Yamahartbreak...

Spending lonely nights in crap digs has left me a bit maudlin and talking to a bottle of Pinot Grigio about the big love of my life whom I shall call Loraine (cos that was her name). We spent what I thought was four quality years together in my flat above a black pudding factory in Penge, but one Friday morning, quite out of the blue, I find a note from Loraine under the Breville sandwich maker, it left me speechless and it read; “I’m leaving you Harrison. I’m off to find the opposite of you. I want a man with long hair, a red jacket and an enormous Yamaha. You can keep the Breville.” I spent the next four exhausting nights scouring the local biker clubs with no luck at all. It was a year later that I learnt that she’d ended up as a roadie for Richard Clayderman. I’m taking my Pinot Grigio to bed now, where I hope to dream about slamming the piano lid down on those hairy hairy hands once and for all.

Cruising

I’m having a torrid time up here in Holyhead with Roger De Courcey and I think last night was the final straw. We had a night off from the show and De Courcey insisted that we jump in his Ford Capri and take in the local sights. Next thing I know he’s pulled up in a seedy car park full of Doggers. De Courcey’s well excited at this point and tells me that him and Bob Carolgees do this thing all the time. Before I have time to protest he’s out the Capri and sticking his head through the window of the Vauxhall Nova next to us. He was there for a good 30 minutes, I just sat in the Capri and listened to his Del Amitri CD. We drove back to our digs in silence. When we got back I’d been left a message to call my agent Bernie Shimshelwitz which was a welcome excuse for me not to have to go to De Courcey’s room for a can of Hoffmeister. I called Bernie and was quite glad to hear his voice, he told me that he had some good news and some bad news for me. The bad news was that I’d been cut from the new Harry Potter film. Apparently I’d upset JK Rowling by telling her that I thought that all her books were a bit ‘Samey’. Coltrane had agreed with me earlier in the day but when the shit hit the fan he was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t really warm to Rowling much, the first time I met her she’d just sued Jay Kay from Jamiroquoi for having the same name as her. She told me that she’d donated the £65,000 compensation to charity but the mink pelt balaclava she was wearing told a different story. Bernie’s good news was that he’d started a blog (he kept calling it a blob.) He wants me to do a testimonial for it, I’ll have a think. Anyway go and have a look:

http://www.theshimshelwitztouch.blogspot.com/

It’s bound to be interesting. I’ve got to go. De Courcey’s banging on my door; he wants to go ten pin bowling. I’m going to pretend I’m out.

Not again Bernie!

I’ve been represented my agent Bernie Shimshelwitz for over 13 years now and sometimes I wonder how he manages to get things so wrong. I got a phone call from an excited Bernie on Sunday night telling me that I was about to go up in the world as he’d landed me a role in a Hollywood film alongside Robert De Niro. The film was to be set in a prisoner of war camp and I was needed for two weeks of filming. This morning I realised that when Bernie said I was going up in the world he must have meant geographically as here I sit in my dressing room in Holyhead at a pensioner’s holiday camp just about to start a two week run alongside Roger De Courcey. I wouldn’t mind so much but Nookie Bear’s not even here. Something’s got to give.

Every boozer wins

Since releasing the global smash hit ‘I got 99 problems but the bitch aint one’ Jay Z has been a firm favourite with my Nan and the rest of the South Mims kennel club. So when my agent Bernie Shimshelwitz managed to persuade the rapper to record a charity single for ‘Gamblers Anonymous’ with his other client Nick Berry I jumped at the chance to take Nan down to the recording studio. ‘Every loser wins’ had been a number one for Berry back in 1986 and Jay Z had agreed to throw out some rhyming couplets all over its arse (his words not mine.) I knew things weren’t right when Berry turned up half cut, according to Bernie he’d been drowning his sorrows after finding out that he was the only man in the country to have paid full price for a DFS sofa. I decided to stay well out of it and settled Nan down in the sound booth with a half finished Sudoku puzzle that happened to be lying around. Next thing I know all hell broke loose when a load of Jay Z’s crew burst in, guns everywhere whooping and rapping and getting right up in my grill (their words not mine.) Apparently the Sudoku puzzle (which Nan had now finished) belonged to Jay Z and “No Motherfucke* touches his stuff.” I honestly thought they were going to pop a cap in my dear old Nan’s arse but then Jay Z walked in all smiles and gave her a high ten. Apparently that Sudoku puzzle had been one of his 99 problems. “Thanks old timer” says Jay Z “that means I’ve only got 98 problems left to solve but at least my bitch aint one of them.” Everyone laughed and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I’d just seen Nick Berry getting off with his bitch in the bogs.

