Judging Alex - Take One (The Interview That Got Away)

My screams could be heard above the sound of the waves crashing onto South Beach. 

The tears springing from the geysers that used to be eye sockets were producing enough salt water to fill South Beach twice over.

I sobbed, I begged, I grabbed anyone with a badge and poured my heart out.

   

Someone had taken my iPad. One minute’s visit to the rest room at Miami’s Fontainbleau Hotel was all it took for (according to the security cameras) a woman to rummage through my NATPE conference bag and make off with it – apparently telling staff she would return it the next day. She didn’t.

   

But the loss of the iPad is not the worst of it. My travel insurance will cover a replacement – just as it will cover the replacement cost of the Blackberry I had stolen last week. The horror, the horror, to quote Conrad, was what I lost on the iPad: my interview with Judge Alex. 

An interview that has been two years in the making and which filled over two glorious hours of Voice Memo. But thanks to Apple’s new IOS6, voice memos do not get backed up to the iCloud; it’s a bug, apparently, which doesn’t help me one little bit. 

As Voice Memo on the iPhone 5 I use as back-up mysteriously disappeared, I therefore was totally reliant on the iPad. And now have just the 35 minutes I managed to transcribe. It’s still over 4,000 words, at least 3,000 of which are me gushing over the man whose show became addictive viewing for me when I was living in LA; but Judge Alex’s gorgeous laugh has disappeared into the iCloud ether, and I am more than a little upset. 

I feel I have lost a limb. 

The irony is that had I not arranged to meet up with Judge Alex for a farewell drink prior to my returning to the UK, I wouldn’t have been in the very spot from where the bag was taken.

   

So, the interview is going to take a little longer to write than it would have done, and at the moment I am just trying to write down as much as I can remember about Judge Alex, who (for starters):-.

1.              Not only has a great laugh, but very good teeth. Very white. The kind of teeth you wouldn’t mind flossing if there was nothing on the telly.

2.              Has impeccable manners – standing up when I left/returned from the rest room (which, with my tiny bladder, was often; it’s a wonder he wasn’t in traction after all that movement).

3.              Is very funny, very smart and great company – just like the show.

4.              Has been a pilot, a cop and a judge. I like a man in uniform, so this was as if all my Christmases had come at once. I wouldn’t know which I’d want him to wear first, though. Sometimes a girl can have too much choice.

5.              Would really like to be on Dancing with the Stars.

6.              Likes red wine.

7.              Looks like a film star.

8.              In 2008 was voted the most trustworthy face on daytime TV and the second most trusted face of all TV celebrities (beaten by Dr Oz).

9.       Was once billed by People Magazine as one of the “sexiest men alive” (no arguments from me).

10.           Is not going to leave his family and come to live with me in Wales (he can be very mean).

These are just a few bullet points and there will be a lot more to come, once I am over jet-lag, and possibly even more if my iPad ever turns up, or if Apple ever solves what is apparently a big problem with this latest operating system. 

Otherwise, it’s just going to have to be a re-take, your honour. 

Or I’ll see you in court if they find the bastard that stole your laughter.