In a couple of weeks I am going to be acting in a short film. I even have the main part. It's all very glamorous isn't it? Well it would be if we weren't filming in Weston-Super-Mare. Which is especially unglamorous for me as I grew up about 10 miles away from there and it was the nearest big town, so I know everything there is to know about it. Club Tropicana was there, which might make it sound glamorous, but drinks were most definitely not free. Wham! lied to us about this, as with so many other things.
The sad thing is that as a child, Weston-Super-Mare was probably the most glamorous place I knew. I had a very limited world view and the limits were set by where the one bus that went through town (the 126? I had the right number in the back of my mind, but now I am thinking about it too hard I think I might not have that right) went to. This was either to Weston (it took an hour because the bus went through every small town on route) or Wells. Wells wasn't as exciting as Weston to a child. The shops weren't as good, there were no amusement arcades and no pier or beach. Even if Weston beach was essentially just a lot of mud on the side of an estuary. But to a child mud is as good as sand, if not better. There were cinemas in both towns (
in fact it was in the less exciting city of Wells that I saw my first soft porn film), but Weston had three screens. Wells with its Cathedral services was full of religion and respectability and Weston was dedicated only to pleasure and vice. It even had crazy golf. And some ill looking donkeys. It was a modern day Babylon. Once Don Estelle came to the Woolworths there to promote one of his records and when me and my mates heckled him he flicked the vs at us. Happy days. This sort of thing never happened in Wells.
The only thing I didn't like about Weston was that it had a place selling cround coffee on the High Street. This meant a cloud of darkly bitter coffee smell hung around the centre of the shopping arcade. To my child's nose (to be fair all of my body was that of a child's at this time) this was the most disgusting smell in the world (which is doubly ironic now, given my lauding of Frappe Lattes and frequenting of coffee houses in general), and I used to have to hold my breath and run through that section. I was 28 years old at the time. Even though I just said I had a child's nose and body. I had a rare disease which meant I didn't hit puberty until 29. Now the joke works. In your face.
I loved Weston-Super-Mare and believed there was no-where finer on ths earth. So this is why I felt betrayed once I travelled beyond the route of the 126 and saw more of the world and discovered that WSM was at best, quite crap in comparison. What I had taken for hedonistic sophistication was nothing but a gaudy bauble of lies. Once you have been to Swindon, WSM is just crap.
Seriously it will be nice to go back.
Today I got an email asking me to send in the sizes of various parts of my body so they could make my costume fit. My body shape and mass changes so regularly that this is always a bit of a palaver for me. There's no point in getting a tape measure and measuring myself because in two weeks my dimensions will have changed one way or the other. And I never have any call in life to know the circumference of my neck, because I am not a businessman in his suit and tie and can leave my top button undone.
All I know is I have the biggest head (literally and figuratively) in showbusiness apart from Alexi Sayle (
Which is not as great a claim to fame as having the biggest testicles in showbusiness apart from Jenny Agutter's dad), but I still don't know how big it is. All I know is they don't really make hats big enough to go on it comfortably, which might be a warning to anyone out there who was thinking they might like to have my child.
So I took a guess at the various sizes of my bits (luckily testicle size was not on the form), wishing I could put 34 down as my waist size, but knowing I have a whole rack of jeans of that dimension that for some reason do not do up.
I imagine I'll have got all the sizes wrong and there will be popping buttons and sleeves trailing along the floor on the day of filming, as well as a tiny hat perched on top of my head like I was a Mr Man (Mr Bighead - can't believe they haven't done that one already). Look out for it. Only you will know the truth.
The chimneys where I want to live are part of Lot's Road Power station which used to provide the electricity for the underground. Thanks to those of you who emailed to tell me. And if you want to write to me in about two years time, my address will be Chimney 1, Lot's Road Power Station, Lot's Road, London, SW6. Let's see if your letters get there.
Speaking of which, if you still want to sponsor the programme time is running out and I would advise you to do so by the website rather than mail. I have had a few letters through, but know that at least one that was posted last week still hasn't got here and I don't think anything posted now will make it in time for the deadline. But thanks very much to all of you who have so generously contributed. And anyone who has held back so far, please do consider it. You are very likely to receive goods worth at least £10 for your contribution as well as getting your name in the programme, which is shaping up nicely. Go on! You know you want to.
