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I have made the central image of my "Lord of the Dance Settee" poster my avatar for Twitter. It's me wearing a crown and looking regal (and a bit old, but apparently that is accurate). I am wearing a suit and tie.
So I was surprised when Lee Noble tweeted me to say "Out of the corner of my eye when scrolling tweets, your new avatar resolves to miss piggy. No offence."
I looked at my avatar and could only see a man in a crown who did not massively resemble a pig, so tweeted back, "Oh, none taken." After all I had only been compared to a female, puppet pig. But she is quite an attractive pig if that's your thing.
Others then tweeted to suggest other people and characters they thought I resembled, such as the Burger King or Richard Branson, King Rollo or King Ralph. I think most of them were focusing in on the crown, which is fair enough, because it's the crown that, for me, really takes the picture away from looking like Miss Piggy, who might occasionally have donned a tiara, but certainly is not infamous for her crown. Sarah Stevens and Josh Hoole also tweeted to say that they had been seeing Miss Piggy out of the corner of their eye. I started to wonder if this was all a bit insulting to Miss Piggy, who is really gorgeous (if you're attracted to foam pigs) and not wrinkly and grey-haired. I mean I have been mistaken for Charley Boorman and Father Dougal and even Dom Joly (the ultimate insult), but this was a bit of a leap.
Lee Noble got back in touch (to add insult to another insult) saying, "you're looking too directly if you're seeing the crown. Squint or look to the side. It turns into ears."
It seemed like an unlikely optical illusion, but like a magic eye picture there were some occasions when, if not looking at the avatar properly I could see the ears. But even then, the rest of me was my normal human, non-porcine, thin and chiseled face. I hope this is not an issue with the image on the poster, or I am going to get a lot of people turning up hoping to see a muppet. And I am not a muppet. Who are you calling a muppet?
An enjoyable sold out gig in Didcot tonight, but again the audience seemed a little reticent about some of the ruder material, but overall they liked the show, I think. The drive home was a bit tricky, with wet conditions and my sat nav taking me on a very rural route to the M40. Luckily for the next week or so I will be back in a people carrier with Giles the Cannibal, giving me a chance to rest up and get on with some work. I did manage a bit of Rasputin research today, watching the opening of the languorous and so far fairly awful 1967 film "I Killed Rasputin!" which Yusupov was publicising in the interview that my play (of the same name) features. It's also dubbed into English from French which doesn't help. I reckon I can do better than this at least (there have been a lot of films about Rasputin and none of them have really been that good, partly I think because pretty much all of them have chosen to represent Rasputin as a devil or evil manipulator - I think the truth is more subtle that that). I also read more of the new Rasputin book to discover that one of the gifts that Yusupov had given his wife for her birthday was a mountain. I think you know you've probably got a bit too much money if you're spending your cash that way. But the parallels with today's chasm between rich and poor and also the way that Rasputin is a figure who might have attracted attention from Operation Yewtree (but were the allegations true or made up to discredit him or a mixture of both and how much was he demonised after the event?) does give a lot of modern parallels.
This weekend We're All Going To Die! comes to Hull and Cardiff (there are tickets available for both gigs, though I believe Leeds, Salford, Chorley and Glasgow are all sold out - check with venues for returns). All details here.
And it's your last chance to come and see a live RHLSTP recorded on Monday with guests Jon Ronson and Nick Helm. Worth booking ahead, as it's selling pretty well.
This week's Metro column about death and internet etiquette is here
