Shed Simove

Sheridan Howard Simove or Shed Simove (born 8 May 1971) is a British author, performer and entrepreneur. He is known for his non-fiction book Ideas Man and for several widely reported publicity stunts and controversies. He is also the creator of a number of well-known novelty products, such as the Control-A-Woman remote control.

Background

Shed attended Cardiff High School and went on to study Experimental Psychology at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating with a 2:1.

Career

After graduating from University, Shed spent two years working in Disney World, greeting guests as a 16th-century gentleman. In 1994 he joined Planet 24 as a graduate trainee and from 1996 to 2000 worked in various roles on The Big Breakfast including an 18-month period writing and producing the popular Zig and Zag segment.

In 2003 he was appointed commissioning editor of Big Brother and continued in this role until 2009. Most notably, he was commissioning editor of Celebrity Big Brother 5 during the internationally reported racism controversy (see below).

Since 2009 he has focussed on promoting himself as an author, a performer and a novelty product entrepreneur.

In 2011 he was the author of the 200 empty page book 'What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex', which sold out very quickly, reached number 44 on the Amazon charts and became a global phenomenon. It was subsequently 'translated' into many languages around the world including Spanish, Croatian, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese and Mongolian. In 2015, Shed was awarded a world record and featured in the 'The Guinness Book Of Records' for the 'most blank pages in a published book'.

Publicity stunts

In 2007 Shed successfully changed his name by deed to "God"[1] and was subsequently dropped by his bank HSBC who refused to reflect the name change on his current account. HSBC agreed to reinstate his account on the condition that he reverted to his previous name.

In 2008 Shed launched his own currency - The Ego - and minted a One Ego banknote and a "two cents" coin.[2]

In 2009, to promote his show Ideas Man at the Edinburgh Festival, Shed printed 1000 rolls of promotional toilet paper.[3]

Controversy

In 2001, Shed (at the age of 30) posed as a 16-year-old schoolboy for eight weeks as part of a Channel 4 documentary called Back To School. When the head teacher of the secondary school he was attending discovered the deceit, he and the film crew were ejected and the incident was widely reported in the British national press.[4][5] The documentary was never broadcast.

In 2006, Shed was part of the commissioning team that came under fire during the broadcast of Celebrity Big Brother 5, which generated record numbers of complaints following concerns that housemate Shilpa Shetty was subjected to racism by some of the other housemates.

In 2010, one of Shed's products caused controversy in the media[6] after a Borders bookstore in Melbourne, Australia, was forced to defend its decision to stock the Control-A-Woman remote control.

In 2012, Shed launched 'Fifty Shades of Gray' a book containing totally blank pages in fifty different shades of grey. The back jacket of the book described the content inside as 'getting darker and darker as the book goes on'. Random House, publisher of E. L. James's 'Fifty Shades of Grey', sent him a cease and desist letter and Simove was no longer able to sell this title, although a publisher from the Netherlands approached Simove to publish a Dutch version which has now been released as 'Vijftig Tinten Grijs' (100% onofficieel).

In 2014, Shed launched 'The Rampant Rabbi, an adult toy in the shape of a Jewish Scholar. Adult store Ann Summers took legal action to stop Shed from trademarking the name of his product, citing the name was too close to their own product 'The Rampant Rabbit'.

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ "Big Brother 'God' talks butt plugs", metro.co.uk. URL last accessed on 2010-05-07
  2. ↑ "Of course it’s genuine — I made it myself", reuters.com. URL last accessed on 2010-05-05
  3. ↑ "Roll up for publicity stunt prize", BBC News. URL last accessed on 2010-05-05
  4. ↑ "School angry at TV's student imposter", The Guardian. URL last accessed on 2010-05-05
  5. ↑ "Channel 4 scraps film after adult posed as a school pupil", The Independent. URL last accessed on 2010-05-05
  6. ↑ "Borders bookstore forced to defend sale of 'control a woman' remote", news.com.au. URL last accessed on 2010-05-05
  7. ↑ Simove, Shed. "Success or Your Money Back - Books". Hay House. Retrieved 2013-10-15.

External links

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