Paying For Sex

It’s not an easy thing to admit to.

Most people, I believe, think about doing it at some point in their lives though most, of course, will never admit to it. Of those, only a fraction will have the immoral fortitude and sufficient appetite to see it through. To realize the desire.

It’s the stigma, you see?

And possibly the cost.

Or maybe just the psychological damage.

But I figured I was strong enough. That my previous good character could not only take it but also immure me against whatever brickbats and public crucifixion might follow. I’ve never been afraid of censure.

Not where cheap laughs are concerned anyway.

So. I finally did it.

I have self-published a new book – full of brand new, unseen before material – about having sex with various celebs and famous people and you can all download it from Amazon right now and read of these incredible psyche-shattering sexploits (is it worth copyrighting that word or have others beaten me to it?) and have your erotic world-view forever widened and enlarged. Possibly even engorged.

The blurb which I have also written clearly states:

"Ever wondered what it would be like to have sex with Nigella Lawson? To doubleteam both George R.R. Martin and J.R.R. Tolkien? To have your wicked way with Miley Cyrus, Bella Swan, George Lucas, Barack Obama, Darth Vader and Kurt Cobain? To maybe engage in a little post-coital badinage with Scooby-Doo, Simon Cowell and Wonga.com? Well now's your chance to experience the gory intimate details without having to remove a single item of your own clothing, invest in a bottle of rophipnol or risk unwanted pregnancy, crabs or cooties.

"Simply purchase this handy Kindle guide and the virtual experience of sex with your favourite star will be all yours. Not to mention the experience of sex with people you'd possibly not want to touch with a disinfected barge pole (Adolf Hitler, Jimmy Saville and Jeremy Clarkson to name but a few) but feel free to skip over those.

"Purchase, lie back, read and let me hit your e-spot with the celebrity lover of your choice."

And if you are still not sold on the idea then how about this… Rather than paying for it, if you download my book within the next 5 days you can do so for absolutely nothing! That’s right; I am offering you sex with the stars for absolutely free! Zero pounds and zero pence. Utterly gratis.

You just have to leave a review.

Just a tiny review on Amazon.

And some stars. 5 would be great.

It’ll take 10 minutes of your time and possibly help make me a household name. Like Jif or Mr Muscle.

I mean, come on, guys, this is pretty much all I ever ask for. It’s not like I’m fleecing you for tonnes of cash of anything. 9 times out of 10 times on this blog I throw you a freaking freebie* and I ask for so little in return.

Just look into my big [Dan] brown hound-dog eyes and buy the bloody book will you?

Right. Done. This marketing shit is piss-easy.

Next.



*I don't do frisbees. Ever.

Do Not Lend These People Your Ears

I managed to navigate most of 2013 without once having my existence bent out of true by the verbal crowbar that is Katie Hopkins. Sure I knew who she was, could surmise what it was she was working so hard to be and what she was aiming to become but she was as a gnat on the giant arse that is UK reality TV. And I make it my business to have as little to do with that particular arse as is humanly possible.

And yet, come the end of the year, with every web site, newspaper and chav mag producing a 12 month retrospective, Katie Hopkins is leaping out at me from photos, from sound-bites and no doubt from tomorrow’s fish and chip wrappings too.

Katie Hopkins said this. Katie Hopkins said that. Outrageous Katie Hopkins. Katie Hopkins, how could she? Kate Hopkins rent-a-gob.

The latter moniker – rent-a-gob – I’ve seen in more than one publication. If I were her I’d copyright it right now; she seems the kind of girl who’d be up for making a fast buck.

My initial response was probably akin to that of many people: revulsion, a knee-jerk reaction to dismiss her as just another transient sneery mouthed reprobate. The shrew equivalent of a one hit wonder in the Gallup pop chart. Someone mad enough (and hard hearted enough) to make some money out of being universally disliked and then forgotten about.

But then it hit me that the most revolting thing about this kind of media event isn’t the poor hapless individual at the eye of the storm but the storm makers themselves. The thunder and lightning of the newspapers and TV execs who book her on their shows and shovel the excrement that falls out of her mouth into their column inches. The howling wind of the glossy mag editors who deliberately provoke her with irresistible punch-line issues and un-PC bandwagons that she can’t stop herself from jumping upon. And worst of all the all-pervading insipid rain of the general public that read and watch and Tweet and Poke and Klout about all the immaterial, unimportant nonsense that Katie coughs up just so she can watch us splutter and retch in joyous outrage and thus feel justified in doing it all again and again and again (and then smugly listen to the chink of cold coins falling hollowly into her deep, deep, soulless pockets).

I feel sorry for her.

She plainly craves recognition. Craves “fame”. Wants people to know her name, to know her by sight.

But it’s a bit like accepting the job of village idiot just because you can’t bear to be anonymous.

I daresay she’ll make a killing. I don’t know what the going rate is for appearing on a TV chat show these days but I bet it’s easier money than a real job. There’s already talk of her being on the next series of Big Brother. I’m sure they’ll make it worth her while just as she’ll make it worth their money. And then there’ll be the inevitable fall from grace. Then the carefully planned radio silence. And then the abashed, contrite, redemptive return. The cathartic outpouring of all her issues and how horrible it was to be so universally reviled. There’ll be a book deal on that particular horizon. Maybe even a regular appearance on kid’s telly or a TV magazine show with plenty of conscience.

