Is It Really Too Much to Ask? (25 page)

According to recent research, the average British Johnny worker takes six and a half days a year off sick. And, plainly, this is ridiculous. Nobody is ill that often. So what is he doing that's more enjoyable and more enriching than going to work?

Obviously, after you've phoned your line manager in the morning and made a selection of coughing noises, you can't very well go shopping or to the pub because you might get rumbled. This means you are confined to your house, alone. And what exactly are you doing in there?

Obviously, if you are under twenty-five, you are playing computer games and looking at pornography on the internet. But the figures suggest that in the past twelve months skiving has become very popular among the over-fifty-fives. Last week I think I found out why.

It started off as a normal cold, a bit of a sniffle, and a general sense that the central heating had gone haywire – one minute roasting the house to the point where the floor polish was melting into puddles and the next turning it into an igloo. Needless to say, all the women I met were very sympathetic. ‘I suppose it's man flu. Ha. You should try giving birth. Then you'd understand the meaning of discomfort. My baby came out sideways and I was back at work fifteen minutes later. So get your own soup, and if you want to feel better, chop some logs.'

At first I soldiered on very bravely, and it was only because I talked of nothing else that people realized I was ill at all.
But then something strange happened. Normally a cold turns into a tickly cough and a runny nose, but mine didn't.

All the usual symptoms decided to pool their resources in my right ear. My cochlear nerves developed a cough, my tympanic membrane became inflamed and the gallons of snot and mucus that normally come down a patient's nose were channelled into my Eustachian tube until it felt as if my head would burst. Imagine pumping a trillion gallons of crude oil into a condom and you get the idea of what was going on in there.

I was rendered completely deaf to anything happening in the outside world. All I could hear was things happening in my own mouth. Breathing, the production of saliva and the large quantities of blood seeping from under my teeth. The pain was very bad.

A doctor suggested I perform the trick that you do when a plane is coming in to land. Holding my nose and trying to blow out. Well, I did it so hard, bits of phlegm shot at high speed out of my tear ducts. But my ear remained resolutely blocked.

I went to a chemist and bought every single thing it had. Lemsip. Nasal spray. Gum. Tampons. Cotton buds. Nothing worked.

I went to a hardware shop and bought a plunger, which I used on the side of my head. That didn't work, either.

I thought about trying a small bit of dynamite. The pain at this stage was so bad, I wanted to tear my own eye out to reduce the pressure.

By lying on the floor and screaming, I managed to convince friends that I was in a bad way, so they summoned a specialist, who said that he could drain the fluid but only by cutting a hole in my eardrum. That didn't sound a very good plan so I did the next best thing. For the first time in seventeen years
I phoned in sick and went to bed. And there I discovered a morning television programme called
Cash in the Attic
.

The idea is simple. Each day we are introduced by a woman with lovely diction to an elderly couple who have had a few personal problems. He has trouble with his knees. Her mum's ill. They have regional accents and, unlike those who take part in ITV dating shows, do not have any convictions for aggravated burglary. We therefore like them and feel sorry for them.

They tell us that to cheer themselves up they need £600 for a golden wedding anniversary party or a trip to the seaside or some other activity from the 1950s. To help them realize this dream, an expert descends on their house, snouting about in the loft for bits and bobs that could be converted into money at an auction. Grandad's old pipe. A boyhood collection of cigarette cards. A vase they'd bought together on a long-forgotten holiday in Tenby.

The tension is palpable. You know the couple. You've heard their sob story. You can feel the hope in their hearts as the auction begins. And then the despair as the first lot, a chipped teapot, goes for £1.72. And the next for £3.85. And the third doesn't sell at all.

It's tragic. They are selling the trinkets that bind them together as a couple. They are waving goodbye to their history, and at this rate they won't be able to afford even so much as the bus fare home. After every lot the host asks how they feel, but you already know. ‘Very, very sad.'

It's the funniest show I've ever seen and I can quite understand why so many people aged over fifty-five are staying at home to watch it. After half an hour I was still weeping with laughter and had completely forgotten about my illness. I was cured and badly in need of more
Cash in the Attic
, so I went on the internet.

You might imagine that watching someone lose everything was a one-off. But no. It seems that the same thing happens every week. People sell off their things and get almost nothing in return. They'd be better off if they'd been burgled.

Cash in the Attic
, then, is a show that proves mostly that you have no cash in the attic – just a lot of broken record players and things without plugs. But it's so addictive that already I'm planning what illness I can develop next week.

Lou Reed told us the perfect day was feeding animals in the zoo. He was wrong. The perfect day is a bowl of chicken soup, a packet of digestive biscuits and the spectacle of a woman in towelling trousers selling her collection of antique thimbles for 65p.

