Day four in the Big Bro-Toe House…
Hmm. Taking Co-Codamol, I’ll be honest with you, today feels much better – I got up around 11 (loooooove that Co-Codamol snore-buzz), and found it was easier to get around, as though the fiery pain of the break had kinda lost interest and pissed off to get itself a beer somewhere. I was shuffling and limping, to be sure, but shuffling and limping at something like a respectable speed. Which in itself was a positive sign, because today – our last day here by the seashore, and the last day of my blogging hiatus – was glorious: blue sky, puffy white cloud, a low tide point during daylight hours, and a warm, beautiful sunstreak to get stuck in inbetween the Welsh gusty breezes. Also of course, since it was our last day here, there was packing and tidying and straightening and the like to get done, and it felt good to be able to do something to help out with that, after several days of sitting on my ass like a Maharajah. Yesterday we actually made it to Tenby, me with only a thick sock on the left, broken-toed foot, and I was Stumpy McSlowFuck. Today, the pain had receded enough to allow me to get a vaguely laced shoe on the left foot, which meant I could get properly dressed again and feel more like a bloke-with-stuff-to-do than a hospital in-patient. Once we were fairly satisfied with our progress in packing up the cottage, we went walking down on the beach, and again, it was good to feel like I was getting back to Me.
Tomorrow, we’re heading back to Merthyr, cos my dad’s going in for an operation which should make him a lot more comfortable, and we wanna be there to make him endless cups of tea and laughter. So that was Amroth 2011. Am still fairly dedicated to this ‘extra couple of months’ thing, because while it was lovely to be able to get about a bit, and walk on the beach, I’m under no illusion I could walk for miles on this thing for a while, or do much of any good on the bike. In fact, I’m still pretty nervous about going back to London, because here in Amroth, nobody wants to push you over, step on your feet or indeed, kill you stone dead. In London, with the tube, all bets are off and it’s kill or be killed. Not looking forward to that at all.
Oh yeah – had A Thing today that’s completely unrelated to my Disappearing. We saw Hugh Laurie advertising L’Oreal Men’s FaceGoop Extraordinaire, and a little bit of my heart died. The thing is, I’m no longer sure why. Or rather, I understand why I have the reaction, but as I hurtle towards 40, I’m no longer sure the reaction is valid.
See, I always used to work on the Bill Hicks principle that “once you do a commercial, your name is off the artistic register forever, cos how can anything you say be anything other than a giant steaming turd of worthlessness…?”
That made sense to me as a 20-and-early-30-something. But the older I get, and the more of my heroes and people I respect do commercials, the less I find I actually give a toss. Hugh Laurie’s a particular favourite of mine, and has been for years – From House, back through the Jeeves and Wooster years, the Three Men In A Boat audiobook, the Blackadders and Fry and Laurie, all the way back to early movies like Peter’s Friends, and the weird but compelling All Or Nothing At All. More specifically, he wrote one of my favourite, top five novels of all time – The Gun Seller – which for an aspiring writer makes him one of those special heroes that you hold in extra special regard. Does it make him less compelling as an actor, less realistic or funny as a writer, that he’s flogging horseshit facegloop on the TV?
Actually, Bill…notsomuch.
Of course, it’s possible that this is just rampant rationalisation on my part, because more and more of the people I like do commercials for crappy products or services – I mean, Julie Walters advertises Lloyds TSB for Christ’s sake, Victoria Wood and Jane Horrocks are flogging the Murdoch-a-thon that is Sky TV, Mark Addy (and again, Jane Horrocks) have pushed Tesco down our throat, Maureen Lipman is famous for trying to make British EvilBastards Telecom palatable to the great British public, Billy Connolly sold Kaliber alcohol-free lager and the Lottery, Laurie’s classic counterpart Stephen Fry sells tea and insurance, Denis Leary sells beer and trucks (perhaps the best match of product and celebrity ever), Garrison Keillor sells cars, David Tennant sells (dammit, it’s them again) Tescos…and so on, and so forth.
The thing is, while I still get the learned-instinctive crunch of disappointment when I see celebrities selling stuff (or “selling out” as my brain insists on calling it), I no longer feel the urge to get on my high-horse and boycott their work because they’ve done it. Their endorsement doesn’t make me any more likely to try the products they’re selling, but neither does it make me less inclined to experience what they’re really good at. And of course it occurs to me that, while unpaid, I’ve done sort-of-adverts myself – raved about Cwtch, raved about the Pirate, raved about Walk-It.com and the Graze boxes. Like I say, I wasn’t paid to say any of those things, but if any of them approached me and said “Oi you, here’s a sackful of cash to say that stuff,” would I? Well clearly it would depend on the location. I’d no more do it here at the Disappearing Man than Tennant would break off in the middle of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy to sell you a Tesco mobile phone, or Laurie would drop out of character in an episode of House to mention that he’s worth it too and smear his face with gunk. But in a proper advertising setting, sure, why not?
So…fine. Go ahead Hugh, smear your gob with gunk. Go ahead Billy, sell us beer-free beer. Go ahead Stephen, make yourself the equal of an animated Meerkat or an annoying tenor. Just keep on doing what you really do as well, eh?
Oh – blood was 4.9 this morning incidentally, which was pleasingly low.
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