Skip to main content

Keep Under Cover.


You don’t expect your self-esteem to get a knock when renewing your contents insurance. This happened to me this morning; about five minutes into running through the various questions relating to my policy over the phone, when the subject of the nature of my employment came up.

“What do you do for a living?” asked Mark (the man with the power to protect my belongings.)
“I’m an actor”, I replied.

The line went dead for a moment.

"What sort of actor?”, he probed.
“How do you mean?”.
“Do you do film, TV or theatre?”.
“Well, all of the above”, I replied, “but mostly theatre.”

(For some reason, my previous policy had me listed as just a teacher; presumably, to avoid this kind of interrogation.)

“This is a slightly awkward question to ask”, Mark continued, shakily, “but it will affect the nature of your policy. Are you famous?”.

I mulled over my twelve years in the business. The high points, the low points; the near-constant middle ground.

“No,” I admitted. “No, I’m not famous; infamous, perhaps.”

Mark ignored my joke.

“Do any famous people ever visit your house?”, he continued. I was starting to go off Mark.

I briefly pondered whether the time when the actress who plays Emmerdale’s Charity Dingle popped over would count.

“No, not really.”

The line went silent whilst Mark totted up the figures, working out what type of cover I’d be eligible for; completely unaware of how he’d summed up my career in just a few seconds and found it to be lacking in the process.

I wonder if I could claim for compensation for loss of earnings due to ego damage? I’ll let you know how things pan out.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...

Comedy That's Worth a Letch.

Today, I nipped to Letchworth to meet with illustrator (and one-time - two-time - comedy poet) Mushybees, to discuss an event Mostly Comedy will act as surrogate parents to as part of Letchworth’s Arts Takeover in a couple of weeks. Months ago he got into contact to see if we’d be up for co-organising a comedy stage as part of Letchworth’s weekend of arts-based attractions in July; something I’d provisionally said yes to, before things got hectic in the lead-up to Edinburgh and we didn’t take it any further. Despite not getting down to the nitty-gritty straight away, we managed to pull a line-up together in a back-and-forth of emails yesterday, leading to me getting Glyn’s blessing and us deciding we’d officially go ahead with it (whatever ‘officially’ means in this context). In reality, it’s not complicated: from 12pm until 6pm-ish on the 22 nd July, Glyn, Mushybees and I will host four Edinburgh previews from four acts (including me), before Nor...

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...