12 February 2012

Of course, we have no idea why Whitney Houston died last weekend. We cannot be certain about her state of mind or what toxins may have been coursing around her arterial route map at the time. All we know for sure is that she was found in a bathtub along with a towel, hair ties and a gravy boat. I suspect that the gravy boat is a clue. Because I had what might be termed a ‘session' the other night, and as a result I arrived back at home a little rubbery. My legs wouldn't do quite what they were told and I have a dim recollection of having to repeat – several times – my address to the taxi driver.

Once through the door – this was tricky as there appeared to be many locks, none of which would stand still – I needed many things. Beans on toast was a big priority, along with a can of Coke, or as a friend of mine always calls it, the ‘black doctor in the red ambulance'. This, I hoped, would settle my tummy, which appeared to be entirely full of sick.

I also needed my chilled floor tile. This may sound a bit strange but I have kept such a thing in my fridge ever since I realized that when you are in a bad way, it's refreshing and comforting to place your face on a cold floor. The trouble with doing this, of course, is that you usually fall asleep and wake in the morning feeling terrible. That's why I keep a floor tile in the fridge. So I can have the feeling of a cold floor while being in bed.

Ah, bed. That's what I always want most of all when I've had a few. Crisp, cool, cotton sheets, quietness and a sense
that soon the spinning and the nausea and the pain will be buried deep under a comforting, numbing cloud of unconsciousness.

At no point have I ever thought, ‘Right, what I need now is some gravy.' And even if I did have a hankering for a spot of Bisto, I'm not certain I'd have the gumption to decant it into a boat.

And even if I did, I'm fairly sure I wouldn't then think, ‘Mmm. I know. I'll go and eat this in my bath.'

Mainly this is because we know from Jim Morrison that taking a bath when you are the worse for wear is jolly dangerous. You would be better off climbing into a hornets' nest or playing slapsy with a venomous snake. No, really. I have in front of me a chart showing some recent figures of how those who died unexpectedly in America went to meet their maker, and it's surprising.

You might imagine that since the soundtrack of American life is gunfire, that many people die in a hail of bullets, and you'd be right: 230 people were shot by baddies and 270 by the police in the same year. Then there were 55 who were pushed, fell or jumped from a tall building, 185 who died while jogging and 36 who went west as a result of a foreign body entering their being through a ‘natural orifice'. In other words, 36 people died with a vacuum cleaner up their bottom.

A predictable 26 were killed by dogs, 395 were electrocuted (not by the state), 9 were killed because their nightclothes melted, and 55 by coming into contact with hot tap water. As you might imagine, the list is long and amusing, but there is one sobering fact: 341 people died in the bath.

Since the bath is warm and relaxing, we have to assume that few of these died from heart attacks. And I presume too that those who decided to share their bath with a toaster or
an electric fire would be listed under ‘suicides', which means that the vast majority of the 341 must have drowned.

I'm sorry, but how is that possible? It's not like the surface is very far away or that you can become entangled in weeds. Nor are you likely to be swept away from the edge by currents. Unless you are Donald Trump, perhaps.

So how does it happen? Do you fall asleep and slip under the water? I find that hard to believe because most people wake up when their ears hear a rustling outside or their noses detect a funny smell. So it stands to reason we would come to if our lungs noticed that, instead of air, we had suddenly started inhaling water.

Of course, when we are drunk we lose many of our senses. Young girls lying half-naked on the streets of Cardiff on a Saturday night testify to this. But not noticing that your knickers are on display is a far cry from not noticing that your lungs are filling up with soapy water. I suspect, therefore, that to die in the bath you have to be massively drunk. Monumentally out of it. So far gone that you have somehow mistaken a gravy boat for a bar of soap.

We can therefore speculate that Whitney Houston was intoxicated when she climbed into her bath last weekend. And judging by various reports, she was in this sort of state quite often.

Which brings me on to all the things her friends have said since that fateful night. They've all talked, with watery eyes, about how honoured they were to have known her and what good times they had together. And I must say, as I sat through the Grammys, listening to all of them weeping and wailing, I thought, ‘Hang on a minute. If she was such a good friend, how come you allowed her to get into such a state that she was bathing with a gravy boat?'

And it's not just Whitney, either. Michael Jackson. Keith Moon. Jim Morrison. John Bonham. Phil Lynott. Elvis Presley. The list of superstars who've died, fat, drunk or alone in a puddle of effluent is enormous.

Nearly as enormous, in fact, as all the people who eulogize about them afterwards. People who claim to have been friends but who simply can't have been. That's the sad truth about superstardom, I guess. You end up with a lot of money and a lot of drugs and a lot of staff. But no one to make sure you're okay.