And of course her opinion will be sought and bought on the next poor rent-a-gob that the media people will have temporarily shoehorned into the limelight by this point. Because there’ll always be another one. It's a fast moving queue. Like the role of Master of the Dark Arts in the Harry Potter books, nobody stays in the job for long; it’s cursed:

“So you want to be the next village idiot? Fantastic! We’re the people who can help you do it and we’ll all make a lot of money out of it into the bargain…”

Lord knows I’m more than happy for the village idiot to be reformed and redeemed but do we have to go through the endless pantomime of salacious baiting and vampiric bloodlust first?

Can’t we quieten the great god rent-a-gob once and for all by just choosing not to listen?

Because at the end of the day, who’s the greater idiot? The idiot who shouts or the idiot who drops everything to listen?

Oi!

Did any of you lot actually hear what I just said…?

;-)

Me And Tel

I had cause to be in Windsor a few weeks ago (full frontal family assault on Legoland) and, being rather partial to a cheap Italian (I just cannot afford Monica Bellucci; lovely girl but too high maintenance), the family and I repaired to the local Bella Italia to enjoy a late evening, post Legogasm, meal.

Nothing unusual in that; the brood and I often fine-dine in such kid family establishments and have been known to sample their various incarnations up and down the country.

This time though we were in especial company.

I’m not a huge follower of Sir Terry Wogan but I know enough to have chuckled at his less than charitable (but wholly accurate) verbal drubbings meted out to various Eurovision entrants over the years and I believe he had a TV chat show a few years back and may also be relatively familiar with radio broadcasting. So the opportunity to dine with Tel (as he insisted I call him purely by raising an eyebrow my way) was something that I just could not pass up. And his wife (at least I assumed it was his wife) did not seem to mind us inserting ourselves into proceedings and, in fact, carried on eating as if nothing untoward had happened at all. Looking back on it now I wonder if she did actually see us.

And Terry too for that matter. Conversation was rather sparse - unusually so for the normally silken voiced retired BBC star.

Of course, that may have had something to do with the fact we were sat at entirely different tables but you can’t let a simple thing like an uncooperative seating plan spoil a good anecdote.

Technically I have eaten a meal with Mr Terry Wogan.

And I can tell you he had the best seat in the house – window seat, overlooking the façade of Windsor Castle – seemed to be on good terms with all the waitresses and had the biggest ice cream sundae I have ever seen in my entire life. Lord knows we’re not fast eaters but the Wogans were still masticating and quaffing long after we had requested the bill. Our Tel must have the appetite of an ice age glacier and the constitution of Pete Doherty.

Anyway, I resisted the negligible urge to inveigle him in conversation just for the chance of a kind word and an autograph… I was with my family and needed a night off. If he wants a signed photo he’ll just have to approach my agent like everybody else.

Soft Boiled

I’ve never watched Britain’s Got Talent – partly because a show like that tends to prove that Britain absolutely doesn’t and mainly because it just seems to be another star vehicle / cash cow for Simon Cowell. So it was with interest that I read that one of the participants had thrown some eggs at the judges live on last Saturday’s show.

To be honest my first reaction at reading that a woman had thrown her eggs at Simon Cowell was to think “blimey, that’s someone really desperate to have a baby but the alimony would be worth the 3 minutes of discomfort” (that’s the conception not the giving birth). And then all glibness aside I actually felt a pang of regret that I’d missed the glorious spectacle of Simon wiping egg smegma from his forehead onto the waistband of his trousers. It seems the young lady in question (I can’t be arsed to publicise her name) wanted to protest at the “dreadful influence” Simon has had on the music industry.

And much as I’d enjoy jumping onto the “let’s give Cowell a drubbing” bandwagon I have to say “hold your horses” at this point. The influence he’s had on the music industry? I daresay he’s had some. Once. Occasionally. But let’s not build his part any bigger than it has to be. He’s not that powerful. He doesn’t hold the entire music industry in the flat of his hairy palm. Anyone who’s at all serious about music views Cowell and his annual Cowell Bots as a bit of an irritating joke, surely? They rarely have any credibility and rarely last longer than the chocolate your Auntie Doreen bought you for Christmas. His influence is truly negligible. It’s just that, such as it is, it is well publicised. That is the result of 2013 celebrity sick Britain not the result of Simon being a god-like impresario.

And to be honest, if Miss Egg wanted to strike back at those who have ruined the music industry she’d have to take out half the population of the UK, i.e. all those daft buggers that bought the ruddy music in the first place and made Cowell’s crapola so popular.

That’s going to take a lot of eggs, believe me.

On the bright side, someone throwing eggs at Cowell sure beats millions of tasteless teenagers throwing their money at him… And I’m sure somewhere there’s a joke to be made about battery farming and Simon’s cheap celebrity production line that churns out so many rotten eggs each year… I just can’t be bothered to make it.

I just ain’t got the talent, see?

