James Lord, 23, of Melbourne is an avid fan of Hamish and Andy's radio show and thought for sure he could call them out if ever chosen for their prank segment. Little did he realise that the joke was on him, but how he handled it made him a legend in his heroes' eyes.
The segment, which runs as part of the comedy duo's Drive program on Hit radio, otherwise known as Fox FM in Melbourne or 2Day FM in Sydney, involved Hamish Blake ringing Mr Lord pretending to be Tim Barnard, a total stranger who was going for a job interview with an accounting firm and needed a last minute reference.
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Mr Lord is heard telling Hamish, "Yeah sweet, I'll just tell them that you're a ripper bloke."
Andy Lee then rings back a little while later acting as Graham Burn of Kells & Co. accounting firm to investigate Tim's reference.
The following interview is hilarious:
Mr Lord listens to Hamish and Andy "all the time" hoping to one day be picked for their prank segment.
"Every time they do phone calls I would be like 'oh my god, I would love for that to be me one day because I think I'd be able to catch them out'.
"I love Hamish and Andy. I thought I would be able to pick the voice, but nope."
He said they called him about 3pm, while he was finishing work. "I'm an electrician by trade and I was almost packing up for the end of the day, and I can't even remember what I was doing but as soon as I finished I told my mates and I messaged my girlfriend, as well, saying that 'I can't believe this just happened'.
"This was just after the first phone call, so I'd just spoken to Tim, apparently, and he just said to me, 'will you be a reference?', and I thought that was weird in itself but I just went along with it."
What did his girlfriend think of him acting as a reference for a total stranger?
"She was in the same boat as me, she just thought it was weird. I really didn't think much of it, I didn't think they were going to call me back."
Andy did, of course, ring back and started asking some tricky questions, like how long Mr Lord knew 'Tim' and where they met.
"I was just trying my hardest to back up this Tim bloke. I was just trying to go through my head as quick as I can and answer as quick as I can, obviously because I thought it was real, to not let them catch on that I was just making it all up.
"A lot of people say that I don't really shut up, so I suppose it comes easier than a lot of other people but it's still hard at the time."
He never considered giving up the lie, even when Andy asked if 'Tim' could he be trusted handling $1 million.
"I was on hands-free at the time in a tight carpark so I couldn't really hear that bit. I got lucky."
But Mr Lord nearly got caught out when Andy asked if 'Tim' spoke any languages.
"That really got me because at the time I was thinking if I say a language here they're going to say 'oh really no that's not the language they speak' so I didn't want to say one," Mr Lord said.
"I'd committed to it and I thought 'I'm going to go through with this and give it a good old shake' and they stitched me up a beauty."
The whole thing finished up with Hamish and Andy tagging their video on Facebook with this caption: "When calling a random number to see if they'd be a strangers' job reference, we accidentally found the best bloke in Australia."
Mr Lord said: "I love the tag and I'll be trying to milk it for all it's worth. I told mum but mum doesn't agree with it but I'm hoping she'll come round."
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