I was asked to write 50-100 words about what I'd take to a desert island for Marie Claire magazine. It was a pleasant relief to do something for a woman's magazine that did not involve genitalia. I could, of course, have worked genitalia into it pretty easily. But I chose not to.
I have always thought it's a bit odd asking people what they would take with them to a desert island. Surely the thing about ending up on a desert island is that it is an unscheduled visit. Unless you're like that old fella who thought it would be a good place to go with a woman you didn't know. Nothing could possibly have gone wrong with that plan.
Usually if you're on a desert island you've been in some ship-wreck or plane crash and consequently you don't get much time to consider which 8 records and one book and one luxury you'd like with you. Unless everytime you fly or sail around an exotic location you keep those things strapped about your person just in case.
And presuming you didn't want to be stuck on the desert island, surely if you were suddenly given the magical ability to conjure up any object that you wanted you would go for a motorboat or a very long bridge.
Are you supposed to think practically to this question - what object would help me survive in a place with no amenities or shelter? Or just to say what stuff you'd like to have with you to pass the time.
As you may remember if you read regularly I did once have my own mini desert island, but thankfully it was only a temporary affair and within easy walking distance of another larger island with food and shelter and handymen on it.
So with my mind on that and these other concerns this is what I wrote for the readers of Marie Claire,
"I would have no chance on a desert island. The only thing I have ever made with my hands is a spice rack. This skill would not be of much use to me and though my spices would be nicely (if haphazardly) arranged I would be dead within a week. So I think I'd take a deckchair and a crate of pre-mixed margaritas and spend the last seven days of my life drunkenly watching the sun set and the moon rise across the starry sky."
Doubtless a sub editor will rip the guts and the heart out of that, making sure to also eliminate any of the sentences that set up the few jokes that are in there and then someone will write in to say that I am a cretinous, corpulent prick for going on a desert island when David Blaine had done the much harder task of being suspended in a box in the middle of a populous city. Obviously that would be more difficult. He didn't have a chair or any margaritas.
Despite this I emailed off the slightly too long and pointless answer to the rather poorly thought out and pointless question.
You can complain about me until you're blue in the arse, but nothing will stop me continuing to churn out my lightweight comedic observations.
I don't care what powerful enemies I make. I will just add them to the list of my foes:
Everyone in Banbury.
Simon Streeting.
Everyone in Carlisle (except for about 46 people who like me), especially anyone who was brought up in a convent.
The We Will Rock You audience (more specifically Stew's enemies, but I will fight his battles for him. He has so much to live for).
Anyone who thinks it is funny to dress up with a friend as the 118 men and run in a race.
The receptionist of the Hilton Hotel in York.
The porter at Naples station.
All humanity.
