So the question on the tip of every observant young boy's mind and many teenagers and some men's.....all right..... every single heterosexual male's mind is ' Are norks plumbed in where they appear to be protruding from or do they emerge from the collar bones and according to mass and gravity descend to a point of equilibrium and remain there for some time before plummeting to the same level as Mrs. Belcher's ?'
Research over fifty years hasn't thrown up a difinitive answer yet but seems to be the best way to answer these trying questions but ONE day, through continuing self-sacrifice I WILL know for sure !
So gentlemen and interested ladies, keep reading the Blog !
Personally I found that standing behind one particular Russian au-pair girl when I was fifteen as she cleaned her teeth in front of the large bathroom mirror wearing a silk pyjama jacket with her top three buttons quite deliberately left provocatively undone provided a certain amount of vital information whilst benefitting me with the added knowledge of being able to make a comparison between the pertness of the top and bottom halves all the time convincing the young lady that I really needed to know the Russian for toothpaste, soap, flannel and 'I love you' which if it could be of any use to you if you find yourselves in a similar position is ' Yarvuss looblue' !
I have carried on my research ever since for the benefit of mankind and hope that my illustrated booklet ' Norks' available directly from my market stall and now in it's four millionth edition may answer many of the questions that you haven't been able to research yourselves ! With several thousand illustrative photos taken with my hidden camera it has proven to be of great interest to others carrying out their own observations !
Shirley who doesn't appreciate my long-term research project, has just grabbed my jaw with a fist held so tightly that I'm frankly amazed that she hasn't retorn yesterday's Tourettian site and growled, " I bet you're glad I've recovered aren't you you useless man ? Oh no ! You weren't useless at all were you ? After all you did wash up a plate didn't you even if I had to get up off my death-settee to wipe the bit at the front of the sink that I'd told you to wipe in case any water got under the work surface ? "
All this has nothing to do with Charles Dance who stole my girlfriend on a train to Zagreb !
He didn't really steal her as, unknown to me she had already decided to ditch me after her father insisted she did after meeting me !
It was either ditch me or stay in the prison-like Halls of Residence whose entrance hall must have been coated in emanations from a process that the powers to be did their best to prevent !
And partaking in my bedsit wasn't too successful when we had to pretend to be discussing modern art's shortcomings as we walked downstairs to be confronted by a very disdainful landlady who had obviously never been young herself !
But in my case ' Flat if you ditch him....Halls if you don't ' was easily resolved !
Of course I had to listen to all the usual nonsense of "It's not you, it's me " stuff only to learn the truth later from her best friend !
If one thing is true it is that the only way many of us runtish men who would stand no chance of winning the hand of a beautiful woman is to exploit humour and tickle a woman's funny bone .
Handsome and usually pompous men obviously experience some success with women but with my looks I soon learned that making women laugh helplessly and then pouncing on them before they could get their breath back was my best chance !.
And so I became a clown and woke up each day intent on making women laugh.
I still do !
Though there are one or two who have remained stubbornly impossible to raise even a slight smile from and they know who they are !
The woman I most want to make laugh actually cried yesterday at " If I lived on my own " so I must still have some of the old talent left !
At Leicester Art College I got a role as an idiot in a play that we took to The International Student Theatre Festival in Yugoslavia.
We travelled for two nights by train where I found my then girlfriend in the arms of the tall, handsome, incredibly debonair Charles Dance, a fellow student, destined to become fabulously rich, famous and finally ruined by my far-reaching and ever-lasting curse !
Yes, at the age of sixty five he's just fathered a child with a much younger woman than himself.
So now he will suffer the double whammy of not being able to get a decent night's sleep because of a crying baby and because of a younger woman's physical demands on him ! HaHaHa !
Charles and I weren't actually mates or even friends as he was a couple of years older than me but he must have realised that there was more to me than the public image of 'Prat' and asked me to act in a two-man play with him whose title I've forgotten.
What I haven't forgotten is the performance when I forgot my lines and froze on stage.
It probably didn't last long but it's a feeling that has never left me and might explain constant dreams of being useless, whether because of bullets I'm firing at villains dribbling out the end of the guns, thrown punches that land like jelly, walking in town with either nothing on, only my pants on or without shoes on!
