Threatening call

I have just received a call from a withheld number. The words are etched on my mind like the graffiti on the front door.

“Evenin’ Guv. It’s a real pea souper out there and that’s a fact. People bound to go missin’ tonight, squire. Cor blimey, it’s a bleeding nightmare for those who remain when some bloke goes missing, so it is, chief. I tell you mate, I can feel something awful about to happen, never have I had such a sensation in my plums”

And the line went dead. The cockney accent was so bold, so assured I can only assume it was made locally or at least in the Northern Hemisphere. 

I would switch the lights off and close the curtains but Van Dyke stole them all.

I may go and stay with Binky Biggins tonight. If I do I want you to know that if I am reported to have been found in a sex game which went wrong, it was nothing to do with me. Well, it certainly wasn’t consensual.

The pajama game

Further to my earlier post, I have just come off the phone to the producers of Diagnosis Murder. My conversation was somewhat curtailed by their refusal to believe in my stolen pajamas appearance, with threats being issued on both sides of a most boisterous nature. Since putting the phone down I have reflected on the career of Dick Van Dyke, and the money has has accrued, and am under no misconception when I say that the man intends to carry out his threats, many of which relate to my bottom.

To think this business may actually lead to my untimely death. It’s only a pair of pajamas I know, but it’s the principle of the thing; then the horror of the truth hit me. 

Van Dyke had robbed my flat!

He has the power. He has the money. He has my pajamas. It all fits. I rang the local police station and informed them of my suspicions ; several times to several officers, all of whom passed me onto another officer to explain my theory. They assured me someone would come around tomorrow and speak to me about it.

But that is tomorrow! Tonight is the questionable time. If I am found dead in my bath, or deceased after some bizarre sex game then I can assure you that I did not kill myself, I had no intention of killing myself and frankly if I am found in a cupboard with jam on my genitals and a noose then it is definately not a sex game gone wrong. I cannot emphasize this enough. 

If I am found with a tangerine in my mouth and a dog collard in ladies undergarments with a Henry hoover attached to my manhood then ignore the report - it will be murder. 

And if I am discovered with a black mamba ‘adult toy’ rammed up my behind, blindfolded and tied up spread eagle and naked then I can assure you it was not of my doing.

March Madness

One thing March is famous for, apart from the Ides, is madness. It has been quite fraught here of the last few days. First, on the second a man called around claiming there were some slates missing off my roof. I inspected the roof myself while he waited, and found no such deficiency in slate provision, and on my descension I discovered it was not slates I was lacking but a television, DVD, blue ray and for some reason my pajamas. Having informed the Police of this foul business, I was duly sent a form (well, they claim I have been sent a form but to be honest I have recieved squat diddly from them). My pajamas I will miss, everything else can be replaced, but they were a gift from Chris Timothy and the very same pajamas featured three times in All Creatures. A collectors item for sure. Then on the fifth another man came around to tell me Mark Featherstone at the Bull Theatre was looking for someone for his play 'Hopeless'. Apparently Featherstone had written the play with me in mind! I rushed around to the Bull stage door, full of adrenaline and enthusisasm, only to find there was no such play ergo no work. With a horrible feeling I rushed back to Islington where I discovered my setee, chair, table and lamps had all gone. what foul trickery does the criminal underworld think it is playing on me? Then, yesterday, the tragic news of Godfrey Bellamy, with whom I had the pleasure of appearing in 'No No, Not Mr Bellamy' in the 1970s had passed away during an epic attempt to scale K2 (although only having one arm since appearing in the musical live theatre version of 'Born Free' could be seen as something of a handicap. I poo-pooed this news thinking no sooner would I have left the house than Bellamy would be around taking what is left of my possessions - albeit slowly with his one arm - off to the underworld. I flatly refused in my paranoia to believe he was dead and this lead to them taking me to the undertakers and prizing open his coffin to check. Lo and behold, Bellamy. I have to say I have never felt so bad in my life. To doubt someone is dead simply because it may mean saying good by to my Victorian Tea Pot or the sideboard was unforgivable of me. I felt a fraud and a charlatan. I gave a splendid (if I say so myself) impromtu speech at the service 30 minutes later and was consilatory and sympathetic as any funeral goer could be.

I returned home to find they had taken everything but the floorboards. No one saw anything of course, I mean it would be too much to ask that people look out of their windows and see someone carrying doors, light fittings, taps, kitchens and an entire toilet and loading it up in a van. What is the public doing, not looking out of their windows? It's not like they have much else to do. Theatre is afternoons and evenings, therefore the notion they are too busy to look or even ask a question 'What is going on outside' indicates to me they are not the kind of people I would want to watch me play Rattigan.

