Dispelling the Myth

One of the worst things about acting is that people consider you will do anything for money. This could not be further from the truth. I myself am very, very picky about my work, and limit myself to leading man, romantic lead, supporting roles, tv cameos, tv main roles, extra work, radio, commercials, product endorsement, voice overs, charactorisation, character voices, webcasts, chat shows, panel games, opening supermarkets, judging vegetables, judging cat, dog, horse and reptile shows, opening fairs, book signings, reality television, writing, appearing at literary festivals, doing childrens' travelling theatre, hosting radio discussion shows, writing scripts, promoting my new range of dietary products, the shopping channel and of course hand shadows.

It is with great pride then I notice the SciFi channel are repeating 'USF Collosus', the sci-fi series I made some years hence with Windsor Davies. I played Captain Trent Tugbote, a rough and ready captain exploring the depths of space with his intrepid crew, which included Davies as First Officer Llew, an alien from the planet Kharki. There was a scottish engineer, Mr McTavish, and a Doctor we called 'The Spine'. Although his real name was Eric. Now, some of you are thinking 'this is just a Star Trek rip off'. You would be wrong. It was a different from Star Trek as it is possible to be. For a start, our mission was seven years, and there were no pointy ears. Windsor did have a gelatinous moustache, but I am not sure that was down to make up or the soup at lunch. Plus, our space ship resembled a plate, balanced on a pile of old tyres, painted green with a tv ariel coming out the top. Which in fact, it was. We explored planets, not worlds. We didn't seek out new life or civilisations, but we did stumble across a few inhabited worlds which seems to have a social structure. Plus our teleport technology consisted of a curtain and a big ladder.

We didn't have Phasers, we had Phosers, and they could be set to Stun, Stun some more or Gobsmack. But never kill. And Windors' character didn't have a tricorder. He had a quadcorder, which could detect aliens with ten miles, analise whatever world we were on for dangerous gases and toxins, and most importantly, get Radio 5 live.

So completely different.

Hacking

I was shocked in Carphone warehouse to discover that I had been hacked. The papers deal in minor celebs such as McCartney, Morgan and Cameron. I myself considered myself to be above this sort of thing. Who would want to listen to a lot of winging from an old actor, his agent and British Gas? How wrong I was. To think someone may have listened in to my negotiations over that cactus with the garden centre. That someone would have accessed the intimate details of my caravan rental agreement. A third party may have eavesdropped on my delicate and deeply personal chiropody problems.

While all this didn't make the front pages, and I was not besieged by hordes of reporters, it still invades my privacy. One wonders what else they had been reading? My mail? My email? My Internet? God forbid they had found my todo list, which has comments about people in the industry, many of which make more than a passing reference to medieval torture.

Private lessons

I have to say I have had to curtail my educational services. Although I felt my contribution to young actors was something worth doing, and passing my wealth of experience onto a new generation gave me a sense of pride and self-fulfillment rare in these troubled times, I have had to end it. Also my silverware went missing.

One young man was particularly talented, and as we sprinted through the Bard, gave shape to farce and explored the world of existential theatre I did feel he was going to have an issue tackling Dickens. and that he did. I tried him with my Pickwick and he made a complete hash of it. I am afraid I lost my temper. There are few things which oil my anger stick, but this was one of them. "Take thee from this place" I shouted "and lest thou ever darken this portal again, be thy aware my wrath awaits undiminished by the passing solar epoch". He asked me what the f*** I was talking about, which just goes to show.