A few weeks ago I wrote about a pre-Oscars trip to Hollywood and my visit to a "gifting suite" on Sunset Boulevard. Gifting suites are places where celebrities congregate to be showered with free stuff, whether it's diamond-encrusted hair straighteners, hand-held vacuum cleaners or designer diaper bags. Journalists are also invited but, rather unfairly, have to work that bit harder for their Hollywood swag.
Should you ever find yourself in a gifting suite you should be aware that the quality of your swag is in direct proportion to your ability to blag. Being an experienced blagger, I thought I would clean up, but it turned out Hollywood blagging requires a bit more finesse.
In the end I played the "begorrah, sure I'm just a wee scribbler from leprechaun land" card and was quite pleased with my haul of chocolate, T-shirts and beauty products. Then I read about how tax officials in the US were clamping down on swag recipients, and I decided to give it all away. I asked readers to write in and tell me in as entertaining a style as possible why they deserved the swag. I even said I might be in a position to throw in the creepy faceless leather dog my LA-based friend had picked up on the swag trail, although I think she has grown rather fond of it now, unfortunately.
Thousands wrote in and explained in fewer than 100 words why they should get the loot. Since then I have received more free stuff, and I am adding that to the swag bag. Despite the lack of the faceless dog, there is a lot at stake here. And some hand cream.
One of the first letters I plucked out of the bags of mail was from Lorraine. She said she remembered watching an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show in which an experiment was carried out in male and female toilets somewhere in Illinois. Random foodstuffs were placed on a table in both toilets under a sign saying: "Free. Try some!" The aim was to see how many people would take the food home, bearing in mind that they were in a toilet.
Ninety-eight of the 100 people surveyed grabbed something. Lorraine said the moral was that "we are all suckers for free stuff" and signed off: "Please send me something!" Then there was Catriona. Ah, Catriona. She offered me three therapy sessions in exchange for the swag. "I hope this is taken in the spirit in which it was intended," she concluded, adding one of those smiley faces at the end of the e-mail so I'd know she was only joking. Sorry, Catriona. Nice try, though. :-)
Now Fiona, she was a girl who had the right idea. "Dear Róisín, I read your column every week and always find it interesting and elegantly witty." (FYI, next time I offer free stuff this is exactly the kind of mail I am looking for.) "Also I used to work in a pizza restaurant and I think you came in once to get take-out, so I secretly gave you extra toppings, as a sign of my admiration." Free toppings and obsequiousness are a difficult combo to resist. But resist I must. Ali also came close: "Ironically," she wrote, "I have an ever-growing collection of faceless dogs. I started with one lone yellow satin retriever and have most recently added a turquoise snakeskin terrier to the pack."
Most of the respondents kept to under 100 words and had clearly listened when I said that I wanted to be entertained. And even though she failed on both counts I have decided to give this woman a runner-up prize: "A few months ago my husband told me he woke up every day with a sense of dread that this was the rest of his life. He wasn't happy and he didn't love me any more. I was bereft. He was the love of my life . . . I am surviving, my guiding principles have been grace and dignity and I am trying to show both on a daily basis. We are separated and will do it well for the sake of our two girls, but it is hard, very hard." A mini swag bag is on its way to you, with love.
And now it gives me great pleasure to announce the outright winner of the Hollywood Swag Awards. Magowan wrote: "I can offer a good home for your Hollywood swag. It would console my mother, who is convalescing at home after falling from her Trident 220 running machine when the heel on one of her Manolos snapped, propelling her headfirst into the door of our sauna, breaking her nose and two front teeth. This means she will not make this month's Global Debt Relief Ball in Marbella. The bitter irony of this is that her accident would never have happened if she had not been training for the Marbella highlight event, the Bollinger 100m ball-gown-and-high-heel sprint."
I hope you and your poor mother enjoy the swag.