Love, The Airport

Apologies for the longer than usual gap - the truth is I’ve been utterly preoccupied with The Traitors. I don’t mean the exciting new five play cycle ‘The Traitors - Acts of Betrayal’, opening at the Gillian Lynne Theatre in London next year, for which tickets are now on sale, and by the way you do NOT need to see all five plays- or even more than one play- to enjoy it, each play stands entirely alone. No, I don’t mean that. I’ve never even heard of it.

Hi. As a generically handsome man in a pretend kitchen, the question I’m most often asked is: “What do you think of this glass of water?” Well, let me tell you right now: I approve of it! This glass of water and me: we are sympatico. We have no beef. I am 100% behind this glass of water, and support it in all its aims and ambitions. It’s a great glass of water, and I wish it well. When I need hydration, I reach for a Glass of Water ™.

"Oh, yes, Victor, very nice! Very intense. Like it. Great. Ok, shall we try another pose?" "...Yep. Yep, that's good too. Ok, I think we've got some terrific options for that look. Tell you what, let's go crazy here and try one without your hand on your face. How about that?" "......Ok. Yep, ok, that was my fault. I left you a loophole there, didn't I Vic? Fair enough. So! Now let's try one without your hand on your head AT ALL." “...I’m not an idiot, Victor.

Upgrade to paid to play voiceover Perhaps, like me and many of my top-half-lion, bottom-half-man centaur friends, you have been considering the potential health benefits of giving up alcohol. If so, may I present for your consideration the No Alcohol Challenge According to the Age: a simple, easy-to-remember hard-to-subsist-on diet of fruit, toast and half cups of things that will keep you roaring furiously through the desert non-stop from 25 to the grave.

Will this become a monthly genre of post; will I do three or four times and then go off it, or will I do it this once and then never again? Let’s find out… Writing plot points out on post-it notes. Wrote one for the conversation where Alice tries to work out if Claire would join the pact if asked. Then, when I looked at the post-it note, it... seemed a little off somehow, though I was sure the phrase I’d used was a common one. As indeed it is… it just wasn’t the one I’d meant to write.

They didn’t look much like these guys, to be honest. Cycling home from work yesterday, I became the accidental audience for a real-life thirty-second play in the time it took me to cross a foot and cycle bridge over a railway line. The play had everything: peril, mystery, a twist, character revealed through action, and a satisfying resolution. I highly recommend it, five stars, catch it if you can, which you can’t.

Dear Boots the Chemist. How are you? Are you alright? No, but really… are you alright? I worry that maybe because you’re a chemist, everyone’s so busy asking you if they’re alright, they just assume you are. But that doesn’t necessarily follow, does it Boots the Chemist? Everyone can have a little wobble from time to time, even 177-year-old high street retailers. So… yeah. How are you doing?

In Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’, the left-hand panel shows the Garden of Eden, all peaceful and holy, with Adam and Eve getting a sneak preview of Jesus, while nearby a duck reads a book. The right-hand panel shows the torments of Hell, where naturally things are rather more lively. Fair enough: Hell is hell; don’t do the crime if you can’t take an eternity of demons blowing swifts out of your bottom.

Yesterday, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew the Duke of York, was arrested in connection with his time as a British trade envoy. Fifteen years ago, in March 2011, he was in his final few months in that post; and I was on the BBC Radio 4 satirical radio show The Now Show, giving him a little performance appraisal.

Congratulations on the new member(s) of your family! Three-headed Hellhounds make devoted and rewarding companions, but they can be a mite boisterous. Here’s how to handle them, and why to keep your clothes on throughout. If possible, begin training your Hellhound while they are still a Hellpuppy. By all means use treats to reinforce good behaviour, but always offer them from the flat of your hand, and be sure to treat all three heads equally.