When I Met A Celebrity #26

I’ve met a few “celebrities” in my time.  At a football match in Edinburgh circa 1992, I met Simon Stainrod, then manager of Dundee.  He was very nice, and had some encouraging words for me, after I told him Swindon Town had declined to offer me a place in their Academy following a six-week trial.  Most of you won’t know Simon Stainrod (he is real, mind).  To be honest, I wasn’t really sure at the time.  After that same game, we saw Kenny Dalglish with Andy Roxborough (who was manager of Scotland at the time).  But we didn’t talk to them, so it didn’t count.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with Stainrod, Roxborough or Dalglish.

At Glastonbury Festival in 2009, I was booked to play a small back-stage bar.  The two sets I played there were underwhelming (I think there were a total of seven people at the two of them, including bar staff.  And I lost a good pair of shades).  But in a different, more salubrious back stage area on the Saturday afternoon, at the bar, I saw Howard Marks.  I read Mr Nice years ago, and it was entertaining enough.  But I had nothing to say to him, so I left him in peace (I’m not one for speaking to famous people just because of their fame, you understand).  

There were a few other famous faces milling about (it was the backstage bar of the Jazz World Stage – or West Holts, as it’s now known), but I didn’t bother any of them, either.  The bar was busy, so while waiting for a drink, I had time to notice that the man serving looked familiar.

“He looks just like Paul McGann”, I thought.  “He is Paul McGann”, I thought next.  (Or possibly at the same time, or overlapping, because that’s how thoughts work, isn’t it?)

I really like Withnail & I.  And the dude was right there, serving drinks (“What’s he doing serving drinks?” I thought, immediately after thinking the previous two thoughts – or sort of simultaneously.  Thoughts aren’t quite that neat and linear, are they?  Mine aren’t, anyway.)

So, I thought, I’ve got double legitimate reasons to speak to the fella.  I ran through all the best bits of Withnail & I in my head, interspersed with thoughts like “I wonder how often people quote Withnail & I at him” and “I wonder how annoying it is” and “I wonder if, if the answer to the previous two wonderments is “all the time” and “very”, he’s disappointed that he is still best known for a film made over 20 years ago.”

And then I realised all the quotes I’d been thinking of (probably simultaneously to the above; the mind does not often produce linear narrative) are all from Withnail, Richard E Grant’s character.  Which might be what everyone else says to him (McGann) and might make the above even worse for the bloke.  So I decide not to say “We’ve gone on holiday by mistake”, or “I want something’s flesh!” or “the fucker will rue the day!” or the obvious favourite at a bar: “We want the finest wines available to humanity.  We want them here, and we want them now.”

As I was running through all this in my head, eventually McGann looked at me and said “Yes mate?”

I held up my hands to him in a double thumbs-up gesture, and said, voice a-quiver: “My thumbs have gone weird!”

He looked at me askance.  Not annoyed, just slightly bewildered.  He stammered: “That’s….nobody’s ever…what do you want?”

I ordered my drink, paid, and left him in peace.

As I left, I saw the singer Kelis walking past.  I decided not to talk to her.