Terry Wogan, James Bond, Superman and The Short Man With Long Socks

Terry Wogan and performer Jo Burke at yesterday’s launch

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the book launch for Terry Wogan’s first novel Those Were the Days.

In passing, he mentioned that, at one point, he had been considered for the part of James Bond. But producer Cubby Broccoli thought his ears were too big and chose Roger Moore instead.

I took this as a joke, but one never can tell.

Terry Wogan’s first novel – autobiographical?

I seem to remember that movie producers the Salkinds seriously considered the younger Salkind’s wife’s dentist for the role of Superman and screen-tested him at least twice.

Yesterday evening, I went to see the Comedy International Showcase at the Pleasance in Islington. Full of interesting acts and not just on stage.

In the audience, I bumped into The Short Man With Long Socks, who had come specifically to see the always excellent Men in Coats. I half expected to find a whole row of clothes-related acts.

Men in Coats were seen by The Short Man With Long Socks

I have never seen The Short Man With Long Socks perform – few people in the UK have. I have only heard of his act by repute from the late Malcolm Hardee and Martin Soan (both non-clothes-related acts) who talked about him in an October 2013 blog.

“Are you doing any London shows at some point?” I asked The Short Man With Long Socks.

“Well,” he said. “I… Well…”

This appeared in my cyber In-Box this morning

“Could you send me a picture of you performing?” I asked.

“Well,” he said. “Well…”

“Here’s my e-mail,” I said.

“Well…” he said.

I thought: Well, I’ll never hear from him again… and don’t try talking to mime acts.

But, this morning, I got an e-mail picture of a sock.

Well, it’s a start.

Four unfunny things related to the world of comedy which have happened so far this week – plus one lucky insect

The Heroes of Fringe pose on a London rooftop this week

ONE

So I went to a London photoshoot arranged by Bob Slayer to publicise the two venues he is running at the Edinburgh Fringe this year.

Both come under the banner of his Heroes Of Fringe outfit so he asked people to come dressed as superheroes. We all had to wear Bawbags’ Scottish underpants over our clothing. They are sponsors.

My So It Goes chat show at the Fringe is in Bob’s Bookshop.

I had been given a Superman teeshirt a few months ago – but it was a rather distressed and faded one so I thought, given my age and the fact I could not be bothered to shave, I should perhaps take along a walking stick (my dead grandfather’s) and wear a piece of green Kryptonite round my neck (a USB memory stick given away as a freebie by the Gilded Balloon venue a few Fringes ago).

Dark Superman Returns

I reasoned this might turn the fact that I looked older than the other people in the photoshoot from a negative ageist thing into a semi-ironic humorous thing and perhaps give it a slight whiff of The Dark Knight Returns or Watchmen.

The strange thing is I do not drink and do not take drugs.

The actual effect of the outfit was, of course, that it just made me look old.

Comic Lewis Schaffer did not turn up for the photoshoot because, he said, he was performing a benefit gig for dogs. When I suggested the dogs should, perhaps, be performing a benefit gig for him, I got no reply.

Dangerous Chris Dangerfield DID turn up, told me about the benefits of Bitcoins and of the parallel, dark internet and then left on a black bicycle saying there were too many other people. (There were twelve).

Führer Frank Sanazi – A conflict with David Cameron?

TWO

While I was coming back from the photoshoot, Frank Sanazi got in touch with me.

He said he had been booked to perform at Cornbury Music Festival in Oxfordshire at the weekend.

But it was belatedly thought by the organisers that his act might offend the festival goers of Middle England who had come to see Squeeze, Van Morrison, The Proclaimers, Alan Davies, Julie Burchill, Malcolm Hardee Award winner Stuart Goldsmith et al.

Frank Sanazi performs looking like Adolf Hitler but singing in Frank Sinatra’s voice. He was billed in the festival programme as headlining the ‘Tew Drop Inn’ Cabaret tent on Saturday night.

He told me he thought his sudden ban might be something to do with the fact the festival takes place in Prime Minister David Cameron’s constituency and the great man (Cameron, not Sanazi) was there last year and was rumoured to be there this year. The management appeared to have booked his act without wondering why he was called Frank Sanazi – a clue, surely, is in the name.

“When the organisers saw my YouTube footage,” he told me, “they decided to bar me. Having paid me already.”

So it was silver lining time for the Führer of Fun.

Anna Smith remembers a man in a box

THREE

When I got home, I found an e-mail from the So It Goes blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent Anna Smith. It read:

“Have you ever seen Daniel Rovai? I first saw him balancing ladders on his chin in the circus tent at Glastonbury. He is now apparently living in a small plywood box somewhere in the Netherlands and he appears to be very happy and philosophic.

“I once travelled on tubes and buses and then a long way on foot though a deserted warehouse district, to see him do a performance at a club in the middle of nowhere – Woolwich or somewhere like that. It was very disappointing because it turned out that I was the only person in the whole of London to show up. He approached me, sitting alone in the small cheap theatre, and offered to drive me home.

“But aren’t you going to do the show? I asked.