Fringe Benefits

My agent, Bernie Shimshelwitz, drove 300 miles north on Monday for the climax of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Eight miles high on anti-histamine (see here) he took a wrong turn in Carlisle and ended up at the Dunfermaline Fringe Festival (pictured). It wasn't all bad news though, he’s now got these six lovely ladies on his books after he promised them all he could get them walk on parts in the new Tenko movie. They all crammed into Bernie’s Ford Focus and are now staying in his spare room waiting for the auditions to start. Not a bad result then for Bernie, they keep the place tidy and they don’t eat much.

Gunnell's gusset and me

All this Olympic fever sweeping the nation has reignited my passion for athletics, so much so that I decided to enter the regional trials in the 110 metre hurdles. As a youth I was tipped to be a future Olympic champion but my dreams were shattered when I clipped a hurdle and got a splinter in my sack. I’ve never known a pain like it, Colin Jackson was there and I’ll never forget how hard he tried to get that splinter out. He mentions the incident in his autobiography saying: “I’d never seen a swelling like it. I tried my hardest to get that splinter out but no amount of squeezing was going to dislodge it. When I got home I cried.” With that splinter long since removed I turned up at the trials determined to prove that I still had that Olympian magic, the fact that I was nursing a slight cold meant nothing, I'd dosed myself up and I was well in the zone. My dear old Nan had washed my running kit the night before but when I opened my holdall it was obvious that she’d washed everything at a nuclear temperature and the shorts and singlet had shrunken so small that even action man would have had trouble getting into them. Things got even worse when I discovered that instead of packing my running shoes Nan had packed the pair of novelty clogs that I’d bought her back from Amsterdam. With my heat just about t start one of the Marshalls could see I was having a shocker and said I could use anything I liked from the lost property box. Two minutes later I was lining up with the other runners wearing a pair of cowboy boots, a ‘FRANKIE SAYS RELAX’ T shirt and a pair of Sally Gunnell’s old running knickers. I didn’t care how I looked, I ran a good race, finished second and got a PB only to be told by the Marshall that I’d been disqualified on two counts. Firstly for testing positive for Beechams and secondly for ‘exposing myself’ at the 30 metre mark. I must admit it did feel a bit draughty down there but I was too focussed to be concerned. I blamed my sniffles plus the loose gusset on Gunnell’s old gruds and the Marshall said I could take it to appeal if I wanted. I don’t think I’ll bother, to be fair I was off my head. I kept the cowboy boots.

A rose by any other name is still a...lawsuit.

I’ve just got back from my agent Bernie Shimshewitz’s houseboat where he was throwing yet another celebration. This time the occasion was his victory in a 38 year court case with 70’s Country & Western Star Lynn Anderson. After almost four decades the dispute was finally settled when Judge Flannigan ruled that even though Anderson had politely denied it she did in fact owe Shimshelwitz a rose garden. Bernie was more than chuffed and as he took me out on the poop deck to show me the flowers I thought the emotion of the trial had got the better of him as his eyes began to well up. Turns out he’s allergic to roses. “I hate rose gardens Harrison.” He told me, “Especially this one. It’s shit. But a promise is a promise.” He’s right. I guess that’s why he’s still my agent.

Ready.........NOW!!

