Imagine you are unexpectedly thrust into the limelight, in front of a potential audience of thousands. That is what happened to Paul Speller when he won a place on the Trafalgar Square plinth. How did he fare? LINDA PIPER finds out.

IT WAS all a giant experiment for Bexley Council worker Paul Speller, from his activities on the plinth on the day, to the way he set about it.

Mr Speller, 30, from Bascombe Grove, Crayford, was lifted into position for his hour on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth at noon on August 18, wearing his purple wedding suit and with a selection of props, including a large stuffed giraffe.

His plan was to spend the hour carrying out a series of “pseudo-scientific experiments”.

Mr Speller, who works in the council’s finance department, began with an experiment of his own - could he use the internet and his website plinthipaul.co.uk to generate ideas for experiments and get people to vote for the ones he should perform on the day?

And he could.

After practising them in the garden, he arrived in Trafalgar Square, armed with 12 experiments, seven of them interactive.

Mr Speller tried to fry an egg using just the sun, and failed completely.

He tested the air quality, which stayed mainly within EU guidelines except for some unexplained spikes.

And he found the sun would be at its highest in the sky that day at almost 1pm, just as he was packing up to leave.

A fourth experiment, to see how much water would evaporate during his hour failed, when Mr Speller didn’t have time to check the water level in the jug before leaving, and drank it before measuring it.

The stuffed giraffe, complete with a notice reading “Hey pigeons, I’m a statue” was to test whether the birds find statues irresistible, either to land on or to poo on.

In the giraffe’s case the answer was no, as no pigeons came near or by.

Everybody knows when you drop a slice of toast, it always lands butter-side down.

Or does it?

Apparently, not if you drop it from a Trafalgar Square plinth.

Of 11 slices, six landed butter-side up, two butter-side down, and the other three slices were given to a homeless onlooker who was heckling about throwing away good food.

Mr Speller’s next experiment was how many people would obey, if ordered to do something in an authoritative manner.

The answer was quite a lot.

Mr Speller said: “I shouted at one older man to dance for me, and he did a little tap routine and others ran down the stairs when told to.”

He proved, to his own satisfaction, God does not exist, by tossing a coin in the air 10 times while praying for 10 “heads”.

What he got was five heads and five tails.

Do people have better memories than pigeons - only just.

In an experiment done some years ago, pigeons were shown pictures and fed when they looked at selected ones.

They were then shown the pictures again to see if they could remember which pictures they associated with feeding. They scored seven out of 10.

Mr Speller tried the same with onlookers, giving them sweets. They scored eight out of 10 - an alarmingly narrow victory.

Do tin-can phones work?

Mr Speller tested this with his wife Edith, stationed 40m across the square, and he could hear her talking.

He said: “I was quite impressed.”

Does size matter when it comes to flying paper planes?

Yes, it does.

Apparently, planes made from A5 paper fly best, followed by A4 and then A3. Try to avoid A6 paper.

Finally Mr Speller tried to give away 40 books as part of the bookcrossing scheme, The books are registered with bookcrossing.com and the aim is to see how far the books travel, as readers pass them on.

Their travels can be tracked on the bookcrossing website.

His last book was taken as he packed up to leave.

In the square to watch his hour of fame were lots of friends, his wife, brother, parents and grandparents, who are in their 80s, and who sat in deckchairs under a parasol.

Afterwards about 20 of them went off for a celebration pizza.

Mr Speller said: “It was very entertaining; very frenetic, but I think it went down really well .

“Everyone was laughing.”

He added: The experience has been very exciting.

“I am one of just 2,400 people in the world who will have had this experience and hopefully part of a sub-set who did something people will go back to watch.

“My work colleagues were watching and thoughly enjoyed it.

“The only downside is, I was so busy I didn’t have time to take in the view.”

You can read all about the results of the experiments and the ones he did not perform on Mr Speller’s website, and watch his stint on the plinth at oneandother.co.uk/participants/PaulSpeller