“He said, I can’t do it just for you, and so he drove me home in an old Citroën.”

This morning, I got an update from Anna:

“I just googled Daniel Rovai,” she told me. “He appears to be living in a cheerful-looking caravan now, a step up from the plywood box.”

The Tomatina Festival – people covered in tomatoes – in 2006

FOUR

I also opened an e-mail from Alex Petty, organiser of the Laughing Horse Free Festival at the Edinburgh Fringe. Sent to Free Festival participants, it said:

A unique Fringe  event run by Free Festival’s Peter Michael Marino during this year’s Fringe for your diaries on Thursday 15^th August from 3pm-4pm on the Meadows.

Critics crushed your show? Did your lack of stars make you see stars? Want to get even? Join fellow performers, producers, venues, critics and press for the first-ever Critical Mass Tomato Toss!

Inspired by Spain’s annual Tomatina Festival, this special Edinburgh Fringe event is for anyone who’s ever dreamed of letting the critics know what they think of their nasty reviews.

You’ll get your chance to toss tomatoes at the faces of the critics who’ve taken the piss, slammed your show, tarnished your name and lowered your audience attendance. Of course, it’s all in good fun… isn’t it?

“They only live for about three days. Let it live!” So it goes.

FIVE

After reading that e-mail this morning I was sitting on the toilet, as one does, and saw a daddy long-legs in the bath.

I am not good with fast-moving winged insects, especially if they suddenly brush against my face. This one brushed against my face. Normally this is rapidly followed by the death of the insect.

But, a couple of days ago, seeing me try to kill a daddy long-legs with a quick clap of my hands, my eternally-un-named friend reminded me: “They only live for about three days. Let it live.”

So, this morning, I let it live.

Life is random.

Advice on four ways to make money illegally in movies and sport

No 1: Become a movie producer

This morning, I was reading an old interview with famed Hollywood scriptwriter Tom Mankiewicz, in which he mentioned big-budget movie producer Alexander Salkind, one of whose productions was the 1978 Superman film starring Christopher Reeve, which Mankiewicz scripted.

If you make a big-budget international movie, you have a perfect excuse to move money, people and odd pieces of complicated props and machinery with space in which to hide things backwards-and-forwards between countries without arousing suspicion.

Salkind was a rather dodgy character who occasionally came to the attention of the authorities. I vaguely remember him once getting arrested by police – I think for fraud – and unexpectedly producing a diplomatic passport, which gave him immunity from prosecution. My memory is that it was a Panamanian diplomatic passport, but Tom Mankiewicz says Salkind, in fact, paid the government of Costa Rica to secretly make him their cultural attaché to Switzerland. This would give him, he thought, total diplomatic immunity.

But the scam did not work 100%, according to Mankiewicz. In the United States, where there was a warrant out for his arrest, the FBI said: “I’m sorry, cultural attaché from Costa Rica to Switzerland doesn’t cut it with us. That’s not a diplomatic passport as far as we’re concerned.”

Which is why Salkind did not and could not ever show up for any of his movie openings in the US.

Who knows what was happening to the money Salkind was moving from country to country in large amounts?

But it reminded me of three sporting scams which worked… mostly.

No 2: Hide the drugs inside something very high profile

I was told that one particularly creative heroin smuggling gang managed to get a man working inside the team of a Formula 1 World Champion. The heroin was transported from country to country inside the World Champion’s racing car (without his knowledge). After all, which brave Customs man is going to dismantle the World Champion’s hi-tech racing car to search for drugs?

Perhaps small scale for heroin smuggling, but it worked.

No 3: Steal money from people who are taking bribes

I was once also told the true story of a top British champion jockey (now dead) who was being paid to lose races (to help a betting scam). Obviously, he received the money in cash and, to avoid ‘misunderstandings’, he got it at the racecourse immediately after the race. On one occasion, he was paid for losing a race, then had to be helicoptered elsewhere for another high-profile race before being returned to the first racecourse. So he left the money (several thousand pounds) in the boot of his car.

A criminal who heard about this arrangement, simply stole the money from the boot while the jockey was away. When he returned, it was assumed by the jockey to be a random car theft and, of course, the theft of the bribe could not be reported to the police as a crime.

As near to a perfect crime as you can get.

No 4: Go to the dogs

On an even more admirably creative level, a British comedian with criminal links in his past told me a story about the ‘wrong’ dog coming round the final bend at Romford Stadium and someone throwing four footballs onto the track in front of the dogs to cause chaos and get the race abandoned.

The late comedian Malcolm Hardee, inevitably, topped this story by telling me he had once shared a prison cell with a man nicknamed ‘Teddy Bear’. This odd nickname came about because the man had been paid to stand by the rail at various stadiums around the UK and, if the ‘wrong’ dog was winning, he would throw a teddy bear onto the track. The dogs then went crazy and tore it apart, stopping the race. “His great talent,” explained Malcolm, “was that he could run very fast after he had thrown the teddy bear.”

I can only presume that, on one occasion, he failed to do this fast enough.

Crime does not always pay.