But then on the other hand I'm forever dreaming that I'm guiding the Queen or Prince Charles around Blyth !
Shirley once went from page six in a play to the twenty sixth and last page and walked off leaving the other actors and the entire audience confused and lost without anyone understanding how the murdered woman's body got into the wardrobe !
But as Shirley never ever goes back, even to this day, she wasn't perturbed !
Anyway, I left college soon after and had no further contact with him until I saw him acting brilliantly in ' Jewel In The Crown ' and adored by my wife !
He was extremely popular for a while and when I read that he was starring with The Royal Shakespeare Company in Coriolanus at The Theatre Royal in Newcastle in 1990 I dropped him a line thinking that he might remember me.
He did and he replied, " There you are Nashy ! Call in and we'll have a meal !"
So one winter's Sunday, soaking wet in my un-waterproof ski-suit and bursting for a pee after market I went to the stage door and asked to see him.
The archetypal stage-door misery sat behind a sliding window, reading The Sunday Mirror through the lower part of his bifocals when I appeared, apparently drowned and asking to speak to my friend the star!
"Yeeuu are a freyernd ov Charles Dawnce are yeeuu Sor ? Well weeull sees aboot that wurnt we ? Wayut theyure Sor ! " he sneered in Geordie before disappearing through a set of double-doors !
He reappeared shortly afterwards.
Humbled and half-bowing he held the doors open for me to pass through to the Star's dressing room !
And there, with the door kept open sat Charles, stripped to the waist and lifting weights, breathing heavily through his nostrils and not stopping as he enthusiastically greeted me with, " Dayvide Darrlingg ! How luverly to seee you arfter alll theese yurs ! " in Actorese !
" You're looking well Charles " I replied in English, peering past his sweating torso to his toilet and relief, " OK if I have a pee? I'm bursting ! "
" Well, if you must dear boy! " he answered horrified at the thought of the germs I would undoubtedly be transferring to him !
We frankly had little chance to chat then as we were constantly interrupted by Directors and sycophants who all called Charles ' Charlie ' and each other " Darhling ! "
But we arranged to have a post-performance meal the next night if I met him at the Stage Door.
Well the play was frankly awful and the meal excruciating !
I was invisible at the stage door as hordes of women begged for his autograph and an inconvenience at dinner as an obviously former lover drooled over him!
I wasn't able to ask any question that didn't meet with a wary denial or suspicion that I was trying to get a lead for the press !
As an example I offer a fairly innocuous and genuine question whilst trying to keep the conversation going without continuously reinforcing his ego with platitudinous observations of every performance he'd ever given; " So Charles what will you be in next ?"
His answer was ," One never knows dear boy, from one day to the next, what will be required of one ! "
Or even and knowing that he liked cars;" so what are you driving these days Charles ? " was answered with, "Well my Chauffeur drives...........!"
I answer people I hate like that !
Oh no ! I finally get it ! He hated me !
And although Charles attempted to pay for the meal with his then impressive Platinum card, I insisted that as I had contacted him that I would pay and not only for him but the two other women that he had invited to the meal without my prior knowledge !
Shirley simply doesn't understand why I did that ! Pride born out of poverty darling and as you're not a man you will never understand that !
Charles and I haven't been in contact since !
Now why wasn't Shirley present at that dinner as she loved the man ?
Well she refused, saying that when SHE dined with Charles Dance I wouldn't be there !
And finally a follow up tale !
Many years later we were on holiday in Cornwall when Charles was directing ' Ladies in Lavender ' . Not that we knew it.
Shirley had gone to the toilet and as I waited for her I heard Charles's distinctive voice talking to two women as he walked across Mousehole car park.
I did not call out to him and he did not see me.
I couldn't wait to introduce Shirley to him as he walked into the distance.
" Shirley ! Look ! It's Charles Dance ! Come on, I'll introduce you ! Come on ! "
Her reply, as she gazed across the tarmac, was full of dismay and finality, " That BALD man is NOT Charles Dance ! "
But it was !
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