The Reason We Don't Throw Children In The Thames

There are very few things in life cuter than a small, unassuming and, quite frankly, dim child playing innocently with an animal of what we assume is a similar demeanor. And, possibly in some kind of kitty-defiance of the fact that Blogger's spellcheck doesn't recognise "demeanor" (but then it doesn't recognise the word "Blogger" either, just like Facebook doesn't recognise "Facebook"), the animal looks and acts as simple as the child does, so it's safe to assume they're on similar pegging, IQ-pegging.

So. This 7 year-old boy. He's a damn sight cuter than your average four year-old (they can't really say much, and are very infrequently the subject of cute adverts, books or films. Not quite babies, but not quite people yet. Society's pre-pubescent outcasts), and you won't find a 13 year old as adorable as this (all 13 year-old boys are bastards anyway). And he's not a girl, which is an adorable-bonus in itself (little girls in adverts are generally just precocious little madams with too much to say, ideas way above their station, and are, let's face it, a bit boring. Want to be a doctor, do you? We call them "nurses" these days. Get back in your kitchen. Do you know what a cupcake is? Welcome to your future). Not only is this boy cute, he has a best friend. His cat. His friend, the cat, is cute, though not as cute as the boy (which the cat must be sick of by now. Being the less-cute friend always sucks when you're in a bar, and for a cat it's embarrassing when your human friend is getting more tail than you), and the cat has a name that is no doubt utterly adorable in a modern let's-call-the-cat-a-real-person's-name-like-Toby way (although critics argue it's actually just new parents going through a let's-call-the-child-a-real-cat's-name-like-Toby phase).

So the boy, James (7, adorable, the Mary) is best friends with his cat, Toby (kitten, cute, the Rhoda), and he rushes home from school every day to play with his best friend. His cat.

Somewhere along the line, this boy's parents have dropped the ball (of string). I'm not saying that he shouldn't be friends with a cat. Some of my best friends are cats. I'm just saying that this boy is spending far too much time with this cat, and who knows what's going on there. Before you know it, James has been swept up in a whirlwind of late nights out of the house and catnip addiction, so out of it he's scratching passers by, running head-first into locked catflaps, waking the neighbours with his wailing, and peeing all over the couch. James' parents then make the difficult decision to stick him in a bag of rocks destined for the Thames, and this story that started off with a cute little boy and his cat has turned tragic. Someone needs to step in.

So thank God for Whiskas, who have decided that is a GOOD and MAGICAL and ADORABLE thing for this child to be in so deep with his pet that he forsakes all other children after school to run home and feed it. "Buy our cat food. Your child will never have to have a social life again, because even when the cat is no longer with you, you can bet that little Jimmy will take his own life out of grief."


The weird thing is: it totally works! It's not weird. It's not creepy. It's not sad. This little boy's best friend in the whole world is a cat, but it's not worrying! Because it's cute. And loveable. And there can't be anything wrong with something that loveable.


There is no substitute for likeability in this business (why Christian Bale's career is circling the urinal). It's pretty telling at the moment, then, that I'm worried. Recently, I've not been the best person to be around, and my self-involvement has been so off the scale of "good taste" that I've got Roy Chubby Brown zooming up behind me on his Vespa, trying to catch up, with Jim Davidson perched in the sidecar, clutching his knees, goggles covering half his face (proving, once again, that he's just as ignorant of how much of a tit he looks as he is of everything else). I've started to get a bit depressy and angry, just for nothing, and do seriously have moments of internal physical rage for very stupid reasons, which I'd like to think isn't me. In fact, it's my character in West Side Story, so I can use it all. I just didn't plan to method-act.

It's tension. And tiredness. And frustration. The last few weeks I've worked every shift possible at the theatres, and had rehearsals, and various other things. Friday night was the first real night out I've had since the middle of July. Yesterday I had a pretty nerve-wracking social engagement that I've been bricking it about for weeks. On Saturday night I had a fairly big mini-breakdown (which I'm quite ashamed of, and doesn't ever happen, because that's just ridiculous - you're more likely to see me go a week without making a Kerry Katona joke). 

