Gamesmaster
Dominik Diamond first entered the nation's consciousness as the host of the Channel 4 video game tv programme
GamesMaster, which ran from 1993 to 1998. Diamond brought a smutty schoolboyish
innuendo to his presentation involving
golden joysticks and bringing the use of the word '
pants' as an insult to the UK's playgrounds. Complete with red jacket, floppy fringe, spectacles and an overbearing manner, Diamond's twattishness was an essential element to the show. The one series which he did not present, where he was replaced by
ex-Press Ganger Dexter Fletcher was far and away the weakest. After this experiment Diamond returned with a better haircut, and the shows emphasis began to move away from video games and towards
banter with guest presenters, even more juvenile swearing,
double entendres and
in-jokes galore.
Post-Gamesmaster
Since the end of Gamesmaster, Diamond has been striving to eke out an existence for himself in the nether regions of the UK media. Despite growing up in the small Scottish town of
Arbroath, Diamond is a huge
Celtic fan, and started work on the BBC Radio 5 live, hosting a sports related phone-in. This show ran for a few years, but Diamond eventually fell out with his BBC bosses, who took a dim view of his tendency to embark on long and disgust-filled rants about
Glasgow Rangers and their legions of followers. It must be said that these rants, although often libelous, were greatly entertaining to the fans of all other
Scottish football clubs.
Diamond also found his way onto satellite channel BBC choice, and often will pop up as a celebrity rent-a-quote on the numerous nostalgia fests such as I love the 1990s. Diamond was last sighted as the host of the BBC Scotland show Caledonia McBrains, which seems to style itself as a Scottish Have I Got News For You, and which I have never seen.
Dom and Kirk's Night O'Plenty
There is one other gem in the Dominik Diamond catalogue. Back when the
Paramount Channel was launched in the UK, they actually attempted to commission their own shows, before they evolved into the home of every old American
sitcom that ever made syndication. One of these programmes was
Dom and Kirk's Night O'Plenty, possibly the lowest budget show to ever be broadcast. Taking its premise from
Wayne's World, the show appeared to be filmed in Dominik Diamond's front room, where he was ably assisted by his cohort
Kirk Ewing, another refugee and some-time co-commentator from Gamesmaster.
The show seemed to consist entirely of the two of them drinking lager, farting, speaking bollocks, playing darts, and leching over whichever female D-list celebrity they had managed to entice to appear. It was pure car-crash tv, and there can't have been more then 10 people that ever saw it, and after one masturbation joke too many Paramount eventually dropped the program with no warning. Still it was a format that was nicked by David Baddiel and Frank Skinner for their BBC2 show Fantasy Football League, and had the same attitude (and many of the same ideas) that would propel the hosts of The Adam and Joe Show to media-whoredom in the late 1990s.
Journalism
Diamond has also appeared in print for many magazines, starting with the
Gamesmaster tie-in that was launched by
Future Publishing, he soon moved to Future's new football magazine
4-4-2 where he was a regular contributor. Since 1998 Diamond has been writing a column in
the Daily Star, a tabloid rag that has managed to adopt a more down-market position then
the Sun.
Diamond is currently married, and has one daughter, and lives in Glasgow.