Sir Patrick Moore

Presenter of The Sky at Night (BBC's, and worlds', longest running TV Show), Sir Patrick is a national treasure, astronomer and quite bitching xylophone player. Never one to take himself too seriously, you can often catch Sir Patrick doing the sort of things you would never expect an OAP to do, let alone an eccentric 80 year old presenter. Some of these things have included talking to impressionist Jun Culshaw dressed as Patrick himself before playing along to 'Firestarter' on their xylophones, playing air guitar with a walking stick in an advert for 'The Best Air Guitar Album in the World Ever... 2!', and more recently adlibbing the advert for The Darkness' new album 'Permission to Land'. Of course, none of these, besides Firestarter possibly, even come close to his role as the cult games lord, The GamesMaster.

However, it wasn't Sir Patrick that was first thought of for the role, but instead Nicholas Parsons of 'Sale of the Century' fame. A more terrifying prospect to concur is that Gary Glitter (of being a sick kiddy pervert fame) was also thought of to be The GamesMaster. Thank God for the brilliant imagination of the Director, Cameron McAllister, who thought of Patrick Moore for the role. It was an inspired choice and surely one of the best pieces of casting that the televisual world had ever seen.

Sir Patrick loved the role and has commented since, "It really was rather fun! I mean, I've done other things as well, but one thing I will never do is to take myself too seriously!" and he certainly didn't as every week we would see something more eccentric and surreal, and you could tell that he was enjoying every minute of it. Even when kids asked him for questions on video games.

Fortunately, kids now leave him alone and tend not to shout out "Ooii, GamesMarrstahhh" when they see him in the street. When asked if he knew what to say when a kid would ask him a tricky question, Patrick says, "No! the point is of course I knew nothing about it! (laughs) This is a secret!! (laughs) What it was all about, I've no idea!!!".

Sir Patrick Moore is a genuinely nice person and a true British hero - hard working, but is more than prepared to send himself up. Us fans have nothing but respect for old 'chrome-dome', so let�s hope that should a new series return, that Sir Patrick will be once again donning the mechanical monocle.