Memoirs of a Fruitcake Read online

  Other than the fact this situation gave me control, I had no use whatsoever for the two additional apartments and so ended up letting them to pals for next to no rent. I assumed the apartments were appreciating in value anyway so the money was not an issue, and I preferred them to be occupied for security reasons. The presence of people that I knew also meant that, technically, I was no longer alone.

  I am not very good on my own, not for long periods. I enjoy my own company for a couple of days, and definitely when I’m working, but generally I do like to be around other human beings. I think they’re more fun and more engaging than anything else that’s been invented since.

  It was choosing the right ones to be around I was beginning to have trouble with.

  Many extraordinary things happened to me during the couple of years that I was resident in London’s leafy Belgravia, an area that is officially designated as a village and a very posh village at that.

  Other than Buckingham Palace, Belgravia has the lowest crime rate of anywhere in the country, largely due to its massive police presence, because of all the embassies that are located there.

  I remember reading in the local magazine – an overtly lavish publication printed on several brief but very shiny and expensive-looking thick pages – that crime was down year on year from a colossal three crimes to now just two! A figure that the police were still not happy with and confident they could reduce even further. Two fewer crimes a year and their work would be done.

  Ironically, however, it was whilst living in this ridiculously low-crime area of the capital that I came the closest to being arrested. Imagine if I had been – 1 would have sent the local force’s statistics spiralling out of control, devastating their plans for policing perfection.

  It all happened one night after another of my meticulously planned drunken evenings and speechless bus journeys home.

  I arrived at my front door in the early hours of the morning, only to discover I had misplaced my door keys. As I had to be up in almost no time to host The Breakfast Show, gaining entry and grabbing what little time I had left for sleep became paramount.

  With this in mind, I immediately set about searching for a missile. I had decided to smash a window, climb in, go to bed and worry about the consequences in the morning. After all, it was my house, my window.

  After rummaging around in a skip parked nearby (people in posh areas are always having alterations done) I found what I needed in the form of half a breeze block. I marched back towards my house ready and willing to do what was necessary and, once in position, closed one eye to take aim. I followed this with a couple of unconvincing practice swings, before clumsily hurling the brick in the general direction of one of my beautiful Georgian plate-glass windows.

  With an almighty crash the glass shattered. All I had to do next was jump the four-foot void from the pavement to my downstairs basement, land on the windowsill, balance and then sidle in through the newly smashed hole, trying not to pierce any of the arteries in my legs in the process.

  There were several ways I could have met my maker during this mission impossible but hey, I was Superdrunk, and surely everyone knows that Superdrunk is invincible. Until that is, he ends up in the A&E department of his local general hospital, an unworthy drain on one of our most vital services.

  Miraculously, I made the jump, although God only knows how. I’ve looked at that space many times since and I would never attempt to do the same thing sober.

  Having achieved stage one, I was ready to move on – but surprise, surprise, guess what? I was stranded. I had landed on the windowsill and it was now all I could do just to hold on to the underside of the sash frame without falling off. I was so close to the window that I simply didn’t have the centre of gravity to move in any direction. Even in my inebriated state, it wasn’t difficult for me to realise that if I attempted anything, serious injury was a distinct possibility. Whichever way you looked at it, I was well and truly stuck.

  As my fingers started to seize up and cramp began to set in, the nausea of blind panic started to envelope me. If I let go, I was heading for a twelve-foot drop into the basement area and the wrought-iron banister of the staircase that led down from the street.

  I began preparing myself for the worst, when I was interrupted by one of the most redundant statements I have ever heard.

  ‘Don’t move,’ a man’s voice called out through a loud hailer.

  What was he talking about? I hadn’t moved for over a minute. I didn’t need telling.

  I just about managed to rotate my head enough to see the three red police cars that had screeched to a halt behind me, tyres smoking, sirens flashing. The red livery told me these were vehicles belonging to the special diplomatic police force that constantly patrolled the area. The same guys who cracked crime like no others before them.

  ‘I can’t move,’ I said, almost apologetically, as armed officers now piled out from their respective vehicles.

  ‘I wish I could,’ I said, now almost whimpering, ‘but I’m stuck and I have to warn you I think I may well be falling soon.’

  ‘Bloody hell Chris, is that you?’ the officer with the loud hailer remarked, having now put it down, realising that the moment for amplified conversation had probably passed.

  ‘Yes it is. I’m sorry,’ I said, feeling every inch the complete idiot.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked, the incredulity in his voice almost comical.

  ‘My place – locked out – need to get in,’ I replied, resorting to basic caveman.

  ‘You know people get shot around here for less than what you’re doing,’ he exclaimed in disbelief. ‘What were you thinking?’

  I should have been arrested on the spot. It would have been good for me, perhaps with even a brief stretch in prison thrown in, but instead I was mercifully rescued. The boys in blue forced my front door, opened my window and dragged me in the best way they could.

  ‘For Christ’s sake don’t do that again will you?’ requested the loud-hailer man, whom I could now see was a sergeant, ‘or next time we’ll shoot you just for being an idiot.’

  As he and his colleagues laughed, I attempted an unconvincing smile.

  ‘Would you like me to give you a mention on the radio this morning?’ I offered feebly, the dawn chorus now alerting me to the fact that my work was no longer any length of sleep away.

  ‘No, we flippin’ well wouldn’t,’ came the emphatic response. ‘As far as we’re concerned, this never happened. Now sort yourself out and get that bloody window fixed – today!’

  And with that, several good men who do a real job for a living, left one very embarrassed man who really had no idea what he was doing at all.