While I have been typing this I have had Diagnosis Murder on, and horror of horrors, one of the actors has my pajamas on.

Update

Here we are approaching the end of February and not one word from any of the applications I have sent off, auditions I have attended. The last two months have been almost annoyingly quiet. Apart from one job I did have at Warner Road Police Station where I was involved in an identity parade. That was before a collosal near-miscarriage of justice, which was cleared up in under three days, though I am pretty sure word got out to the grocers in the area.

It was during my sojourn in Warner Road I started to think about how famous people would survive in gaol. I don’t think there has been a convincing portrayal of Prison life; I mean that. I mean, there was The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption and Within These Walls, but no really gritty, socially combative exposure of life ‘inside’.

Which is why upon my release I started to write a new novel. I don’t see why not; Richard Fairbrass is not coming back to me about that audition for the West End, and he is leaving it a little late, considering it’s been on a week. And Penguin haven’t even replied to my idea about a book about the adventures of an amorous chair.

and so my mind is sharpened, my pen is ready. I say pen because I feel the writer works best when the process is not weighed down with the rigors of technology. Plus the electric has been cut off. This is what I have written thus far

Bob Crime is a garage proprietor from the east of London. Involved with some shady coves, he quickly becomes immersed in organised crime, and is involved in the notorious fruit stand caper, where he and his cohorts knock over a fruit stand. Alone and sentenced to four thousand years, he has time to think about the error of his ways. About his wife, and about sodomy. Not necessarily in that order. Anyway one of the convicts - or lags to use the parlance of the cells - tells him to do something or other which is totally contrary to the rules of the prison and thus presents a moral dilemma which is the main driver to the story. There is conflict as well with the prison big crime man called Mr Big, and for light relief a small scuffle over a pudding.

Glorious, gritty, real.

An Agents' Birthday

Today is Rhianna's birthday. Who is Rhianna? She is the delightful creature who has replaced Pamela who seems to be always at the dentist/on a course/skiing/up Mount Snowdon when I come in these days. She is much younger than Pamela, and I know I will regret typing this, much more efficient. Yet under her sultry greeting, behind those dark eyes, inside that mysterious feminine mind lies a throbbing, burning, passionate woman. I am sure of it. The way she asks me to sit in reception and then ignores me for an hour or two. It's obvious she likes me, the poor lamb. I made some enquiries and it appears she has changed her name and is now named after a pop star. I cannot remember which one. This just makes me even more intrigued. Who is this bewitching boudica? I need to know all I can.

I have therefore been going in to the office quite a lot, making excuses to be in her presence and watch her. Of course, I don't just sit there and stare. No. I have a magazine in front of my face with one hand and a small childs' periscope over the top. I am not sure she suspects. I have the inspiration for a poem:

Oh Rhianna
You type like Diana
She was a Princess
But you are a receptionist
Oh Rhianna
I hope a spanner
isn't in your works.
Because you wouldn't really need one
In the course of normal secretarial duties.

It's obviously a work in progress. But I am keen to know more about this sultry temptress. Not from a romantic point of view, although that would be nice and mean I hadn't wasted the money on the tablecloth, music and delicious food from the Harvester buffet. No, she has a strange aura.

Oh fickle love, what turmoil you are causing to my delicate, open heart? What strange emotion courses through my veins? This longing, this need, this burning? Although it could be the pickled onion I had earlier.


She coyly sighs when I ring; she seems indifferent when I enter the room; she hands me my script in preparation for my meeting with Audrey (my agent) without even looking up from her burrito.

They always say the ones who ignore you are the ones who like you most and she really, really ignores me. Could she be... the one? Is this the bewitching tickle of love in Tarquins' aching, lonely heart? Could we make it work, against the odds, against society, against the world?
















No.

Opportunity Knocks

Often in life things occur when one is least expecting them. January is always a quiet month for us thesps, many of whom are either scraping off the makeup piled on from work over christmas or furtively avoiding the call from Debenhams for the Santa costume back.

I myself have been immersing myself in decorating my new cottage; I have to say it is very cathartic to move away albeit temporarily from subtext and motivation to flock wallpaper. I have to say those that have visited me have commented that my design is both original and striking. A new, undiscovered talent perhaps? I came up with the 'farmyard' design in conjunction with Chris Wainright, although I should point out Chris generously said I should take all the credit for it. Such was his generosity he turned down any money or undertakings of favours in return, finally stating - and I am having documents drawn up legally - that he wanted nothing to do with it.

