It's Got To Be Perfect

Kermit memorably said it wasn’t easy being green. But, as Miss Piggy must have told him with a wag of her trotter, it’s even harder being perfect.

After all Elpheba, the tinted witch in the musical Wicked, finds it easy being green every night on stage, twice on Wednesdays and again on Saturdays. The boss of British Home Stores has no problem being green, he's quite happy being Philip Green, and I myself find it easy being green when I smell kippers. In fact I’m feeling quite queasy just thinking about it right now.

But being perfect? Well, it seems there are very few of us who can carry that off.

You see being perfect is made more difficult, in my experience, by living with someone who has lots of strange habits and who doesn’t quite see you in the light that you see yourself. Debbie, my wife, thinks I’m both green and perfect only in the sense that she says I’m a perfect copy of Shrek.

Apparently my shaving bristles in the sink don’t get her excited and nor do the holes in my socks, or my perfect underwear lying on the bathroom floor, or my perfectly dreadful time keeping, my chocolate intake, my obsessive tidiness, and my lack of patience. Of course it’s perfectly clear that she’s making all that up.

She’s jealous of me being male as that means, unlike the girlies, we don't waste so much time every day on fripperies and nonsense. Guys will bump in to each other with a quick handshake and a “Hi”, or if we’re really saving time just a quick grunt and nod. Women on the other hand have to kiss, scream, and compliment each other on their hair products, jewellery and clothing. If a Martian arrived asking how to be a woman you could issue him with a template and it would go something like “Greet other women with a big kiss while saying ‘that’s a lovely bracelet/necklace/dress/coat/hairstyle. Where did you get it?’ Remember to pretend to be interested in the answer.”

We men tend to be perfect at noticing these little imperfections in you women. It’s not easy biting our tongues and holding back from pointing this out, but we do try. Sometimes we let ourselves down and emulate you like, for instance, Top Gear’s James May trying his best to look the spit of Susan Boyle at the moment, but often we try to keep our distance just so we can help point out where the fairer sex is going wrong.

My wife for some reason doesn’t take kindly to me mentioning the absurdities of being a woman and that this involves her sticking her tongue out whenever she does anything that demands the slightest concentration. Strangely, she objects to me getting upset when she calls saying she can’t remember where in the car park she’s left her car, or indeed which street the car park actually is in, or even in which town. Neither is she fond of my perfect willingness to help her save time by mentioning that visits to the hairdresser aren’t supposed to last as long as our yearly holiday, that going to Tesco isn’t meant to be a day out, that televised football really will help her live longer and that TV commercials were actually designed so that we can channel surf.

It isn’t easy being green? Well last night, after I helpfully pointed out to Debbie that the broccoli she’d made was a bit mushy, I found it very easy being green – and so did my hair, my shirt, and the kitchen walls.

Why can't women be more like men? I'd have ordered a takeaway.

Tis (nearly) The Season

We’re approaching that time of year - the beginning of December - when our house goes in to a mad state of anticipation as the Christmas CDs are dusted off while the freshly cut tree is put up and we chase all the little bugs that came with it as they set up home in our skirting boards, refusing to budge even when we’re still sweeping pine needles up in March.

It’s also the time of the Advent calendars, those little cardboard windows our kids open while counting down to the big day and filling their chops with chocolate shaped rocking horses and jolly bearded men, before joining in the Yuletide kids’ tradition of throwing up.

This year I thought we’d do away with the usual High School Musical and Jonas Brothers countdown calendars and opt for the religious ones that tell the story of the first Christmas instead. My kids were up for it - after all it ticks all the teen boxes as the baby Jesus is a celebrity, his story has been made in to a movie and they know the soundtrack or, as we adults call it, the carols. But they had one stipulation. If the holy calendar was going to have a message, it also had to have chocolate.

I have now looked exhaustively and can’t find a single Nativity calendar with chocolate inside anywhere. I can get sweets hidden behind advent calendars counting down to when Tinkie Winkie wakes up on Christmas day, to the day Ken gives Barbie her present, or when Liverpool FC win silverware – admittedly that calendar is marked in years rather than days – but I can’t find a stable in Bethlehem with some mini chocolate angels hidden behind windows anywhere. Even the inn keeper must have left sweets on the pillow when he turned down the beds at night, surely?

