Whenever I see a security camera (usually on the underground where they are quite obvious, but occasionally in shops or in the street) I have taken to looking directly into the lens and pulling a funny face. I'm not trying to make a security guard laugh, or making some kind of sad amends for the fact that I am no longer on TV; it's all part of a bigger and stranger plan than that.
The only times that footage from these cameras is ever really studied is in some instance where the person being filmed goes on to be involved in some crime or accident and the police need to examine the tape for clues. Invariably these snippets of film are shown on the news or Crimewatch,usually taking on a chilling air of significance as we see the dead or injured going about their routine, without realising that they will soon be dead or injured. Who can forget the footage of Princess Diana leaving that Paris hotel, unaware of the fate that, in hindsight, we all know is awaiting her? If only she'd known this was her last TV appearance she might have made a bit more of it.
If she had't died the footage would have been taped over and no-one would ever have seen it, but if she'd just had the foresight to realise that there was a remote possibility that she might be dead soon (and apparently she was convinced she was going to end up snuffing it in a car crash, so you'd hope she would have thought ahead) then she could have left one last telling adieu to us, her loyal fans, on that grainy video. Given there's no sound, she'd probably have had to pull some stupid face. It would have given us all a bit of a laugh and cheered everyone up a bit in that difficult and depressing week.
So that's what I've decided to do from now on. To pull an amusing face (I might branch out and add a silly walk or an amusing dance) whenever I see a camera pointing at me. Then if I am the tragic victim of a car-jacking gone wrong, or am shot in the face by a maniac with a harpoon or abducted by an obsessed fan, when the footage of my last known movements comes to be shown on the News or Crimewatch, everyone will be able to have a little smile to themselves about my crazy antics. To be honest, both the News and Crimewatch could do with a little lightening up; if rather than seeing me just walking towards an escalator they get to show me walking like an Egyptian or doing the macarena, whilst grimacing and crossing my eyes then everyone is going to feel a bit better about whatever tragedy it is that has taken me before my time. If I spend the rest of the day unharmed then the tape will never see the light of day, so no harm will be done, but if not, then at least I go out on a laugh.
And if I am only horrifically injured or I manage to escape from my obsessive fan's well, then the popularity of my antics might result in me getting my own show on Cable TV, perhaps a compilation of clips of me acting the goat in front of various security cameras around the world.
So if anyone is planning to shoot me in the face with a harpoon or keep me in a special well until my skin is ready to be peeled off and made into an amusing Richard Herring suit (you could maybe run the Marathon in it, claiming to acutally be me. Especially if you failed to get a place this year), then could you please email me with the date, time and location that you plan to do this (preferrably with a map detailing the nearest security cameras), then I've got a chance to work out a really funny visual routine which might secure maximum publicity both for your heinous and unforgiveable crime and my possible return to the idiot's lantern.