Ever wondered what might happen if all the people in China jumped in the air at the same time? Well, I’m here to tell you that they’ve just bloody done it. It was a conspiracy by the Chinese Government to get the Tibetan athlete Hau Hi Yup eliminated from the Olympic high jump final. The poor geezer’s been training his arse off for four years, leaping over his shed in the mountains and he watched in horror as, after clearing 2m 25cm, the stadium shook and off came the bar. What the Chinese authorities hadn’t banked on though was that, at exactly the same time, the Finnish javelin champion was just about to chuck his spear. The wobble sent his aim out and, in an irony to end all ironies, he ended up impaling the foot of a Chinese steeple chaser over two hundred feet away. That poor chap’s still there as far as I know, pinned to his hurdle. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Ape Vine

I’ve got to keep a low profile this weekend so I’ve decided to take myself off to Amsterdam for a few days. My agent Bernie Shimshelwitz is throwing a celebration bash at Gordon Ramsey’s club ‘YES/NO??’ for finally passing his Maths GCSE exam at the 56th time of asking (to be honest the examination board gave him an honorary ‘C’ grade to get him off their books.) As luck wouldn’t have it, I’m barred from ‘YES/NO??’ due to the fracas I was involved in last year. To cut a long story short I got into a proper rumble with Jeremy Vine and it all got a bit out of hand. Everyone knows that Jeremy Vine can’t handle his booze and by the time he’d necked his fourth snakebite he was staggering all over the shop and generally acting like a jerk. I happened to be on the periphery of a conversation that Vine had gate crashed between Judy Finnegan and Lorraine Kelly (I know!) All I did was inform the smug DJ that I was sure that him masturbating in the toilet on an easyjet flight to Prague didn’t gain him access to the mile high club. He went ape shit throwing punches like they were going out of fashion, then he tried to pull a roundhouse on me but caught ‘H’ from Steps right under the chin knocking the grin right off his face. Everyone was cheering apart from Bernie who told me that I’d made a mistake messing with one of the Vine brothers. We’ll see. Anyway, I’m Amsterdam bound. Wish me luck!

How does Michael Phelps do it?

My agent, Bernie Shimshelwitz, has been trying to keep my profile up by getting me to do some local appearances while things are quiet. Recently he managed to get hold of one of those brand new ‘Shark Suit’ swimming cozzies they’re all wearing at the Olympics, and it was Bernie’s idea that I should try it on and put it to the test at the local lido. Well, my ban from the lido expired last month (see here) so, I was well up for it. What they don’t tell you about those suits though is that they take even the elite swimmers of the world up to half an hour to get into. Cut to me hopping around the unisex changing area, in tears, two and a half hours after getting me first foot into it. The (small but) expectant crowd had long since got bored and left and by now there was Aqua Salsa going on in the pool. My misery was finally ended when my verruca sock ripped and I slipped and hopped arse over tea-kettle splitting my lip on the “No Petting” sign. “Turn it in Harrison” says Bernie “I think we’ve all seen enough”.

Living on a Wing and a Prayer

Following the recent, massive success of West End musicals ‘We Will Rock You’ (Queen) and ‘Mamma Mia (ABBA) I’m very excited to be auditioning for a role in the latest 80s rock-pop revival show ‘By Jovi’. I’m up for the part of Pete “Feedback” Furlonger the roadie with a penchant for pre-Raphaelite paintings and crack cocaine. I’ve got a pair of PVC pants somewhere (left over from a piece of experimental theatre I did way back called ‘Romeo and Leatherette’) and I’m currently top bidder on e-bay for what I’m assured is the actual bubble perm wig worn by Bruno in ‘Fame’. The pay’s only Equity minimum, but it’s a 16 week run and the only line I’ll have to remember is “one, two...one, two…nah, this ones f****d”. Money in the bank.

