Happy Halloweeeeeen! Ha ha ha ha ha ha (this is a spooky, terrifying laugh by the way)!
I hope no religious people read that or they will have been communing with the dark side. You must only believe in the supernatural stuff from your own magic book. And there are no five year old children dressed up as skellingtons in any of the major Holy books. So if a five year old dresses up as a skellington, then it is going to HELL!
I wasn't in the mood for Halloween as it happens. Some years, if I am going to be in, I get some sweets in for the feral thugs in the neighbourhood who have license to come onto my property legally for one day a year, but this time I couldn't be bothered. I decided instead that I would keep most of my lights off and skulk in the dark and ignore the doorbell if it rang. I felt vaguely silly behaving in this way. I could, after all, have just gone about my evening as normal and still ignored the doorbell. But then maybe my house would be egged, or given that this was Shepherd's Bush petrol bombed. As it happened no kids came a-calling this year. At one point I heard a group of excited, laughing six year olds approaching, but they did not ring my bell. I was almost disappointed. I was going to all this trouble to be the Scrooge of Halloween and yet no one was even giving me the satisfaction of trying to steal confection from me. Imagine if I had made the effort to go to the supermarket and buy bags of treats and presents and was sitting surrounded by flaming pumpkins in my lounge and yet no one even rang my doorbell. It would almost have been as sad as what was happening - me with no sweets, hiding behind my sofa in the dark, with the TV volume down low watching the X Factor. At least if I'd bothered to buy something for the young ghouls I would have had something to eat.
Why was no one ringing my doorbell this year? Had I done an excellent job of appearing to be out for the night or was it something more sinister? Had the mums in my street warned their kids to stay away from the house of the strange man who lives in a big house alone and who for much of the year has been sporting a Hitler Moustache? Was I the scariest thing this Halloween?
I consoled myself by reminiscing about the actress Madeline Smith, who
I had been reminded about by the BBC News site. Like many men my age I suspect I had been somewhat fascinated by her as a boy. She was an exquisite and voluptuous beauty who like my first love Janet Ellis cropped up on children's TV every now and again (she was in a show called Eureka - which I had to look up), but also, more excitingly also appeared in rather sexier and adult roles that I occasionally caught on late night TV (I seem to remember her being in a bath in Up Pompeii - as do you, don't you, over 40 year old men). But I had kind of forgotten about Maddy for some reason (I never forgot Janet) and seeing her again brought back all kinds of pent up emotions and teenage feelings and wobbliness in my stomach. Twenty-five years ago I had loved Madeline Smith, not in a pure and eternal way, but in a base and disgraceful and ephemeral fashion. Yet still she meant something to me now and I was glad to be reminded and to be taken back in time once again, like she was a double serving of Bella's pudding, only better.
Thank you Madeline Smith.
I had hoped that this week, with a slightly lighter work load that I might get a bit ahead with AIOTM 4 and not have the heart stopping and sick making panic of the last couple of weeks. But of course by the close of play today I had not one word written down. I've got a few things to talk about, but (as I suspect it always will be) it's going to be a last minute affair. I hope you will
come to the Leicester Square Theatre on Monday to see what I come up with.
And for those of you who listened to Collings and Herrin podcast 88,
here is the video of that news report with the incorrect photo of a murderer. Surely it's too good to be true, and yet it's almost too good to be false. (Thanks to Idiot Boy for the link)
