We are all currently living in unprecedented and highly serious circumstances but I’d like to think there’s hopefully still room for a bit of attempted humour to help us get through these difficult times. To quote the lyrics of the legendary boy band Blue, “System up with the top down, Got the city on lockdown” (the same song later continues “Girl it’s time to let you know, I’m down if you wanna go” but I think this is possibly less relevant).
Everything we used to take completely for granted has gone and we are all living very different lives. I used to get excited when I’d find a fiver in the pocket of an old pair of jeans, now I get excited when I find some loo roll in an old bag for life in the boot of the car. My watch is now redundant, I’m rationing eggs, the washing basket has never been so empty and the singing of ‘Happy Birthday’ has almost certainly lost its magic forever. The pubs are shut, live sport has stopped completely but for the first time in 20 years having absolutely no need to visit a hairdresser sees me with a distinct advantage.
Last Saturday I was forced to stay indoors, avoid social gatherings of any type and do my upmost to keep my distance from other people. This is in stark contrast to one of my normal Saturday nights where I would be staying indoors, avoiding social gatherings of any type and doing my upmost to keep my distance from other people. The new limitations have probably had less effect on me than any other person on the planet. In fact as a general rule I’ve always tried to keep at least a 4 metre gap between myself and other people, so if anything, the new government guidelines have actually forced me to become more sociable.
I have read the rules carefully and it states that you are currently allowed to go out in order to replicate the level of daily exercise that you would normally have undertaken. So with this in mind, at 6.01am every morning I sprint as fast as I can around the corner to the bus stop, swear loudly as the driver speeds past as I am late, before walking dejectedly home whilst out of breath with a stitch (who needs Joe Wicks).
You are also permitted to go out to get essential supplies (Custard Creams, Frazzles & Stella) or to travel to and from your place of work. My commute used to be a 20 minute bus journey followed by a 40 minute train journey and then a 15 minute walk. Now I am working from home all I have to do is roll out of bed and walk about 10 steps to my spare room and I still manged to be late twice last week.
Such laziness was also a driving factor behind my decision to attempt to grow a beard for the very first time whilst in lockdown. My ultimate aim was to achieve a suave/ Pep Guardiola kind of look but to be honest after a month of growing it my appearance more closely resembles tramp/ Mr. Baxter from Grange Hill. I have found myself eating so much food while stuck at home that it has got to a point that when we eventually are allowed to leave the house they may need to remove a supporting wall to create adequate space for me to exit through. I decided to ask my youngest son if he thought I had put on any weight, to which he honestly replied “Yes, quite a bit actually but don’t worry too much because fat people are much harder to kidnap!”
So with abduction now at least one less thing to worry about, the other positive I can grasp from an out of control white beard and expanding waistline is that I should at least make a few quid from some extra shifts down the grotto come December.
With everyone forced to stay at home we will naturally find ourselves watching more TV and everyone has their own individual tastes and preferences. Anyone that knows me well will tell you that I have always been a big fan of any type of reality themed shows since they very first began. Whether it was Nasty Nick’s notes, Will v G..G..Gareth (I used to stutter so I think it’s ok for me to make this joke) or Kerry Katona with a mouth full of testicles, you’ll normally find me on the edge of my seat glued to the action.
Such was my renowned obsession that I was once given a ‘Reality TV Fan’s Kit’ as a ‘Secret Santa’ present at a work’s Christmas party. This consisted of a children’s microphone (X Factor), an inflatable crown (King of the Jungle I’m a Celeb) and a sequinned waist coat (Strictly) for me to dress up in for the evening. Costume based gifts were soon to become commonplace at this annual event, a theme which escalated alarmingly when just two years later I would find myself in the toilets of a London pub being helped into a latex gimp suit by two of my work colleagues (there is photo evidence of this but I would only recommend it to those of you with strong stomachs).
As a rule, my costumes were generally aimed at my baldness (Right Said Fred, Duncan Goodhew, Alf Garnet etc.) but one year I received a battery powered giant inflatable toddler’s suit. Pleased at this apparent change of tact, I eventually tracked down the young lad who had bought it for me. “Out of interest why did you choose that for me?” I enquired, to which he replied without hesitation, “As soon as I drew your name out of the hat I immediately thought of a ‘big, fat, bald baby’.” (Charming)
Another year I remember laughing one morning with a friend at work at how his attempt to get a t-shirt made for his ‘victim’ had been rejected by several printers for being deemed too abusive. My laughter subsided somewhat a week later at the party when I realised this garment was in fact for me. Emblazoned with a large picture of lollipop sucking 70’s cop Kojack, it was accompanied by derogatory wording detailing the limited time it must take for me to have a haircut. The Alf Garnet joke was continued on into the office when a colleague used his company connections to get my name changed on my telephone display which also doubled as a form of identification. A few weeks later some very important Japanese visitors were in the building and looking for directions to a meeting. I suddenly felt a polite tap on the shoulder as I sat at my desk, “Excuse me Mr. Garnet sir but please do you know the way to the boardroom?”
