Buff Staysail admits "I was the second swimmer"

G'day all! Buff Staysail here! Buff by name and Buff by nature!

Well there's been all these rumours about me and the swimming incident so lets get it all out in the open.

I was enjoying a quiet pint or four (maybe five) with my new chums Oz Clarke and James May (above) at the Dove pub, discussing our lives as leading journos slash media experts, waiting for the 158th University Boat Race to start.

They were very supportive and over the sixth pint kept encouraging me to be ready to report for Queensland Community TV - indeed I think Oz said "I really think you should go now" - when James bet me a bottle of bubbly I couldn't swim out to the boats as they rowed passed and interview the crews.

Yours truly of course rose to the challenge: after all, how difficult could it be?

So I pushed through the crowds to get to the waterline just in time to see the Oxford and Cambridge crews flash by - 'strewth they can sure motor!!

Fortunately there was that incident with the other swimmer so they stopped the race which gave me the chance I needed. Quickly I stripped down to my custom "Total BS" boxers and was down the landing ramp, into the water, ready to ask them "how do you think its going so far?"

Unfortunately due to some obscure health and safety issue at this point the local coppers came forward and said something on the lines of "you're nicked sunshine" and before I had time to get that scoop found myself sped away in the police boat.

I of course explained I was a famous journo, friend of the likes of Oz Clarke and James May, at which point this really scary lawyer from the BBC appeared who found some typo in the arrest warrant then made me sign something called a non-disclosure agreement, which I think means this story is a genuine exclusive!!

And that's all there is to it.

I'm sure many hacks were jealous that they hadn't come up with the idea of interviewing the crews mid race by swimming out into the Thames so refused to cover this story.

But I of course know the truth!

This is Buff Staysail with a boat race EXCLUSIVE, over and out.