Jamie Oliver Child Abuse

In a move guaranteed to ensure his twatdom for evermore, “cheeky chappy” TV “chef” Jamie Oliver has claimed that an unhealthy packed lunch is on a par with child abuse and the providers of the packed lunch – the hapless parents – are the abusers.

I kid you not.

Being a regular internet surfer my sensibilities have long been bludgeoned to insensate dullness by the proclamations of idiots and emotional amoebas the world over but even I, desensitized oaf that I am, found myself reeling in shock at the sheer magnificent idiocy of Jamie’s latest outburst. It is idiocy on an Olympian scale. Stupidity big enough to gag a black hole.

Jamie needs to take the same care over what comes out of his mouth as to what he puts into it – and wants to put into ours.

A packed lunch, no matter how comprised of donuts, lard sandwiches, liquefied sugar and cholesterol shakes, cannot in any way compare with child abuse.

Does Jamie need to attend a corporate training course on what child abuse actually is? You’d think with Operation Yewtree currently decimating the BBC’s summer programming schedule, Jamie would be a bit more clued up. Maybe the BBC could spend some of our license money sending Jamie off to make a programme about child abuse and how learning about it affects him and, of course, he can throw in a few recipes for conciliatory vegetable and nettle smoothies while he’s at it to make the kids feel better about themselves? Except the last thing those kids need is king dickhead Jamie Oliver criticizing them over their choice of comfort food.

Most bad packed lunches are not formulated by parents setting out to wilfully harm their kids or even by parents who take evil, predatory pleasure from stuffing their kid’s Power Rangers lunch box with enough fat to make a McDonald’s burger feel positively anorexic. Most of the time a bad packed lunch occurs due to ignorance, poverty and, let’s not overlook the biggy, the fact that the child in question refuses to eat anything else to the point where the family’s own doctor advises them to just let him / her eat whatever the hell they like just as long as they are eating something and ingesting enough regular calories.

And what about those ordinary families who occasionally slip a treat into their kid’s lunch boxes? The occasional Mars bar or Twix? The infrequent chocolate mousse? Is that child abuse too? Or are we just the equivalent of chat room “lurkers” grooming our kids for worse things to come? Sucking them into an underground world where their dependency on chocolate and sugary drinks will make them easy prey for Machiavellian techniques to make them more biddable in years to come? “Do the hovering and there’s a Milky Way in it for you, son…” Christ. I’ll hand myself over to the Yewtree investigation squad right now, shall I?

Dear Jamie, do you know what one of the most soul destroying aspects of child abuse is?

Guilt. Being made to feel guilty about something that wasn’t your fault and something that you could in no way have any responsibility for. Abusers love guilt. It really does make those in their power more biddable.

Guilt is a nasty, insidious thing when it is not deserved (but nevertheless keenly felt).

Spreading it about and using it as a leverage tool to sell your own branded personal ethos to the country and bolster your flagging celebrity status is abusive in the extreme.

Isn’t it about time you turned yourself in to the cops, Jamie? (I hope one of them fucks you over with a Curly-wurly.)

Releasing Your Inner Vile

Just as parents in olden times warned their children not so stray from the forest path or to accept sweets from strangers or to go into a strange man’s house to look at some puppies so the modern parent must burden its offspring with some more up-to-date caveats. Cautionary notes based around imminent celebrity – because there are so many 15 minutes of fame flying around these days a kid has to be pretty abnormal not to have an agent or a regular day time interview slot on some plebeian television “magazine” show.

These celeb rules can be condensed into:

Never get involved with Radio One DJ’s, especially those that do a lot of charity fun runs.

Never be part of a kiddie band if you harbour any pretension of being taken at all seriously as a musician when you are grown up.

And lastly but not least, do not ever sign yourself up to be Alan Sugar’s next young apprentice.

I quite enjoy the adult version of The Apprentice. Mainly because the contestants are akin to the painted wooden ducks on a fairground shoot ‘em up. They are dislikeable in the extreme. They are hate fodder. Pretentious, loudmouthed, arrogant, over-reaching, self-deluded arseholes to a man and to a woman. It is OK to hate them. Hell, they don’t even care. Their goal is earn so much money the negative opinions of us lesser mortals becomes merely a source of amusement to them.

But I don’t feel comfortable hating the kids on Young Apprentice. And yet I do. I do truly, truly hate them. For all the same reasons listed above in their adult counterparts. How shocking to realize that the traits of arseholedom can be seen to flourish at such young and tender ages.

All the arrogance, bile and contempt for every human being around you except for the one who’s got something you want is there, written large in their mannerisms and the way they conduct themselves... combined and augmented by the patronizing, callowness of those too young to fully grasp the way the world works but old enough to grasp the mistaken belief that they do in fact understand everything and understand it better than anybody else on the entire planet, so get out of my way and let me do what I want to do, you nobcheese, all you are required to do is to tell me that I am eternally, megalomaniacally right... now buy me a new Angry Bird themed iPad and shut the fuck up.

What kind of parent allows their kid to be a combatant on a show that makes the boys in Lord Of The Flies look like Rupert The Bear and Friends?

These kids are fearfully adept in their vileness. I sometimes wonder if they are kids at all. Surely they are adults masquerading as kids? No kid can surely be that callous and Machiavellian in their manoeuvring?