A Tour de Force

With everyone off having affairs and watching 12 shows a day at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, my agent, Bernie Shimshelwitz, and I took advantage of a slow showbiz August and took a bus tour of the Lincolnshire countryside. Pictured is our tour guide for the week Dennis Turner who proved to be quite a character. Now, in all honesty the Fens can be quite a boring place at times so we were lucky to have a man born and bred in the area showing us around, but after a liquid lunch he would relax a little too much for my liking. Local knowledge is one thing but do you really need a 76 year old man pointing out “That cricket pavilion there is where I first fingered Geraldine Pitt”? Get me out of here Bernie, even if it has to be Theatre in Education…

A Cupid Stunt

I was recently asked by a local magazine to interview Sheila Blige, who has made a huge success of her dating agency ‘Better Date Than Never’. What an astonishing woman, here are just a couple of snippets of what she had to say;

"One thing you do have to keep in mind is that, as an agent, you are employed by the client. We work for them, so if they want to throw in the odd porkie pie then there’s very little we can do other than try to persuade them to stay as close to the truth as possible. I mean take Doreen; a very beautiful and intelligent woman in many ways, but she would insist on putting her age down as ‘30s’. Well, she would never really get a chance to dazzle her dates with her charm and wit, not to mention the fact that she was Sheffield Businesswoman of the Month March 1997, ‘cause they’d take one look at her size twelve crow’s feet and corned beef cleavage, and be out of the door before you could say ‘liver spots’. Poor old Doreen, no amount of Oil of Ulay’s gonna bring back her 30’s."

"And then there are those who take the direct route, and for whom honesty is an absolute…I give you Karen, who under ‘Distinguishing Attributes’ put “Fanny like a wizard’s sleeve” and “no gag reflex”. Say what you want, but she’s not short of dates."

On you marks. Get set. No, no, no!

I got talking to Sebastian Coe down at the Groucho club last night. I know his flat mate Dale Winton so we hit it off straight away. I commented how relaxed he looked considering he only had four years to get London’s shit together for the 2012 Olympics. He told me that he was on easy street for the next 4 weeks as all eyes were on Beijing which meant he could crack on with his plans without the IOC on his back 24 hours 7. I met Seb again this morning as he’d offered to take me down to the site where the Olympic stadium was under construction. When we got down there I was well impressed with the location and asked the former Olympian when they were going to tear the old shack down (above.) He turned well bolshy and it transpired that the ramshackle was in fact the main stadium that he’d built himself blowing the rest of the £4 billion Olympic budget on erasing Steve Ovett from history. He sobbed into my shoulder for 43 minutes 52 seconds (a new PB apparently.) Sweet Lord!

Olympic Opik

With the 2008 Olympic Games getting underway today Team GB has been joined by our very own Lib Dem MP and playboy to the stars Lembit Opik. His job will be to utilise his Marathon Man libido and cause fatigue amongst as many female athletes from opposing nations as possible. It’s over a week now since he was unceremonially dumped by his Cheeky Girl, so he’s carrying a couple of watermelons around in his Calvin Klein’s already. With his penchant for heavily made up girls and, more recently, twins I'm guessing that the synchronised swimmers’ quarters might be his first port of call. Spread yourself liberally Lembit.

One armed bandit

My old mate Lenny "the Lips" Bignold’s sidekick Little Jimmy Teak was a star witness in the Rod Hull ‘did he fall or was he pushed’ trial back in ’99. Little Jimmy was there that night to watch the United game when Rod nipped onto the roof to sort the aerial (it’s unclear if he went up alone). Upon hearing the crash, bang, wallop that followed, Little Jimmy rushed outside to Rod’s aid just in time to see Bob Carolgees fleeing the scene. With Little Jimmy Teak as the only witness justice has yet to be done. The police have spent the last nine years scouring club land for a moustachioed geezer called ‘Gog’. It makes me want to spit.

What's on your iPod #8

The Ministers Quartet were quite big Stateside in the 50s and, thanks to the download age, are enjoying something of a resurgence. At first lambasted for their frighteningly honest approach to song writing the world could not forever ignore the beauty of such numbers as “I know what’s in the font” and the funereal ballad “I’ll take you in the mourning”. The title track was deleted from the re-release however.