I don’t want to sound fundamentalist here but if we’re going to call it Christmas, as opposed to Decembermas, Wintermas, EndOfTheYearmas or StuffYourFaceTillItHurtsmas, then someone enterprising should be able to come up with an advent calendar containing chocolates and a message. I don’t care if Torvill and Dean are Joseph and Mary, or the Strictly Come Dancing judges are the Three Wise Men. I’d even let Kai Rooney play the baby and his dad the donkey.

If the story was set today, of course, there is only one baddie who could play Herod. I can imagine the boos and hisses as Simon Cowell asks viewers to vote before sending out his soldiers. That’s after, of course, taking Joseph aside and suggesting an evening of Carpenters’ songs.

I spoke to Shakin’ Stevens this week and another piece of the magic disappeared when he told me his Christmas hit, Merry Christmas Everyone, was recorded in Spring. I know Slade’s big Christmas hit was recorded in T shirts and shorts in June and that even my favourite Christmas movie, It’s A Wonderful Life, was made in a sweltering studio in the height of summer. Perhaps we’ll find one day that David Bowie’s hit “Fashion” was inspired by Primark, Cliff’s “Summer Holiday” was recorded in the Arctic Circle, and “Hey Macarena” was actually a tribute to pasta.

As we get older, much of the magic of Christmas disappears as we discover that we’re no longer the centre of attention. This was brought home to me when my wife told me that Santa isn’t interested in leaving a new HD television and DVD Blue Ray player for me on Christmas morning this year - not even if I get a bigger stocking.

But I may go to the North Pole and plead with him. It’s where Wham recorded Club Tropicana you know.

Sweet Charity

Charity is a funny thing. I mean it’s serious and all that, but it can raise a laugh too can’t it? When I was a student I stood, very woozily, outside Buchanan Street Bus Station having missed my last bus and started singing “Show Me The Way To Go Home”. A polite lady gave me fifty pence for a coffee and told me I needed to find God. Unfortunately she didn’t tell me which bus route he was on but her heart was in the right place.

We’ve just finished Help For Heroes, and now Children In Need is upon us. Then it will be filling shoe boxes for needy families at Christmas and New Year haggis collections for Burns night. It’s serious and it’s necessary, but it’s bound to make you laugh at some point too.

Doing Help For Heroes last week on the radio I was struck by how much ego had been left at the door by the stars. There were no agents, managers, bodyguards, tax advisors or tipped off paparazzi, so I was hugely disappointed that my new suit, sunglasses and tinted make up went unnoticed.

Some stars sat in their cars outside drinking coffee from a paper cup because there was no room in our packed reception area for them, Ronan Keating hung around for ages signing autographs, Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet filled in magnificently for singer Tony Hadley who was stuck in a jam, and Jimmy Tarbuck dashed to a phone when he encountered traffic and called in pledging a round of golf for the auction.

Lee Mead meanwhile encountered nothing more alarming than my cheek but he complied willingly when I asked him to embarrass himself and share the warm up exercises he does before going on stage. However when I questioned whether he and Denise van Outen were having kids yet he said No, they were still practising. Next morning the papers had the announcement that a baby is on the way. I’ll kill him next time I see him.

Michael Bolton’s assistant told him and me that her boyfriend, who is ex army, saw some terrible things in Afghanistan and sometimes wakens up shaking. Aware that the conversation was getting heavy Michael lightened it perfectly by saying “and you thought it was foreplay?”.

I’ve hosted Telethons and it’s always the same. After coming off air, the euphoria evaporates and tiredness hits like quick drying liquid cement being poured over your head. As the Telethons lasted twenty seven hours and I was the only constant while everyone else did shifts, I watched enviously as they all headed off to a huge party while I drove home to my bed, once ending up an embankment after falling asleep at the wheel. After Help For Heroes, the boss gave us a beer. I sat all the way home on the train smiling, singing to myself like all those years ago at the bus station, and generally feeling like Dean Martin at Happy Hour. For all I know the beer may have been almost non alcoholic, but it was enough.

Next morning, feeling rough and looking unshaved and dishevelled, I was stopped at the station by a woman with a charity tin. “I’m collecting for underprivileged kids - you know the ones that won’t get any presents this Christmas.” I put my hand in my pocket but couldn’t find any change, same in my bag and wallet. I must have looked a pauper. “If you like I can put you in touch with the charity”, she said. Whether this was to make a later donation or to ask for help with my kids’ Christmas, she didn’t make clear.