I certainly wasn’t at their age.

But I figure it all comes down to this: self belief.

To be truly vile, to be truly poisonous to your fellow man you need an above average sense of self belief. To be a King Bastard or a Queen Bitch you gotta believe in yourself worse than the kids from Fame. Because if you have any sense of self doubt, any inkling that actually, maybe you’re not half so great as you tell people you are, you just cannot stamp all over other people and walk away from it unscathed. Self belief cancels out conscience. Conviction tramples the little voice of reason in your head into oblivion.

Self doubt makes you a better person. It might make you a crap businessman but it makes you a decent member of the human race.

And for that reason alone I hope my kids never have enough self belief that they’ll ever want to be Alan Sugar’s next investment monkey.

And as for Jim’ll Fix It, well, that’s been off the cards for a long while.

The Ghost Of Christmas Post

OK. I’m waiting.

I have my arms outstretched upwards to the stars and my chakras open so wide a Higgs Boson could drive a ruddy great juggernaut right through the middle of them without touching the sides.

But it ain’t hit me. It hasn’t entered me. I am not speaking in Christmas tongues.

The spirit of Christmas has not seen fit to descend and use my body as a vessel for its gloriously tinselly commercialism.

I ain’t getting the Christmas vibe, man,

And I know I should be. The shops are selling their Christmas tat with the intensity of an Amsterdam window dancer. My home town had its big Christmas light switch on yesterday. Even Jamie ‘cheeky twatty’ Oliver is on the telly once more touting his mince pie flavoured ice cream (I kid you not: “individual ice creams wiv bits of mince pie in ‘em – even the pastry! Gor blimey, gov’nor!”).

The signs are there writ large upon the stars. Even the D list ones.

It is Christmas time (mistletoe and wine). It’s time to get jollied up. To get Santa’d. To get ho ho hoed.

But I can’t do it. I just can’t summon up the inclination.

It’s taken all my will power just to summon up a soupcon of enthusiasm to give my wife a Christmas wish list for myself – let alone trying to choose presents for other people.

I feel that spiritually I am shrugging with the burden of it all. I’m suffering from joy exhaustion or maybe more accurately “fear of joy commitment”.

Money’s tight. The health of the entire family seems to be dicey at the moment – if it we were a drink we would be Cinzano on the rocks without the Cinzano. Inanimate and domestic services are breaking down. My work colleagues inform me that Russell Grant got voted off Strictly Come Dancing. Things are on the verge of collapse.

Is this a good time to be having Christmas, I ask myself?

Might we not be better off postponing it until the Spring? ‘Cos Springwatch will be on the telly then and Chris Packham will be convincing us all that life is getting better because of all the birds and badgers producing young. The days will be longer. Jamie Oliver will have died from mince pie ice cream poisoning. I’ll have a modicum of hope in my heart that things will at least be getting warmer if not better.

This mid winter thing? I mean, is that really right for Christmas? Is it appropriate? Half of the world doesn’t think so.

Can we have a referendum on it, please? Put it to the vote?

Where the hell’s Jacob Marley when you need him?


P.S. This is my 800th post. That’s right: 800! 800 posts and still moaning...

Dangerous Roads

The way I’m looking at it, the BBC is a bit of a bungling would-be murderer.

For the last three Sunday nights I’ve greatly enjoyed watching Dangerous Roads, a celebrity based travelogue, in which the BBC pairs up a couple of TV celebs and then sends them out in a 4x4 to some exotic part of the world that these guys could easily afford to visit on their own wages and then makes them drive several thousand kilometres along “one of the world’s most dangerous roads” in the vain hopes of killing them off in a spectacular cliff edge crash.

That the crash never happened is a testament to the safe driving style of the chosen celebs and the fact that some idiot at the BBC quite plainly didn’t think to bribe Orla Guerin to bring back a landmine from Afghanistan.

A missed opportunity, BBC! We could have been rid of the boorish Charley Boorman forever. However, in the case of the lovely Sue Perkins I am rather glad that all Orla Guerin brought back with her were some After Eight Mints and a tin of weird liquorice sweets that nobody in the office actually likes.

But the premise of the show got me thinking.

See, I have a Flip camera (or rather my wife does, but let’s not haggle over ownership issues). I have transport. An old green mountain bike.

And Leamington Spa has some of the most dangerous roads in the county.

I could make my own version of Dangerous Roads and kill off the celebrities of your choice. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t need a hooky landmine (only one previous careful owner) to do the dispatching for me – the local flora and fauna would do that without batting an eyelid.

Here’s a quick sneak-peak at the itinerary:

After staying at one of Leamington’s many fine B&B’s your chosen celebs would mount up (one perched precariously onto the handlebars) and embark on their final journey.

The first leg would see them navigating the gum chewing wilds of Bury Road who’s broadly curving cul-de-sacs and St. George’s flag festooned garden sheds have seen many a careless traveller lost to the world – both body and soul – and, if not buried under a patio somewhere, then (a fate equally worse) married off to some 16 year old who's managed to get pregnant at the merest whiff of Lynx deodorant and who’s knowledge of foul language would make Roy Chubby Brown blush.

