Fox (n): carnivore of genus vulpes; crafty person; scavenger; (vb) to confuse; -ed (adj): to be drunk.
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Thursday 17 November 2011

Hi-diddly-dee, an actor's life for me.

IT IS easy to bitch about celebrities - the egos, the money, the gilded cage they live in.

Even the nicest and most normal ones, in my experience, will throw all their toys out of the pram if they are asked to join a queue or, worse still, they are mistaken for someone else.

I am not sure how George Clooney might handle someone asking him about his bisexual girlfriend, his speeding points or nuclear energy policy, for example.


(Sorry about that; once noticed the similarity cannot be forgotten).

Sometimes they make it even easier for us to poke fun.

An Emmerdale actor by the name of Rik Makarem, an habitual speeder trying to dodge a driving ban after totting up points for several offences, said that he should keep his licence on the basis that he was too famous to catch a bus.

Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that I wouldn't know who he was if he tap-danced outside my house wearing a sandwich board with "I'M RIK MAKAREM!" scrawled on it, and concentrate instead on the legal arguments he presented to the Dewsbury magistrate deciding the case.

The 29-year-old said if he had to use public transport - gasp! - his many fans would expect him to remain in character during his commute and it could make him ill.

He said: "Acting is a difficult profession. It's hard work. It has a dramatic effect health-wise. There is pressure of having to maintain this media personality that the public know. To have to do this on a daily basis would be an immense challenge."

Hang on. Standing where you're told to stand and reading words someone else has written in the way you are told to can make you ill? I never realised. Does this mean I can sue for being made to take part in the school panto when I was 10? How has Kirk Douglas survived so long? And has anyone warned the cast of The Only Way Is Essex?

Someone ought to tell this prat that acting is a piece of piss, and he's taking it. The difficult bit about the trade is not acting, which is what most actors do, and generally they use this time to moan, smoke, and "write this great play I've been thinking about for yars".

Being one of the few to have a very well-paid job is not quite the same as being down the pit, is it?

Rik ought to realise that firstly he's damn lucky to be in work considering the trade in he's in, and even more so bearing in mind that 2.62million people are unemployed and for the first time since records began there are 1million young school-leavers on the dole, a fact which has knock-on effects on their health and social well-being for the rest of their lives and which, in their usual style, our current Government is doing sweet-FA to reverse.

The magistrate, bless whoever they were, saw through this poncey pillock's piffle and banned him for six months so the good people of West Yorkshire can go about their business without being menaced by a man tearing up the roads while thinking he's Charlton Heston in Ben Hur.

It's just a shame he won't be spending the time looking for a proper job.

It's £2.60 return and get your feet off the seat.