By the way, Kerry Katona...mess.

On top of all this, I have my first ever audition for a professional acting job coming up on Thursday morning, and I'm really excited. So cue the usual stress of having lost my voice and having no suitable audition pieces prepared (finding new ones takes a bit longer than you estimate because you're never totally happy with your options). It's a very big step in the right direction given my goals for the next year, so I have to just hope I don't eff it up.

So generally I'm grumpy, and when I'm not, there's too much happiness and energy and I have no focus, like an exceptionally hyperactive blind person (but with far fewer forehead-wall collisions). Tonight's West Side Story rehearsal involved the first acting I've had to do on the schedule so far, and the number of distractions that I gave in to you'd have thought I was Tiger Woods. Once I start acting it feels so good and organic and half of me switches off while I go into auto-pilot, but that didn't happen during this rehearsal. My head and my emotional state were all over the place, and it really wasn't likeable. 

It was annoying. If I was little Jimmy, I'd have been sectioned by now for being that close to my cat.

But a conversation I had on Friday started to change things a little. 


Friday really was the first night out I've had in what feels like forever (also doesn't help - I'm a party animal with very little social life just now, like a disco-loving caged-hen), and during the night I had several conversations with people about work and such. One of them, who really knows what she's talking about, told me not to underestimate how much of an ace-in-the-hole it is to be good looking and Scottish when trying to do theatre in Scotland. This was not something I had thought of before, for several reasons:

1. I had just assumed that there would be less work for Scottish actors in Scotland because that's where all the Scottish actors are, but I suppose it's also where all the Scottish roles are.
2. I still find it hard believing people when they compliment me. Years of being overweight, unpopular, rejected and bullied have taken their toll (and even though you spend your childhood thinking "it's okay - in ten years I'll be a success and they'll be claiming dole", you go away to uni, come back, and discover on your way to the JobCentre that said bullies, who dropped out of school after 4th year, have gone on to better things than you can dream of right now, and that they're still good looking. Bastards). 

So at the moment I feel like the game has just suddenly changed a little in my favour, like I've been let in on a cheat code that could help me finish the game. But it's occurred to me - I need to start working on my appearance, and my confidence for this info to make any difference.


So I'm making a conscious effort to stop biting my nails. Given that I'm sitting here biting them in between sentences, it's maybe not going so swimmingly at the moment. The problem is that it's not something you can just stop doing, mainly because half the time you don't even notice you're doing it! Sarah Palin has quite a similar problem with not noticing she's an idiot (though it must be hard for her to keep up, especially if she's having to track her family too: "Hi, I'm Bristol, a teenage mother. And I'm telling you, teenage girls, don't get pregnant. IT WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE!!!...coochie-coo, who's mummy's best boy? You are! You are!").


As for the body, I'm not the tallest guy on the planet, and my build makes me look even shorter (it's very possible I have a long torso and short legs, which would account for how close to the ground my junk reaches - that's junk, as in, the crap I keep in my pockets, obviously. Sicko). My body shape is slightly strange too, and it's not that I want to be any skinnier, I would just like to tone up and look good naked without having to call in that insufferable half-Chinese tranny (*cough* sorry, the Vespa just caught up long enough for them to infect me with their venom - bizarre how the bigots are the bitchy ones). So today, after three months of eating, I'm going back to the gym. Time to work this all out, because if society has taught me anything, it's that no one wants a singing, dancing fat man. And what they want even less is a singing, dancing healthy man who stands, and behaves and talks like he's fat. They want confident. No nervous insecure wrecks, no fat dancers.


Although Robbie Williams gives me hope.


Time to stop biting all my nails and eating all the pies.


So this is what self-esteem feels like...