After that the timorous celebs must then negotiate a safe route through the competing Chav kingdoms of the Kingsway and Queensway estates who’s Burberry lined pathways have caused many a seasoned explorer to go blind and start shopping at Gap. They will need to watch out for roaming packs of hoodies, skateboarders and secondary school drop-outs who smoke like chimneys and who look like they’ve had the faces of World War I veterans grafted onto their pre-pubescent little skulls. If these savages don’t pop a cap into the asses of our erstwhile celebs then their 14 year old mothers surely will.

Finally – the coup d'état (or, more fittingly, the coup de tete) – our beleaguered celebs, by now bemoaning their D list status and wishing they’d stayed working for hospital radio, must traverse the marauding Mad Max 3 wilderness of the Leamington Spa High Street late on a Friday night. Auntie Entity, Master-Blaster and that weird geeky guy who flies the plane and has the face of a camel... they are all here waiting for some unsuspecting ignoramus to venture too close to their fag stained clutches. Steer your bike too close to the cliff edge of alcoholism and you will plummet forever into the churning morass of the gutter far below and find yourself forever more a citizen of Bartertown. Or, as it is more commonly known around here, Battertown.

And there you go. Job done. Job’s a good ‘un.

Charley Boorman is a goner.

Easy-peasy.

So. Which celebs would you like to nominate?

How To Cynically Drive Traffic To Your Blog (And Don’t Forget To Mention The F Word)

So after stats revealed on Monday that my most popular post ever was Sex With Nigella a few of you (yes, you; not me) suggested I write a series of Sex With... blog posts. One of you (not naming names here) even suggested that I might like to write a series of blog post about Sex With... you lot.

Like I don’t push the comedy envelope out far enough as it is.

However, as cool and as ground breaking (cherry breaking for some of you) as this idea was I decided it would cost me loyal readers. I mean, once I’ve marked you all out of ten it’s only going to cause jealousy and chagrin.

(Yes, Rol, you scored a ten).

So now I’m thinking I ought to just play it safe. Stick to celebs and world leaders. ‘Cos let’s face it they’re all fair game and it would be quite believable that most of them at some time or other may have actually had sex with me.

In terms of politicians I have to say (and I never thought I’d ever say this) I now regret that George W Bush is no longer in power because it forever denies me the opportunity to write a post entitled Sex With Bush. Though thinking about it, it does create an opening to write a piece entitled Sex Without Bush. This would surely drive protagonists of the great depilatory debate my way and boost my stats no end.

As it is (and this is where the great blog traffic boost begins) I could at least produce blog posts with titles along the lines of Sex With Obama, Sex With Hilary Clinton, I Did Not Have Sex With Bill Clinton, Sex With Donald Rumsfeld (And His Weapon Of Mass Eruption) and not to leave out the British and European contingent: Double Teamed By David Cameron & Nick Clegg and Sex With Eric Pickles (Slap The Fat And Ride The Waves). I think I’d give Sex With Berlusconi a miss – he’d only take it as a compliment. And possibly encouragement.

Celeb wise I could easily direct my thoughts to Sex With Dr Alice Roberts (oh boy, my stats are going to go through the roof), Sex With Keeley Hawes and Sex With Alex Kingston. Just to confuse my audience I might throw in the odd curve ball too – Sex With Gene Hunt or even Sex With Jeremy Paxman.

Weirdly, Hollywood-wise nothing grabs me. The thought of Sex With Cameron Diaz or Sex With Nicole Kidman does not appeal though I might be persuaded by Sex With Natalie Portman. I daresay many of you ladies would like to see Sex With George Clooney or Sex With Daniel Craig feature rather heavily on this blog but I have to say I can only stretch my imagination so far (though girth-wise it is pretty damned impressive).

Cool. Job done. If I’m not in the blogging top twenty by the end of the week I am going to come round and screw every single one of you personally and very professionally.

Media whore?

Yup, that’s me.

I Won’t Bite

My relationship with Twitter is absurd. In fact, in common parlance, it would be considered abusive.

I use Twitter. I use it only when I want something from it. Once it’s delivered I drop Twitter like a hot potato. I neglect it. I go off elsewhere, leaving Twitter to sob pathetically on the shoulder of a girlfriend while I’m down the pub laughing about it all with my mates. Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen.

It seems to work. Twitter is always there for me when I want it. It never says no. Sucker.

I say this so you’ll understand that my use of Twitter is highly infrequent.

Now. I Follow a few celebs. Mostly just to be nosey. And I realize that this whole enterprise is utterly pointless because I’m not on Twitter often enough to read any of their Tweets. Every time I dip into Twitter it’s full of people moaning about their children not going to bed properly and people who I don’t Follow trying to sell me something. I’m rarely online when Barrack Obama is for example. I guess we are like ships that pass in the night.

Very, very occasionally though, I get lucky and find myself Tweeting when a celeb is Tweeting.

It’s tempting, isn’t it? To reply. They’ve come out with some lame witticism or other and you think, I can top that.

And so you Tweet and hit Reply.

And then you feel dirty.

And a little sad.

Because none of us like to think of ourselves as sad star chasers. None of us would go into work the next day and boast that William Shatner had replied to one of our Tweets and aren’t we absolutely amazing as a consequence.