19 February 2012

Many years ago I interviewed a conspiracy theorist who maintained that Neil Armstrong could not possibly have walked on the moon. He was extremely convincing. First, he said America was lagging far behind Russia in the space race at the time and, as a result, it needed a public relations coup. And then, with the motive covered, he became technical, explaining that whoever took the famous photograph of Armstrong on what he maintained was a soundstage in Nevada must have been at least 8ft tall, and that cameras couldn't have worked because there was too much radiation, and all the shadows were wrong.

He laid all the evidence before me and, I'll admit, I began to think he might have a point.

Of course, I pointed out to him that the whole world had watched the astronauts climbing down the ladder and on to the lunar surface but he smiled the patronizing smile of a man who is winning and said that, actually, we'd only seen it on TV. We hadn't been there. And neither had they.

All I could do was say, rather hysterically, ‘B-b-b-but, they had …', and that's no use as an argument when your opponent is talking about how they'd have been killed by the Van Allen radiation belt. This is the key to any great conspiracy theory: have plenty of science at your fingertips and keep calm. Make yourself look reasonable and well read, and make your adversary look ill-informed and mad. Do that well and you could convince half the world no one ever walked on the moon because it's made of cheese.

This, of course, brings us on to Lord Lucan, who, on the evening of 7 November, 1974, re-enacted what sounds like a scene from a game of Cluedo by murdering his children's nanny in the basement, bopping his wife on the head with a piece of lead piping and then disappearing into thin air.

Since then he has been spotted – usually by lunatics – in various parts of the world: Australia, New Zealand, Holland, India and riding through the lost city of Atlantis on a horse that answered to the name of Shergar. Now comes a claim from someone who was close to Lucan, saying that he fled to Africa and that he has seen his children on at least two occasions over the years.

She seems to meet all the requirements of the conspiracy theorist. She has no apparent motive for making the claims: there is no financial reward. She knows more about Lucan than you or I do. And she is calm. However, I think I am in a position to make a counterclaim that makes more sense: Lucan is dead. I don't know how he died, or when, but it was certainly before 11 June, 1997.

It was on this date that a chap called Philippe Kahn took some pictures of his newborn baby on his mobile phone and then wirelessly transmitted them to more than 2,000 friends and family around the world. This is acknowledged to be the birth of instant visual communication.

It has grown so quickly that today it is impossible for anyone to do anything, anywhere, without being found out. There is, for instance, a clip on the net of James May in a forest in Romania, taking a leak. And if you listen carefully, you can hear me saying: ‘James. I wouldn't do it there. You'll end up on YouTube.'

Last summer I tried to sneak away to Uganda for a couple of days. It was hopeless because even though most of the locals do not have access to a lavatory or a classroom, almost
all have a mobile. Which meant that within five minutes of my leaving Entebbe airport, friends in England were calling to ask why I'd gone to Kampala.

I'm nothing more than the presenter of a motoring show on BBC2 but I've been photographed, Facebooked and tweeted in Syrian market towns, Russian strip clubs, African wildlife parks and Chilean deserts. My family never bother to text to see where I am: they just go online.

There are no secrets any more. BBC reporters may be banned from Iran but those in Tehran who wish to get their message to the World Service can do so with a pay-as-you-go Nokia. I wonder how far the Arab Spring would have got without YouTube. And how much time is spent at GCHQ just looking at online crowd scenes?

Of course, you could argue that Lucan is a peculiarly British story and that the people of a remote African state would not bother to photograph the face of a man with whom they were entirely unfamiliar. True enough. There are no ‘Wanted' posters in Mrs Mbutu's post-office window and the local police do not have an e-fit of the errant peer etched on to their craniums.

But this doesn't make a jot of difference. The television show I make is not shown in France but do not think for a moment this means I can walk through the streets of a small Breton town without being spotted. Because on every street corner there's a camera-toting tourist from a country where I am known. Today you can run but you can't hide. And that's why we know Lucan is dead.

It's why we know too that Armstrong walked on the moon. Because 400,000 people were involved in the mission and, if it had been faked, it's inconceivable that one of them wouldn't have put on an electronic veil and gone online to say it was all done with smoke and mirrors just outside Las Vegas.

There's another reason, too. The Van Allen radiation belt. There was a time when, to research this, you would have to get on a plane and go to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Now you can find out all you need to know with a couple of clicks. And guess what. It's a band of radiation around the earth that can affect an astronaut's eyesight. So, if Armstrong really had been to the moon, it's reasonable to say his vision would have been damaged.

Well, now let me leave you, calmly, with this little nugget. After returning from space, 33 of the 36 Apollo astronauts who went to the moon developed cataracts.

26 February 2012