I saw a similar experience with a Premiership Footballer who was surrounded by some kids in a service station and he told them all to ‘go away and leave me alone’ slightly less politely than that. I understand they might want a bit of privacy but it is the price you pay for the price you are paid!
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My uncle has a place in Antarctica named after him, lived for a time in Shackleton’s old hut and was the first man to bring penguins back to the UK (I.e Edinburgh Zoo). Does that count as a claim to fame? 
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Hilarious thread! Keep 'em coming…
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Never been into the celebrity stuff really, but at one point I had my own entry in Wikipedia. Does this count 
.
Thankfully it was removed after a number of years.
It was related to a Company/product I was involved with in a previous life, along with my name, which most of you would know if you’re familiar with a British racing and road car company famed for its unreliability.
Unfortunately I have no connection personally, apart from being a petrol head and a love of building/improving cars.
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L ots
O f
T rubs
U sually
S erious.
There can be only one.
Or TreVoR? They did some racing too (as well as making a few road cars) and were possible even more unreliable that Lotus!!!
Haha, I’d forgotten about TVR.
Scottishfiver got it right. Click on Overdrives ID and it will show his name.
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Certainly is a claim to fame , so he really did PPPPPICK UP A PENGUIN 
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Haha, he picked up several dozen 
A multipack, even
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Many years ago when working at Aston Martin, was there for a Prince Charles’s Official visit - What a faff it was getting the workshop upto a “suitable” standard…! Used to clean his Aston’s too…with the compulsory Autoglym products… 
Still can’t stand the bloke though…!
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I pretended to be a chemist with Prince Charles in Belfast. I also showed President Bush Senior bioremediation in action in Tennessee, shortly after the invasion of Panama.
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Shame you weren’t around there a bit longer. Could have helped Trump with his colouring in.
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I was there long enough, during that stint, to give Al Gore, who was then a senator, instruction in what bioremediation (using bacteria, lab engineered or natural, to correct pollution) was all about. He was uninterested/not understanding, which, if you follow his speeches, was a bit surprising.
Bush though was very interested in my demonstration; essentially we had genetically engineered a bacterium with a gene for napthalene degradation (napthalene is a horrible pollutant, a left over from coal slag heaps up in Pittsburgh). But the really clever bit was adding a gene from a firefly for luciferase (what makes fireflies glow). The idea was that you can introduce the engineered bug into the polluted site, and then monitor its effectiveness in the soil using simple photometric probes. For the demo, I had rigged up a flask with the bacteria, then introduced the napthalene, and hit the lights. Presidential approval. This was January 1990, so things in the science have moved on somewhat since. I eventually stayed in research, did the whole global warming research/marine ecology thing, then segwayed, as you do, into biological defence/infectious disease commercial research, where my contribution was the biological capability for the Light Role Team when it was front line deployed.
Now I am involved in medical research, of a sort.
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I’ve done some chemical research myself in the past. I discovered that if you mix a little bit of everything from a beginners chemistry set in a test tube, add a cork and shake it a reaction is produced. The cork is ejected and a large green stain appears on the ceiling. Further research over around 30 years found that no amount of brilliant white emulsion will hide it. After 30 years of shame I papered the ceiling.
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A colleague found a similar effect when you attempt to cool a can of Irn Bru in a pot of liquid nitrogen. Irn Bru does not come off ceiling tiles.
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I once ate 3 shredded wheat ! pretty awesome I thought
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Physics lab 1967.
My practical partner Bob was doing the usual transformer-rectifier power supply experiment, working through the instruction sheet. By this time I’d already built radios, record players and big valve and transistor amps, and because I thought I already “knew it all” I let him get on with it, and instead concentrated on finishing the write-up for our previous week’s practical.
“Hey Richard, the big capacitor is still charging up.”
“How long?”
“About half a minute now.”
“How far has it got?”
“It got to the twenty seven volts almost at once, but it’s still taking five amps.”
“Switch it off, quick!”
“Why?”
Bang
and the lab was filled with a fine cloud of white confetti.
Bob looked like a snowman.
People were collapsing on the floor all around us,
not because they had inhaled the stuff but because they were helpless with laughter.
He had picked the biggest capacitor out of the kit, 22,000uF 25V (about the size of an old Lucas ignition coil) instead of the specified 220uF 50V, and connected it red tag to black wire, black tag to red wire. The rubber bung on the end was all that remained.
After five decades I’m still amazed it took so long to go bang.
The best part of the story was that we were all shooed out for an early lunch.
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A couple of years ago I was with my brother at Ascot watching the gee gees and put a small fun bet on. I nearly won and, disappointed, went running out excitedly to the front near the winners enclosure was which was relatively empty bar a couple of people on the steps one wearing a flat cap with their backs to me. I said in a fairly loud voice across to my brother how displeased I was with my result including a few choice common words but my brother just stood staring at me wide eyed. So I carried on pressing my point home wondering why he was silently staring and finally he did a subtle pointing to behind me . I turned round to look at the guy with the flat cap next to me still confused until my brother grabbed me by the arm and pulling me away said it was Prince Charles and the other person with him was Camilla. I looked round and yep… it was. They would have heard me no problem but thankfully ignored the pleb.
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