OK. That’s a bad example. I probably would boast about William Shatner replying to one of my Tweets. It’s William Shatner, for God’s sake.

But in general. the celebs don’t reply anyway.

And then you move from feeling dirty to feeling insulted. Hey! Cameron Diaz! Don’t ignore my 140 character review of your latest movie! At least have the grace to say thank you when I made the effort to spell ‘vacuous’ correctly!

But what did you expect? It was dumb to send the Tweet in the first place.

But I do get caught like this occasionally.

On Wednesday when I was doing my usual Twitter based sniping at The Apprentice (about the only time I use Twitter to be honest) Lisa Rogers, star of The Big Breakfast, Scrapheap Challenge and possibly at least one other TV programme that is still being shown on Dave (and pictured above) entered the snarling ring of Apprentice putdowns with the conjecture that the contestants were all “nobbers.”

Given the biscuit based activities of this week’s task I automatically responded with the Oscar Wildeian “don’t you mean ‘HobNobbers’. (Excuse me while I snigger to myself again... ahem ahem ahem; I’m just so funny sometimes.)

Lisa didn’t respond.

I mean, come on. What girl doesn’t like a biscuit based joke? A digestive jest? A drink is surely too wet without one?

I did get annoyed. But then I calmed down and thought it through. I was being unfair. I can imagine what it must be like. You’re a celeb. A star of TV, stage and screen (or maybe just Heat magazine) and all these people are Following you on Twitter. Every time you log-on you get thousands of Tweets from desperate Twits desperate for your attention. It’s easy to see what happened.

Amongst all those tens of thousands of Tweets that Lisa was receiving that evening my superbly crafted slice of immaculate comedy gold must have blazed forth like the sun shining into Bryn Celli Ddu barrow on Midsummer’s morning. Her retinas would have melted with mirth.

No wonder the poor girl couldn’t bring herself to reply. I mean what on earth could she bring to the table after that little hydrogen bomb of hilarity had gone off and vaporized her funny bone? She probably thought that anything she said after that would just sound wet and as funny as one of Eamonn Holmes’ jokes. Best to keep schtum and not reply.

Lisa, what can I say?

It would have been fine. I’m brilliant at summoning up polite laughter to bolster other people’s fragile egos. I would have made allowances for your comedy ineptitude.

I don’t bite.

I’m like a big cuddly HobNob of comedy.

You don’t have to be a high class biscuit yourself to appreciate my fulfilling oaty base. You can dunk me in your best China and it would be fine.

You wouldn’t cramp my style, honest.

And I’d even be prepared to sample a couple of your custard creams in return.

Now I can’t say fairer than that.

P.S. And I didn’t even make a joke about Ginger Nuts. That’s how good I am.

Super Junk

There’s a lot of talk in the papers and on the TV at the moment about super injunctions. I have to say that I haven’t read any of it nor listened to any of it – apart from a few gags about it on Have I Got News For You. Gags being the operative word, of course.

There’s a reason for my lack of interest which will become clear later.

Now, it strikes me that the whole situation is like finding a knot that someone has tied in a length of poo and then spending an unfathomable amount of time trying to unravel it.

Why bother? Why does anyone want to get their hands dirty with it?

Because, on the whole, there is very little moral high ground to be seen no matter which angle you approach the subject from.

I’ve heard lots of guff about freedom of the press and freedom of the individual to a private life. Which do you discern as being of greater value? We are all of us – celebs and Royals included – entitled to privacy. It is a basic human need. A basic human right.

But if some celebrity moral arbiter is then caught doing as he does rather than as he says, don’t we have a right to know about it?

We do. But that rather implies a moral imperative behind the exposé – and, let’s be honest, the only imperative behind most news stories these days (especially those that feature celebrities) is to sell more copy and make more money. There is nothing moral or edifying about that.

So then we have injunctions and super injunctions. Small, insidious cogs inserted into the gross machinery of the law to enable individuals to protect their interests / privacy from the rapacious, undiscerning appetites of the press.

I think I’d be more inclined to see these as a tool for individual human rights if they were freely available to everyone. They don’t appear to be. They seem only to be available to the super rich or the super influential. The superfluous man on the street can go and take a running jump.

At least, that’s how it appears. I don’t know. I haven’t read much into it or researched it.

Because, at the end of the day, I don’t think much to the press and I don’t think much of the politicians and the celebs they orbit. All of them have too much money – money that they all screw out of us one way or another – and too much say on things that matter to us more than it does to them.

I’d quite happily hang the lot of them.

Hence, I am exercising a super injunction of my own and am avoiding all news stories and articles about super injunctions. I don’t want to think, critique or in any way talk about them. They are off limits. Verboten. And if you feel the same way I will understand why you have bailed out of this post before this point.

Because even just talking about them is a waste of time, energy and money.

Super injunctions are the thief of time; the media wait for a court order from no man...

Jessica Alba, Leona Lewis And Me

It seems that some people just can’t take no for an answer.

It seems that some people who have everything – fame, riches, pneumatic boobs and easy access to a plastic surgeon – just can’t accept that a little person like me can say no to them and mean it.