Jester my luck

Earlier in the year you may have seen me make a celebrity appearance on ‘Most Haunted’ with the scrumptious Yvette Fielding. Our remit was to spend the night in the long abandoned Prestwitch Mental Hospital. I’m here to tell you that that show is absolutely kosher. Luckily for me Yvette was clinging to me for most of the night after someone or something tickled her “in a dark place” close to the electrocution suite. I’ve grilled my agent, Bernie Shimshelwitz, long and hard about that particular episode since, and he swears he was playing championship ‘Fuzzy Duck’ in the Rabbit and Ladder at the time, so I have to believe it was a sinister spirit, albeit one with impeccable taste and an eye for an opportunity.
I was bricking it for most of the night myself ‘cos everywhere I went I was pursued by the faint sound of bells ringing, and every time I finished on the loo (countless times on the night) I heard the words ‘Tis done.’ whispered in my ear. I simply cannot catch a break can I? I’m haunted to this day by a D-list celebrity ghost. I always wanted the geezer from ‘Highway to Heaven’.

Flat broke

In an attempt to beat the Credit Crunch, Brendan, the landlord from the Rabbit and Ladder, recently ploughed all his savings into property. He did this under the advice of my barrista (sic) Dan Tang who assured him of two things 1) in the long term property only ever goes up 2) now is the perfect time to purchase the entire top floor of an apartment block close to the Olympic stadium in Beijing. Dan had even arranged for the Chinese shot-put team to rent the rooms from Brendan.
The atmosphere in the Rabbit and Ladder has been a little tense recently and there’s also been a marked increase in the price of beer. You see both of Dan Tang’s assurances were blown out of the water in one foul swoop when the shot-putters all ran to the balcony simultaneously to get a better look at the beach-volleyballers warming up. Unlucky Brendan, but as the old saying goes; ‘What the good Lord giveth, the Chinese Takeaway’.

One for the road

I've just got back from court where I went to offer my agent Bernie Shimshelwitz some moral support for the drink/driving charge he was facing. In true Shimshelwitz fashion he insisted on representing himself , basing his entire defence on an episode of Ironside he'd watched on Channel 5 the night before. He tied the prosecution in knots largely due to the fact that the particular episode of Ironside he was plagiarising was based on ambiguous rape in the workplace. The Judge had no choice but to throw the case out on a technicality. Apparently when the Police had arrested Bernie for drink/driving he had actually pulled over onto the hard shoulder to decant a bottle of Blue Nun. I drove us home whilst Bernie mixed the cocktails.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

I was asked by the local Am-Dram society if I’d do the make-up for their forthcoming production of ‘Stop the world I want to get off ' with the Women’s Institute (actually that sounds a bit weird). I like to support the amateur and I enjoy a challenge, so I rooted around in the loft and found my sister’s old DIY make-up toy (pictured). As you may know I’m a bit of a perfectionist so it turned into a long night and, eventually, after half a bottle of Pernod I fell asleep and GirlsWorld here toppled forward, face down, into my lap. Now, my dear old Nan’s been staying with me as part of her parole obligations (see below) and she chose that moment to burst in carrying a pint of Sanatogen for herself and an Ovaltine for me. “For the love of Christ Harrison” she shrieked, “has it come to this! You’re a celebrity aren’t you? Isn’t there a Cheeky Girl going begging?” My make-up experiment had disappeared next morning and I’m sure I heard Nan up in the loft bright and early hiding boxes and pausing to play ‘Simon’.

Nan took it

My dear old Nan got nicked for shoplifting Saturday on Brick Lane market. She may look harmless, but that Zimmer satchel is actually stuffed with the 15 bottles of Sanatogen and one bottle of lime cordial she'd just nicked. She pulled it off by creating a distraction known in criminal circles as 'Piss yourself and cry". She would've got away with it too if she hadn't necked half a litre and drawn attention to herself by singing "Fifteen men and a bar of soap, Rugby, Rugby". Gawd bless her.