridiculously gaga about each other.

Dylan's 15 in week three is probably too high. I agree with Danielle that it's only worth 6, because everything done to him had zero permanence… and I see Phil agrees with us!

Generally the DAPAs have done an excellent job of scoring, especially considering that they don’t know what’s coming next. I’d’ve had them along on the dares and tabulating as they went, then just revealing their scores on the show. So far I’ve only seen one score in each episode I disagreed with — each time too high… and now I think they were a touch low on Special K; I'd've given him 10 total (5 each), possibly because he's how I would've likely ended up.

Originally Posted by alli55

“… Shanice is giving Matt a Mohican.

I had to laugh at this. Being from the region where this hairstyle originated more than four hundred years ago, I can authoritatively state that it's a Mohawk, not a Mohican. Both are tribes (nations) of native American Indians, the names are similar and they both own big resort casinos today, but it's like calling an Englishman an Irishman.

Mohawks are part of the Iroquois Confederation whilst Mohicans are Algonquin Indians, the distinction being language family… and the fact that over a couple of centuries the Iroquois wiped out eight Algonquin tribes. One of the tribes that was destroyed was the Mohican.

This might beg the question of how a non-existant tribe now owns one of the largest resort casinos on the east coast. In the U.S. each tribe sets its own qualifying standards for membership. The most restrictive require ¼ ancestry from that tribe; the most liberal only 1/64. The Mohicans are among the most liberal, and they're still tiny. Supposedly there are no full- or half-breed Mohicans remaining, and there haven't been for over 250 years.

Originally Posted by alli55

I look at Maddie, who is focussed intently on the TV. Is that just because she’s hooked, or is it to avoid the possibility of any embarrassing eye-contact with one of us at this moment?

Glancing at Lissie, I am somewhat at a loss to know precisely where she is in her emotional development. She, too, appears engrossed in the on-screen action. But I wonder about her awareness of sex and her reaction to its mention.

Maddie glances at me, obviously feeling somewhat awkward at having to share this subject matter with her parents; particularly, I assume, her Dad. I smile reassuringly, but I don’t think it helps.

I look down at Lissie, to see how she is reacting to Trixie’s questions, but I can’t really tell. I assume that, at nearly 13, she does at least know what Trixie is referring to, but a nagging voice in the back of my mind tells me that, maybe, it’s time for an awkward sit-down talk with my younger daughter.

These four paragraphs are wonderfully done. They read like they were written by someone who had been in the position of at least one of the three women.

Based on my experiences in the 1970s, by the age of nearly 13 Lissie has already become sexually aware. It happened to my sister and me when we were VERY young, had spread through half our classmates by sixth grade (ages 11-12) and was universal by eighth grade (ages 13-14). From what I gather by reading Time magazine, children are even more precocious today. By 'aware' I don't mean 'active', but that it was a frequent topic of discussion and curiosity amongst our peers.

Well, that's through the third weekly update. I'll try to get to episode four on Thursday.