But I’m really not interested. I’ve been blanking their emails for months and months but still they keep coming.

But now they’re getting devious. Now they’re offering me weird deals on meds and pharmaceuticals. Things to improve my performance in bed.

I ask you – is there anything less attractive than someone trying to get you into bed by selling you 5000 blister packs of Viagra? I mean, come on? If I need that many why you trying to get me into bed in the first place?

But it seems people like Jessica Alba and Leona Lewis think that normal rules don’t apply to them. They think that volume will blind me to context and I’ll go along with it.

Not so. I’m not interested.

I’ve tried emailing them back. Tried saying I don’t want to hear from them ever again. But all that happens is that I get even more emails – all from different email addresses but all plainly from Jessica and Leona and other famous starlets ‘cos it clearly says so in the subject line. How many email addresses to these girls have? Do they spend all their time creating them? How do they find time to do all their singing and acting and shit like that when they’re emailing me every day trying to sell me condoms and sex toys and drugs with names I’ve never even heard off? If it was Charlie Sheen I could understand it – but Paris Hilton? Britney Spears?

It’s like they’re all spamming me.

Spamming me for sex.

And that just ain’t right. Its skanky and nasty and not in a good way either.

I confess I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve tried writing firm but polite letters to the agents of these famous people but all I get back is abuse and loads of legal bullshit from Greenberg Glusker. The gist of it is, Jessica Alba and Leona Lewis are all denying having anything to do with it.

They’re denying all knowledge.

Well, that’s plainly just a lame cop out.

They just don’t want the world to know that I’m rejecting their advances.

Well, screw you, Jessica [or rather, not]. I’m telling the world right here right now.

I do not want to have sex with you! Stop hassling me with your weird sex-drug emails! Get a life, girlfriend!

You ain’t all that. Talk to the hand.

P.S. But we could still do a deal on the Viagra if you were prepared to ship it in smaller amounts. Purely for experimental use, you understand? Ciao.

5 Celebs I’d Like To Be Best Mates With

As a balance to the searing invective of my last post (as delicious as it was to spew forth) I would like to present a counterpoint. The 5 celebs who would be most welcome to partake of the overflowing kindness of my bosom, come round for tea and meet up for drinkies and meals out on a regular basis.

Number 1: Keeley Hawes.

Yes. I know what you’re thinking. My admiration for this lady is well documented on this ‘ere blog and you’re all wondering how the hell I have the sheer audacity to suggest a platonic relationship with this absolute goddess of a woman. Well, the truth is I’m very happily married to my wife, Karen; Keeley is very happy with her long term partner, fellow actor Matthew Macfadyen, and we’re all 4 of us respectful and moral people. I think we’d all rub along nicely together, out on foursomes to the pub, visits to art galleries and theatres, holidays abroad together or even sharing a caravan in Cleethorpes. A veritable paradigm of platonic perfection. I foresee no sexual tension ever muddying the water until that inevitable point in the evening when we all throw our car keys into the fruit bowl and strip off to our underwear. But really, that is a feature of so many of my relationships I hardly think of it as being in any way out of the ordinary. Which reminds me, I’m planning on having a big blogger’s party at my house at the end of the year – do hope you can all make it; those of you that can drive anyway.

Number 2: Frankie Boyle.

Frankie is dangerous. Frankie is lethal. He’s cutting and cruel. He shows no mercy. He can savage a man with a single sentence and leave his self esteem and credibility in tatters. This is the man who described Gordon Brown as looking like a sad face drawn on a scrotum and Lembit Öpik as resembling a banana with Down’s Syndrome. What an utterly great man to have as your best friend. I know, I know. But isn’t that like being friends with the school bully just so you won’t get bullied, I hear you cry? No, it isn’t. And if you dare to say otherwise I’ll set Frankie onto you. Frankie is a man of rare intelligence and discernment. He does not suffer fools. At all. I imagine he maintains a very small circle of trusted friends and advisors around him. It would take a special person indeed to penetrate the barbed wire and the No Man’s Land of Frankie’s personality. Therefore it would be an honour and a privilege to call this man a best mate; to have him come round to my house and make sneering comments about Michael McIntyre’s latest DVD or just make another gynaecologically revolting joke about Kerry Katona. It would be the highest accolade. And not a single one of you would ever dare to take the piss out of me again in case the wrath of Frankie should ever descend on you. Well sorted.

Number 3: Philip Glenister.

This man was Gene Hunt. That is so significant I shall type it again. This man was Gene Hunt. How cool is that? I mean how cool would it be to have this man drop you off at work in the famed Quattro and have him wave you off with something suitably witty and Gene-esque like “anybody gives you grief, knee ‘em in the knackers, son”. Walk into a pub with this man and I guarantee you will be served first by the landlord and then serviced by the barmaids. Your street cred would be assured for the next thousand years. This man was and is Gene Hunt. And he knows Keeley. We could all go out together in the Quattro and scare the shit out of any minority groups that we happen to pass. Though to be on the receiving end of a choice bit of Gene Hunt Political Uncorrectness would be a badge of honour for any mong, nonce or lowlife scum in the vicinity. Then we could all go back to mine and down a bottle of scotch though I might hide the fruit bowl on this occasion. I mean, you don’t want to get too puffy with Gene. He don’t like it.