In the past I’ve been punched at Children In Need by angry parents because their kids couldn’t get on telly, I’ve been threatened and I’ve been pushed and shoved by people desperate to get in the camera shot during Telethons, but I still maintain charity is funny.

A few years ago I was rushing to meet my parents after picking up a charity cheque back home when I was stopped by a drunk Glaswegian who recognised me and asked how I was doing. With bad grace, and a lack of charity, I said “fine” through gritted teeth and I then asked how he was doing. Back came the answer “mind your own blo*dy business”.

I laughed for hours afterwards, as I have after every charity fundraiser I’ve been involved with. I leave with the euphoria of knowing that people want to do good, that they’re having fun, and that they make me laugh.

Charity is a funny thing.

Go West

I spoke to my mum this weekend after having a week’s break in Cornwall.

“Where have you been?”, she asked with the unspoken frustration of someone who has been waiting for a call all week. “Well, I’ve had a week off”, I answered honestly. She anxiously replied, “have you taken anything for it ?”

Eh? No, mum, not a wee cough, a week off! Mums! They just never want to let go, do they?

My week away was spent in Cornwall, home of a pace of life that we seem to have forgotten here in London. There’s very little traffic, tractors let you pass, people wave Thank You if you return the favour, and even the horses seem pleased to see you, leaving little presents all over the road.

We spent days doing ordinary family things including lond walks, cream teas and watching videos. My kids enjoyed Educating Rita but were surprised to realise that the very young Julie Walters in that movie is the same Ms Walters who is Ron Weasley’s mum in Harry Potter. My older daughter, in particular, was shattered that this young skinny girl could grow in to a plump, but kind, old witch. “Oh my gosh”, she said. Then, after a few seconds of pondering followed it with “Oh…....my…... gosh”. And then for full dramatic effect “Oh… my… actual… gosh!!” Not for the first time I thought those private school fees were a real investment.

However, idyllic though the week was, it started out badly with rain that was so torrential, blinding and persistent that my showerproof jacket was about as useful as a shark with rubber teeth. I knew immediately why most people in Cornwall own a boat. It’s to get the shopping in. I’ve never seen weather like it and I was soaked through.

As I sheltered for a moment in the Tourist Information shop in Plymouth, which is on the dock opposite where the Mayflower set sail, I realised why those pilgrims left for America. It wasn’t to spread the Christian message or to explore the New World. They’d had enough of the weather and were off to buy a holiday home in Florida. I asked the nice woman behind the information desk if the weather was always like this and she replied “No. Sometimes it really rains.”

I’m not sure how diligent the Customs people were in America when The Pilgrims arrived but if they had searched the immigrants’ suitcases then chances are they’d have found lots of pies being smuggled in as the Cornish are never far from a huge feed and live on clotted cream, which is something I highly recommend. I discovered they were ahead of their time too, going green before everyone else. For centuries they have been recycling their food leftovers, not in a special bin for the council but wrapped up in pastry instead. They call it a Cornish pastie.

Cornwall, home of the mighty Pirate FM Radio (no, really), boasts place names that let your imagination run riot. As we passed through the village of Hatt I imagined it was once the centre of production for bonnets and caps in Britain. The hamlet of Catchfrench made me think of invading naval fleets from across the Channel getting rounded up, and I don’t think I should share with you what I conjured up as we passed through the village of Stanleys Bottom though, as it’s situated between to hills, it does get a bit windy.

Souvenirs are a must in Cornwall with the usual tea towels, pirate’s chests, pints of clotted cream and postcards on sale everywhere, and I did notice that the big seller this year is a wall chart called the Volkswagen Camper Van Calendar with each month featuring, you’ve guessed it, a different coloured Volkswagen van - a snip at three pounds fifty. You’re all getting one for Christmas.

So, now I’m back and raring to go, refreshed and ready for the winter ahead. But, as I look at the rain pouring down here in London, am I counting the days to my next holiday already? Oh…. My….. Actual…. Gosh….Yes.

Sweet Charity

I have a genuine question this week for you. It’s not a Smart Alec question like “What disease did Cured Ham originally have”, or “Why do dogs get annoyed when you blow in their faces yet the first thing they do when you take them for a drive is stick their head out the window?” Important though these riddles may be, there is something much more pressing in my world.

This is a question I’m genuinely troubled by and I hope you can help me. There’s no hidden agenda and no trying to get a cheap funny line (unlike the paragraph above). I’ve been grappling with this question for a few weeks and I don’t know the answer, so I’m looking to you for guidance.

