My boyfriend’s date with Bridget Saunders
by Melanie Smith
My boyfriend though it would be funny to bid $300 on a Trade Me auction to spend a night with newspaper columnist Bridget Saunders. But the joke backfired. He won the auction, and a date was set.
My other half, Grant, won the auction last Wednesday evening, and by the weekend Bridget had given him a call and proposed a Monday night date.
On Monday she emailed him through the evening’s agenda and graciously invited to pick him up.
Bridget was concerned that Grant was perhaps regretting his bid on the auction – especially in light of the recent scandal involving some alleged poison pen mail sent to her on behalf of rival gossip columnist Rachel Glucina.
Never one to be afraid of a little scandal, Grant comforted Bridget by telling her he was totally on her side, and was proud of the way she was handling the incident.
On Monday evening, Bridget picked Grant up from our apartment with her three pooches in tow. According to Bridget, she has the dogs with her at all times, and they even wait for her in the car whilst she attends various, nightly functions.
For some curious reason, she never locks the door when she leaves the dogs in the car. Why she does this, I have no idea. I mean, how bad would she feel if she came back to her car one evening and both her car and dogs had been stolen? Grant was concerned about this also, since he’s a dog lover like me, so during the evening he actually went and checked on the dogs, just to make sure they were alright.
So how was Grant’s big night out with Bridget? Did he get any gossip? Meet any hot celebrities? Well according to Grant, the whole thing was one big disappointment.
Apparently the events were boring (which included the 42 below cocktail challenge, a Variety function, and a fashion show raising money for the Royal New Zealand Ballet at the Northern Club).
The most famous person he met was John Banks, and the juiciest piece of gossip he obtained was . . . a big fat nothing.
The most interesting thing he discovered was that everyone who sees Bridget at a party wants to talk to her, as they all want to be the source of juicy gossip. In fact, they actually physically walk up to her and whisper gossip in her ear.
And as for a goodnight kiss from the renowned socialite and gossip Queen? Thankfully not - Grant was spared such an indisrection. Well, can you imagine the attention-grabbing headlines if they had actually puckered lips?