I took a box of programmes down to the Post Office to send off to Belfast for my next tour gig on the 7th January (all the dates can be found
here). It was a quite long walk with a heavy box and once I got there I didn't want to carry the box around the snaking queue, so just put it in a corner near the front of the line to be picked up when I got there. For once it wasn't a very long line, which was something at least. But a man was loitering outside of the queue: it became clear he was waiting for a woman who was ahead of me. I saw him notice my box and looking at it. He seemed very interested in this unattended package, trying to read the address, clearly wondering what was inside it. I couldn't be sure about what he was thinking of course. Perhaps he was worried it was a bomb or maybe he was thinking, "Hmmmm, some idiot has left a box there, I could have that." I slightly suspected the latter, from the way he kept walking beside it and looking at it. I would have thought it was pretty obvious that it in all likelihood belonged to someone in the queue and if he was concerned about someone deciding to blow up the strange Shepherd's Bush inhabitants who come to his horrible place (and most days I have queued here death would have been a blessed release) then he would surely have just said, "Is this anyone's package?"
I think he was building up the courage to grab it on his way out and I was almost tempted to allow him to do so, partly because it was such an unwieldy thing to carry and partly because he'd end up with a box of pretty much worthless programmes. But that would mean I'd have to go home and get another box and go through all this again.
Finally he sidled up to his girlfriend/wife/mum/friend (hard to tell) and whispered something whilst looking slyly at the box. I said to him, "It's all right, it's my box mate" and that was an end to it.
Unless of course he wasn't actually whispering anything about the box and hadn't really been interested it at all and had been staring into vacant space in which case his blog (everyone has a blog right?) will be about the strange paranoid man who seemed concerned that he'd be getting his box stolen.
We have been very much enjoying watching the first series of "The Twilight Zone" on DVD, even if a disproportionate number of episodes have the "twist" that the mysterious figure is the devil or an angel or an alien. But there are so many episodes that you have to cut Rod Serling a bit of slack. I love his portentous opening and epilogues and annoy my girlfriend by trying to guess when he's going to say "The Twilight Zone" at the end, saying it out loud and usually having to do it four or five times. At the end of one episode we watched recently Rod couldn't stop himself broadly hinting that there would be an appearance from himself in the next story. As this was more or less the punchline to the episode it pretty much wrecked the surprise of a very post-modern section in which Rod appeared in the room that the story had taken place in to wrap up as usual, only to be revealed to be an invention of the author who appeared in the episode. But why had Rod ruined it the week before? I love him for it, the great lunk.
Been thinking of collecting together some of my more stupid or obsessive Twitter conversations and publishing them, but I know I'll never get round to it, so I might just put them on here instead. I quite like confronting the critical and the rude, with various degrees of success. Sometimes I come across looking like an idiot and sometimes they do. But it's fun to try. After
this interview with the Metro that I did about a month ago (hence the unwelcome return of all the Gervais stuff), I got a tweet from someone whose Twitter name said they were a vicar.
Vicar - Oh dear - have just read ur bits in the Metro pls know that I and many of my fellow believers are praying for you.
Vicar - but I doubt you would say the same things about Mohammed or Brahma. There has been open season on Christians for too long. #ijn
I hadn't been all that disrespectful to Jesus in the interview, so assumed the vicar did not like me making a comedy of the subject, though felt it was a shame that he or she had not picked up on the positive remarks about being nice to disabled people. I assumed he or she had not seen the show, so replied,
Me- maybe watch the show before you decide what it's about or what I would or wouldn't joke about.
Me - but if you have the magic ability to influence things by prayer I'd ask that you prayed for peace or end to disease before me.
Vicar- I pray for such things on a daily basis. Christ forgives all anyway so it is out of my lowly human hands. Go in peace.
Me - so he has forgiven me for DVD (if He needs to, it's pretty complimentary about Him) so there is no need to pray for me after all
Vicar- Well I shall pass that on should our conversation ever move beyond the one way thing.
I liked the way the conversation went and the fact that the vicar ended in a humorous way, though think that it does speak a lot about the point or pointlessness of prayer whichever way you look at it. It looks like the prayer is covering everything already (with limited success) so why bother praying for me at all. But if there is a God I hope He (or She) will appreciate how generous I am to the rest of the world, wanting prayer to be given to the needy rather than wasted on me. I suspect that God might also be able to pick up on the inherent sarcasm in the remark though and so it will still have done me no good. But I would still ask Christians to direct their prayer to more useful quarters. If it works (it doesn't) then I'd much rather eradicate disease and world hunger than save myself. Even if that means I burn in Hell forever. I don't think anyone who ever walked on this Earth has been as giving and selfless as me. In fact I hope God will read this and realise that I am best and throw all the people in Heaven into Hell for not being as good as me.
The final episode of series 2 of Objective went out tonight - I haven't heard it yet, so don't know what made the final cut, but it's got Alexei Sayle in it, so it's gotta be worth a listen! Thanks to Tilusha and all the team for their hard work on this series, which seems to have gone down pretty well on the whole. Hear it
on iPlayer.
Here's a link to a short film from 2007 which I acted in. You probably haven't seen it before and it's pretty funny and for once in my life I am pleased with my acting in it (even if I am playing a fat, unpleasant, potato eating fool) so check it out - it's called
Hard to Swallow.