In another attempt to get into the festive spirit, we used to put up a small Christmas tree at the end of our row of desks. For a bit of fun, each of the baubles that were hung on it had small lookalike pictures of colleagues stuck on them (I was regularly the fairy on the top as Richard O’Brien from Rocky Horror Show & Crystal Maze fame). One particular year a good friend grew a beard that inadvertently made him look the spitting image of a particularly infamous individual. As the head of the legal department made her way past one day, she stopped momentarily to observe the tree in its full glory before her expression suddenly changed. “Now I like a bit of fun as much as the next person,” she began (trust me she really didn’t), “but I don’t think it’s appropriate to have the Yorkshire Ripper hanging on a Christmas tree in the office, I’ll have to take it down.” Looking back it was fortunate she hadn’t checked around the other side and discovered what we had chosen for her designated bauble!
So back to the world of reality TV and the wide variety of programmes that are now on offer to the viewing public.
- Britain’s Got Talent (BGT)
- Strictly Come Dancing (SCD)
- Dancing On Ice (DOI)
- The Greatest Dancer (TGD)
I had thought of pitching a new topical show to the BBC called Dancing In Lock Down On Saturdays but then realised that the acronym might not work for a family audience.
There are though still some unanswered questions from these reality shows that continue to play heavily on my mind. Now I am a man with the most simplistic of grooming regimes (shower, Sure, Lynx Voodoo, Mr Sheen) and this will still take around fifteen minutes from start to finish. Yet in The Apprentice house just 5 additional minutes is apparently more than adequate time for all 16 image conscious contestants to wake, shower, hair dry, hair straighten, iron their clothes, apply full make-up, get dressed and presumably eat before the cars arrive? Now either all is not exactly as it seems or generations of women have collaborated to deliberately exaggerate the time it takes them to get ready in order to get some peace and quiet from their other halves.
Why do Strictly Come Dancing still pretend the results show is recorded on a Sunday, why does Amanda Holden look younger each year on BGT and why is Bafta winning ‘Love Island’ (I have no idea how that happened either) only aired six episodes per week rather than seven? To get an answer to the latter I went to a respected information source (Heat Magazine) and discovered the reason was that once a week all the contestants were given ‘a day off’. To be fair though, sunbathing by a pool at a luxury villa, watching yourself in a mirror lifting weights in tiny shorts and chatting up beautiful women wearing bikinis that would struggle to cover the modesty of a Barbie doll must leave them exhausted and in need of some time to relax.
I used to love Pop Idol when it first came out (Rik Waller gave everyone hope) and even went to the lengths of organising a sweep stake at work when the second series got down to its final 12. On discovering that I had drawn Michelle McManus I quickly made an excuse to call the whole thing null and void and was then taught a valuable life lesson when she went on to triumph weeks later.
The X Factor was always my favourite of these types of shows but that was before we had a major falling out back in 2005. It was the year that gave us the dream final confrontation, the overwhelming favourite versus the underdog, David versus Goliath, Shayne ‘The Popstar’ Ward versus Andy ‘The Binman’ Abraham.
One was a 21 year old boyband prototype who smelt of success and was going places, the other was a middle aged refuse collector who smelt of household waste and was in last chance saloon. Surely this was perfectly set up for the great British public to give him the big break he deserved and help him escape his life ‘on the dust’ forever. With my emotions already running high on finals night, a video montage showing Andy visiting his dying mother during filming then sent me over the edge and led to me spending at least £7 on voting phone calls (for anyone that knows my usual spending habits, this was an uncharacteristically enormous outlay).
When Kate Thornton (remember her) raised Shayne’s hand aloft as the victor, I was inconsolable at this major travesty of justice but equally determined to continue my support for the nation’s favourite dustman. To help him on his way I secretly bought his first album (yes he did have more than one) but naturally this was something I wanted to keep under wraps for fear of ridicule. This hope was soon dashed however when his album somehow made its way onto my IPod (remember those) and his rendition of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ was blasted out on a random shuffle at a barbeque attended by a large number of family and friends. In concrete proof that life isn’t always fair, Shayne would go on to have two Platinum selling albums and a respected acting career while Andy would go on Loose Women and come last in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest.
I’m delighted to say that my book is finally finished and will be officially published on 1st May. I have already sold a number of copies following a successful school visit and will continue to push its promotion when current events die down and it seems more appropriate to do so.
If any of this has raised a smile, a chuckle or a laugh then it has done its job. Thanks for reading and please all stay safe!
Baldyman 