2005-02-01 - 5:49 p.m.

Last Wednesday began as an ordinary day. In fact as lunchtime loomed it still looked like panning out as pretty forgettable. Were it a saint's day, it would have been the day of St. Normal, the patron saint of there being not much going on. And accountancy. And York.

Some four hours later I was leaning over a workbench in a hangar in Buckinghamshire, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, with a man behind me drawing blood from my leg with a circular saw.

Funny how a day can pan out.

The Friday before, I�d auditioned for a part in a film. On Wednesday I got a call saying I hadn�t got the part but had got a different one. A two-line role as a patient in a hospital. Within an hour of that call, a car was picking me up to drive me to Pinewood for a costume fitting.

As we sped through the country roads approaching the studio, I imagined I was Stanley Kubrick, on my way to make some actors go mental doing the same thing about seventy times. Then I would go home and be a bit weird and not give any interviews and stroke my beard.

Pinewood is massive. I imagine all major film studios are. I wouldn�t know. The last time I went to one was the Universal Tour in California, when I was about 10 and everything was massive anyway.

I was shepherded to the props shed where my fitting was to take place. As I was a hospital patient and was having a prop fitted, you can now probably slim the possible scenarios down to two:

1. I was being fitted with a cast for my role as a man with a broken limb.

2. I was being fitted with a gigantic prosthetic penis for my role as a man whose giant penis becomes caught up in the machinery of a paper mill run by nudists.

Observations on the above possible scenarios:

a) The fact that I didn�t get home till about 7�o�clock tells you it was actually number 1. Had it been 2, they would immediately have appreciated that no prosthetics were necessary and sent me on my way.

b) It�s not going to be long before someone pitches up here having googled �giant prosthetic penis�, is it?

c) Now that I�ve said it twice, it�s even likelier.

d) 2. would make a much better film.

e) Comment a), I now realise, implies not just that I have a giant penis, but that it looks like it�s been trapped in heavy machinery.

They had to fit me with not one but three leg casts. Put a stocking on, wad it with bandages, soak some fibre glass tape stuff in warm water, wrap it round my leg, wait for it to harden, then cut it off. Three times. So they would have three prop casts for the actual day. My �nurse� was a genial Scottish props guy called Duncan. In fact the whole props department seemed to be Scottish. I don�t know why. Perhaps the decline of the fishing industry has coincided with a upturn in props making. Maybe it�s just one of those generational shifts.

�Yill be a trawlermon like yer da and his da before him.�
�I�ll not. I�m awa te London to manufacture props fe the film industry, so ah am.�
Smack!
�Lachlan! Dinnae strike the bairn!�
�I�ll hear no more talk �o� props makin� in this hoose. Is that understood?�
�Ye cannae tell me what te dee! You�re no ma real paw!�
....
�Jeannie�pass me ma belt.�

Duncan explained the cast would be removed by cutting down the back with a circular saw. He noticed the fear in my eyes and promised there would be no accidents. Once the first cast had dried, I hopped to a workbench and heard Duncan behind me starting up the saw. It was a feeling akin to that of hearing the dentist�s drill. To his credit, he did a good job and the worst I felt was tickle as the saw cut through the hardened tape.

By cast number two, though, things had all got a bit�relaxed. It definitely felt like Duncan was getting near the skin. Ooh, that feels a bit close. Hmm, there�s kind of a hot sensaAAAHBASTARD!

�Did I get ye?�

�Yes, I think so.�

�Sorry�

All right, he�s getting lower. Down behind the knee now, ooh, don�t catch it there. No, we�re ok. Now down to the calf. That could be bit trickYYYYYASHITEHAWK!

�Sorry.�

Now he�s down at the heel. This was tricky to get off last time so he�s going to try and cut right through. Trouble is the contours down there make it like shaving a chin. You have to work your way aroOOOWWWWBUGGERY.

"Sorry"

At last, it�s off. At least we don�t have to do it all over ag-oh, we do.

All right. He only nicked me. But it was enough for tiny �Grissom, take a look at this� microdots of blood to impress themselves onto the paper towel I maniacally pressed to me heel.

Cast number three, to be fair, passed without incident, though in my state of post-traumatic protective shock I probably wouldn�t have felt it anyway.

And then they took me home.

Now, I feel unwell. More later, chickens.

Profilage - Previosity - Nextitude