The design itself is strikingly simple; pasture shades of green, mellowing into the golden tinge of Autumn, with the occasional brown dollop. The dollops themselves are affectionately known as Cow Pies, and with the three D glasses (optional) you can imagine cattle had indeed hoofed it across your wallpaper, leaving only the goodness of their excrement as the proof. You may also, should you wish, purchase the optional scratch and sniff accompanying the wallpaper.

it really is rewarding, living in a old house, to be a custodian of the past. There are so many parts of the house which I find enchanting. Only this morning I was delving into a Priests' nook, while this afternoon saw me sliding sideways into a concealed passage. I mentioned this in the pub - The Ryder - and was surprised when the Landlord informed me that 'we don't like that sort of talk in here, Mr McPhereson. If that is what you are after, try The Beefy Bicep on the Holland Road'. Bemused at their lack of interest in home improvement and local history, I ventured to the said hostelry, mentioned the same issues I had previously in The Ryder, and within an hour I had a small group of interested young workmen - evidently just finished a long, hot shift on site by the look of them - to come back and labour through the night.

Labour down here seems to be a different meaning to the one I was intending. Whereas what I had envisaged was some pointing, plastering and the odd bit of woodwork, what actually transpired was a lot of disco music and naked dancing. All very nice indeed, but not conducive to my cottage being restored. They also refused to leave, and as the Police report clearly states, they started the trouble.

When the fire was extinguished, I was left with nothing more than a letter opener, two chair legs and a roll of my wallpaper.

Pamela, my agents' so called assistant.

I have never been so insulted. I just came off the phone to Viviens’ assistant, Pamela (I have been given her mobile number as the office is quite busy) and she wasn’t even at her desk. At this time! On a Saturday! She was in Sainsburys. Hardly a place to discuss new ideas, although they are stocking Bengali pickle now.

I suggested my idea to her – after having to remind her SEVERAL TIMES who I was – and she said ‘What do you know about food?’. What do I know about food? WHAT DO I KNOW ABOUT FOOD? I advised her to look at my Curriculum Vitae, but she said what with being in Sainsburys she didn’t have a copy to hand. When I then said she should ask them to see the unsuccessful applicants file for the tobacco counter in the personnel file, she declined. She repeated her enquiry about my level of knowledge of food. I reminded her how much food had played a part in the parts I had played

• Yogesh the Radish in The Travelling School players production of ‘Fruit and Veg’
• Dr Richard Onions in ‘The Armageddon’
• Smearing myself and Anna Massey in yoghurt during a love scene in Lady Jane Grey (although technically I wasn’t in that)
• Winston Churchill eating a Melon in ‘Winston – The Melon Eating Years’
• Cyril the Healthy Hamburger on the Streatham High Road

Was this not enough? Of course I am leaving out the scene in ‘Locks’ Fortress’ where myself, Gordon Francis and Bob Muckerjee were rolling around naked in a huge vat of blackberries. That film though may not count as I don’t think it was ever commercially released although I have had a cheque to prove it was recently shown in a club in Brighton called ‘Clench’. I do love these clique movie enthusiasts.

I’d also been eating most of my life, which I hoped counted as research.

“What do you know about food, Tarquin, do you cook?” My food knowledge is – and I am the first to admit this – limited. I had to reply that over a six week shoot my recipe for porridge would become a little repetitive, even if I added jam around episode four as a plot twist.

“You have to know something, Tarquin, about the subject. We can’t just waltz into the BBC with any old crap and expect them to say yes. We’re not Jennifer Saunders”. And the line went dead.

Replacing the handset into the cradle, I pondered her words. I then rang her back and impersonated Jennifer Saunders with the same idea, but got through to her voicemail and had a coughing fit, during which a large gob of phlegm covered the handset and caused much disgusting language from yours truly. So if you see Ms Saunders making flambé Cheese Cauliflower or icing a cake which looks like an Epsom printer, you know it’s all fixed.

Why can I not do cooking on TV? I would be very good. One of my hobbies is cooking, and then eating, and to have someone else, or preferably a couple of million people who can’t interrupt me watching me eat something, that would be ideal.

So now I am planning my McPhereson Delicious Road Trip. I shall visit theatres, radio stations and on location news reporters and cook for them and film the results. And I will send the tape to the BBC myself. Then we will see if the BBC can resist my tasty talents.