What do you do if you regularly buy the magazine for the homeless called The Big Issue from someone, or frequently give a few coins to a beggar who appears every week on your train home, and then one day you spot them talking on their mobile ‘phone?

Do you carry on giving money because you feel that what these people do with your gift is their own affair and if a mobile phone is more important to them than a bed for the night then so be it? Or, like me, do you start to have doubts? That’s the moral maze I’m trying to navigate this week.

I’ve always felt that selling The Big Issue is a respectable and honourable way for the homeless to raise enough money to feed themselves and raise them from the twin dangers of lack of respect and sleeping on the streets, ensuring they get a roof over their heads and safety. So am I mean or wicked when I find myself perplexed? I have found my feelings a bit uneasy as I wonder how they can afford a monthly tariff or pay as you go mobile, and then I get even more uncomfortable when I wonder whether it’s any of my business anyway.

So, do I give as unthinkingly as before or do I now question myself and their motives and cut back what I give? I ask because this has happened to me with two different Big Issue sellers in the past month, both of whom have had my money regularly.

The first bloke gets on my train home once a week and comes through the carriages holding one, battered copy of the magazine. He is very polite and his spiel never changes. “Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I’m not trying to sell you this magazine but just asking for money so I have somewhere to sleep tonight”.

This is all fine, but a couple of weeks ago he stood beside me at my station on his phone arranging to see his mates later in the pub. “I’ll get the first round”, he said. Now I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to that but when he gave his rehearsed, polite speech later on the train I refused to hand over my change. Was I wrong?

The other Big Issue seller is a very nice, polite lady who sits on an upturned box outside our local bakery shop and, again, I’ve bought the magazine from her in the past. Yesterday she was sitting chatting away on her mobile and I walked past without buying. Again, was I wrong?

There’s an old expression from the Wild West where someone who gives a present but expects something in return was called an Indian Giver. The cowboys didn’t understand the customs of Native Americans where it was traditional to give a present and then get one in return. If nothing was forthcoming then the present was taken back. Is that what I’ve become, an Indian Giver? I don’t expect a present in return but am I expecting someone who gets a donation from me to let me know how it will be spent or I’ll take it back?

Perhaps the idea is simply to go with your conscience at the time and, unlike me, not to think too much about it.

It is a genuine question I’m asking this week but I fear that there are no correct answers.

There's No Business Like Showbusiness

I’ve been going to the theatre a lot over the past few months and I must admit that this, for a modest, unassuming person like I am, can be a bit difficult. You see it’s hard for me to sit and see someone else up on stage getting all the attention and, unlike my real life, never stuttering or being stuck for a good exit line or wracking their ageing brain for what word comes next. Also, I envy their happy endings and exciting lives. You never see anyone on stage stuck in queues or trying to park at B&Q do you? And they don’t ever do mundane things like dig the back garden or clean the toilet.

The way that I’ve found is best to handle my envy of all this is to quickly stand up at the end of a show and pretend the riotous applause from the audience is for me. This only works for a moment as it leads to everyone else getting up and the cast receiving a standing ovation, but I’m sure they know it’s all really for me and that it’s my caring nature that is letting them share.

I only realised this week that my trips to the theatre have involved seeing too many musicals recently like Wicked, Jersey Boys, Dreamboats and Petticoats, Oliver, etc, and so a “proper” play now takes me by surprise. The realisation came to me when I saw a performance of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice last week and wondered where the songs had gone and where the orchestra was hiding. If the bard had been really savvy he could have written a tune or two in his time and Shylock could have burst in to a ballad when demanding his pound of flesh. Maybe First Cut Is The Deepest?

I heard that my love of theatre is shared with The Queen and Prince Phillip who sneaked in late to a West End show last week, climbing over everyone and sending tubs of Maltesers flying as they fought to get to their seats. I’d hate to be the poor soul stuck sitting behind Her Majesty though. After the initial nudge, nudge excitement, you can’t exactly ask her to take her crown off as it’s restricting your view can you? And what’s the etiquette? Can you ask her to sign your programme? Do you offer to buy her a choc ice at the interval?

Hopefully she would turn down the offer anyway as a programme and choc ice in theatres today cost roughly the same as the upkeep of Balmoral for six months. I often think the best actors in the theatre are the usherettes who put on a wonderful welcoming smile as they hand you one triple chocolate Ben & Jerry’s and say “that will be fifty pounds please. Have a good evening”. To make legal theft look so innocent and appealing takes some amount of acting.