Number 4: Professor Brian Cox.

What is not to like about this man? He’s like a big bumbling cuddly kid with the hardwired brain of a nuclear physicist. He’d share his Sherbet Dib Dabs with you whilst explaining the origins of the universe and how to actually use that cheap telescope you bought from Tesco but never figured out how to use. You could ask him anything about Uranus and he’d answer with a straight face. You could ask him about the probability of alien life, the creation of black holes and whether things can only get better and he’d know the answers. You need never lose a pub quiz again. Or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. And I bet he’d wangle you a free visit to see the Hadron Collider as well. What more could you ask for from a mate? In fact, that is the bench mark by which all friendships should be judged. Have your friends got you in to see the Hadron Collider? No? Well, they’re not your mates then. Dump them.

Number 5: Dr Alice Roberts

It’s been tough to limit this list to 5. Also vying for inclusion into my Friendly Famous 5 was Julia Bradbury (great for hill walking adventures), Miranda Hart (how could anyone not like Miranda Hart?), Helen Mirren (sexy older chick friend – total kudos) and Katie McGrath (my fruit bowl is big enough, believe me) but in the end the number 5 slot had to go to Dr Alice Roberts because she’s got brains, dyes her hair red and swims in the nude. For anyone with a passing interest in archeology or paleontology or any kind of ology that focuses on history and evolution (and believe me my interest in such matters is always passing) then she’d be ideal mate material. She could whisper mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid into my ear as often as she liked and I’d never get bored of hearing her say it. Especially if she was doing a few laps around my boys’ blow up paddling pool in the nuddy for good measure. And did I mention her hair? Sometimes she dyes it red. Not sure why that ticks a box with me but it does. A science chick with groovy hair. Every friendship list should have one. And mine does.

So there you have it. My dream good-buddy list. The pals I’d love to have. The ingredients for a perfect dinner party round at mine. Do feel free to join in and play. After all the violence and the bloodshed of the last few days, it’s time to spread a little love. Which celebs would you like to be best mates with and why?

I Follow But Never To Catch

“Following” celebs is not cool. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

But we all do it, right?

I do. I admit that I do. Facebook... Twitter... Some of the people I follow are TV people. Slebs. Stars.

But I feel kind of... bad for doing it. Diminished. Dirty. There’s something sad about it.

But I do draw the line at trying to engage them in conversation. That for me is the ultimate no-no. But plainly other people have a lower shame-threshold than I do. Every day these celebrity Twitter users are bombarded with hundreds of comments and pleas for attention. Please notice me Stephen Fry! Please reply to my comment Kirstie Allsopp about how gorgeous I think you are!

Take Julia Bradbury (and believe me, I’d like to). She regularly posts on Twitter and links out to photos she’s taken while filming. Within ten minutes I can guarantee there’ll be at least 50 comments along the lines of “you look great!”, “You look wonderful, Julia!” and “I love your TV work, Jules!”

Whilst I agree with the sentiments I can feel my scorn-face blowing a biggy. Sad sacks the lot of them! Get a life! These comments smack of the worst kind of desperation and sycophantic fan-dom. Oh please look down and notice me from your vaunted high position in Tellyland! Hey guys! Stephen Fry replied to my comment! I finally have self esteem bestowed upon me! I’m finally a somebody!

No. You’re not. You’re a sad little star pandering git.

So why do I Follow these people then if I’m so sneering about other people who do the same? Well, as I said, I don’t myself try and engage them in conversation but I do like the insider’s eye it sometimes opens on the TV industry; I like getting tip-offs about new programmes that are in the pipeline and, yes, I love it when an honest opinion is offered on another celeb or TV programme. I guess it’s like a soundbite version of Heat magazine for people who are too snobby to actually buy Heat magazine (like me).

But does that make me any better than Jonathan from Norwich who has promised to buy Julia Bradbury a pint should she ever find herself filming “down his way”? (Yeah, right, as if, Jonathan.)

I mean, in one of my comments on my previous post I was rather smug about revealing that Stephen Fry Follows me back on Twitter. Is my ego really so reliant on celeb approval? I mean let’s be honest. Stephen Fry Following me back says more about Fry’s innate niceness than it does about me being somehow noteworthy.

And just mentioning it in the first place kind of makes me a sad sack too. Doesn’t it?

And yet Twitter is capitalizing on this trend. For some time now it has offered suggestions on stars it thinks we all might like to Follow. Every day more and more celebs are signing up – solely one suspects to get Followed. It’s a free self-publicity machine after all. Ah how Twitter must love Stephen Fry for popularizing this whole star Following thing in the first place.

Should we be colluding in this? Isn’t it all a bit incestuous and self absorbed? Herd instinct given an e-makeover?

For the few of you out there whose Facebook and Twitter friends are purely people that you actually know and interact with in the real world... Respect.

For the rest of you: please stop bombarding Julia Bradbury with your inane, nobby-no-mates, pathetic “I’m a lonely cyber geek” drivel; my overtures to her are being totally ignored as a consequence.

Julia, when you’re ready, please Follow me back (Stephen Fry thinks I’m OK)!