The toilets in all theatres are tiny and look like they were built for royalty – King Arthur that is – and that’s why there are always queues outside these antiquated, quaintly aromatic, stalls. Perhaps when it comes to loos our current monarch has someone who does it for her – the queueing that is, not the actual sitting down bit.

I think it’s important for the public to support theatre, a tradition that obviously stretches way back to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre days and even further, perhaps back as far as Bruce Forsyth’s first gig, so I fervently support my local theatre even though it is often half empty and puts on shows that are too arty with a capital “F”.

I find that supporting your local theatre is a bit like following your local football team in that you know it will always be a minor player, never win out on the big day and will always be unloved by others. I imagine it’s a bit like being a Liberal Democrat.

So I urge you to be that unfashionable supporter of your local theatre and all its silly ways and Victorian charm. It needs you if it’s going to survive. Just get along and support. But make sure you go to the loo before leaving home.

Sharp Dressed Man

I have a bit of a phobia when it comes to buying clothes. If I strain my ears I can just about hear you shouting “but you always look so elegant Paul, so what’s this with problems about clothes?”. That was what you were shouting, wasn’t it?

Well you see the buying bit’s easy for me so long as I go early and avoid the crowds, but I just can’t bring myself to stand in line and collect multi coloured plastic discs with numbers on to go in to some tiny, manky changing room where I’m supposed to balance on one foot to try on my purchases and see if they fit. This leads to my wardrobe being packed with trousers that are too short, jackets that are too big, and waistbands that are too tight, tho’ I confess chocolate may have something to do with that last one.

What is it that especially puts me off? I don’t know where to start. It could be the actual plastic discs, which firstly look cheap, secondly are easy to misplace, and fifthly make me feel I’m back in kindergarten being taught to count. Or maybe it’s the frayed curtains you have to pull across before stripping down, knowing it’s a waste of time anyway as they hang half way off. Or perhaps it’s the stains on the carpet, the smell of sweaty bodies or just that I hate shopping so much that I want it over and done with quicker than a Madonna marriage.

Whatever the reason I never, ever try on clothes before buying, preferring to throw them in a basket and hope for the best. So now you know why I very rarely wear anything that fits.

I bought a pair of jeans last week and, after pulling bits of plastic and cardboard sizing off, threw them on this morning for the first time. To my horror I discovered that they are the low waisted type where you are supposed to have your flies down around your knees and show off your lower back tattoo and designer underwear. Nowhere on the label did it give a clue that I would look like Scooby Doo’s pal Shaggy in a nappy, so now I will have to go out and buy designer underwear to show off above my new saggy waistband.

These “droopy drawer” jeans are fine if you want to let everyone see your Dolce and Gabanna Y- fronts or your Armani boxers - but I don’t have any. My underwear is a bit like the Scotland football team, washed out and losing support, and my designer labels at the back read simply Medium or Machine Washable. On a cold day they also read Boy, aged 10 to 12.

I seem to be alone in shunning designers for my undercarckers as everyone else seems to be following David Beckham and wearing expensive knickers just for show, so I think it’s time for a change. I’m considering starting up a new underwear range that will invert the retail snobbery while still making people proud to exhibit in public. I want to go to the other extreme, miles away from couture pants and trendy logos. Sadly it seems you can’t yet buy underwear with the Primark logo embroidered on the waist band, or Matalan either, and TK Maxx hasn’t woken up to the possibilities either. So, I am going to start my own downmarket range called Boot Sale.

Imagine walking behind me as I proudly show off my new, swing low, jeans with my boxer shorts showing at the back with Boot Sale proudly on display. You’d think that I was a stylish bloke wouldn’t you? And, like all really tacky, cheap stuff, it will cost the earth. I’ll make them for a couple of quid, sell them to Harrods at a fiver and they’ll retail at two hundred and forty quid. With buttons at the front, I bet they’ll fly (pun intended).

In a similar vein I looked at the bags carried by women on the train the other day and found they’re all branded as either Bradley, Kipling or Timberland. So, if women are really in to showing off designer labels on bags then I’m going to launch a range called “Fake”. Someone with a sense of humour would surely spend a few hundred pounds on that wouldn’t they?

Meantime, until I can get my business plans drawn up, I’m off to buy new underwear. And no, I’m not trying those on first either!