  TOP

  10

  THINGS PEOPLE OFTEN THINK I AM BUT I’M NOT

  10 Short (I am 6 foot 2)

  9 A Manchester United supporter (I have always supported Liverpool)

  8 A petrolhead (I love cars but I know next to nothing about what goes on under the bonnet)

  7 Always hyperactive (I am very quiet and relaxed at home)

  6 A low-handicap golfer (I have been off 15 for years)

  5 Good mates with every famous person in the world (I barely know any of them)

  4 A pint lover (what I really love is good red wine)

  3 A huge Beatles fan (I love their music but know very little about them)

  2 Cash rich (I am permanently cash skint)

  1 A gadget person (I am in fact almost anti-gadgets)

  I READ SIR MICHAEL CAINE’S BOOK What’s It All About? soon after it first came out in the early 1990s and a damn fine read it was too. For a start, he very nearly died after he and some of his army pals contracted an often-fatal tropical disease whilst stationed in Korea.

  After they were admitted to hospital and told they were going to die they were offered the chance of being guinea pigs for a new form of treatment which involved them having to be strapped to their beds for a few days which, if successful, cou
ld save their lives. They all went to the pub one afternoon in order to discuss what they should do. They were unanimous in agreeing to become part of the experiment.

  After all they had nothing to lose. The experiment was an unexpected success and they all survived.

  Another surprise for me was discovering that Michael didn’t make it big in the business until he was in his thirties, and lived until that point in the shadow of his flatmate Terence Stamp. Stamp was a superstar whilst Caine was still flogging himself around any audition that would have him.

  Michael cites one of his more successful roles during this period was that of air traffic controller for Terence when it came to ushering one beautiful woman out the back door before the next one arrived at the front.

  Described as ‘one of the most beautiful men of his generation’, Terence was making the most of his fame, fortune and handsome jaw line, and it was Michael’s job to make sure he didn’t get caught with his pants down.

  ‘Wow,’ I remember thinking when I read that, ‘just imagine…’

  I have often wondered to what extent I am influenced by the books and movies I have read and watched, and whether I subconsciously remember all the bits I like and then weave them into my own life. Of course I’m not saying for one second I was my generation’s Terence Stamp, but it’s amazing how busy your runway can get if you put your mind to it. Of all the places I’ve lived, Wilton Crescent was closest to becoming my Heathrow than any other.

  Whether or not the women whom I have had the good fortune to get to know more intimately acquiesced to my advances because I was rich and famous I cannot know for sure, but of course I know this may have been a factor.

  But does it really matter?

  I realise some people may regard this statement as shallow, in fact I know they will, but bear with me.

  Yes, rich and powerful men often end up with women who, on the face of it, are too beautiful for them. And ageing rock stars and film stars (again, mostly men) don’t think twice about marrying someone half their age.

  But do you really suppose they care what the rest of us think if she makes him feel ten, twenty or even thirty years younger, whilst she gets the life of her dreams? If a couple is happy in the shallow end, then so be it – leave them to it, I say. Sure, it may be more of a ‘deal’ than a genuine relationship, but most of our lives are riddled with clichés – it’s just that we choose not to admit them.

  The other much-maligned couples who get it in the neck for so-called questionable motives are famous people who choose to pair up with one another. God forbid two people in a similar job get it on, eh?

  Before the advent of online dating, eighty per cent of couples in the western world met their partners at or through work. Take my romance with Ms Geri Halliwell, formerly of the Spice Girls. That was an interesting episode, to say the least. Geri was – and still is – a dear sweet girl and one with whom I shared a sincere, albeit very brief, relationship. Not what the press wanted you to think, of course.

  I had never, in all my exploits, not even with Gazza in our ‘let’s surf on the roof of a white limo’ days, experienced anything with the press that came close to the fuss that kicked off when I started dating Geri.

  Not that I minded. As I’ve said before, famous people who complain about getting attention are in the wrong business.

  But I will say that when Geri and I were an item, it did become somewhat intense.

  On the nights Geri stayed over at Wilton, I would set off for the studios in what should have been darkness but there were so many paparazzi waiting outside it was like stepping out into the bright light of midday. I have no idea exactly how many paps were waiting to pounce during those mad mornings but it must have been at least twenty, their camera flashes so blinding that it was a good few minutes after I had managed to scramble into my car before I could see properly again.

  I had to chuckle to myself. Here was I, a ginger kid from Warrington, being pursued as if it were the sixties and I were one of the Beatles.

  For the record, Geri and I were a genuine couple, but of course it was a much better story that we were going out with each other purely for publicity, a charge I found laughably predictable and lazy. The last thing either of us ever needed was publicity.

  The truth is that Geri and I got it together because we had a lot in common. We were both working-class kids done well, and we both fancied each other. I can one hundred per cent tell you that I was totally focused on that lovely little toosh of Geri’s, rather than trying to lure the red-tops into giving us more meaningless column inches.

  Indeed, my sole mission was to get as close a look as I could inside those famous spangled red hot pants, not to mention that sparkly Union Jack dress that seemed to fit her so well. Make no mistake, when Geri gave me the go-ahead I was in there like a shot.

  Alas though, our flame-haired alliance was not meant to be. While Geri was one of the sexiest girls I’d ever known, it quickly became evident that we were two mad March hares destined for anyone but each other. I had checked out of reality one way (by being totally barking), whereas Geri was having her own issues for entirely different reasons.

  She was a 24-hour-a-day perfectionist and now that she had the means to take her philosophy to a whole new level, her fastidiousness knew no bounds. This resulted in what appeared to me to be a frightening degree of organisation.

  Geri was also single-minded. Nothing wrong with that – and no doubt one of the reasons she became so successful – but she made it very clear that if I wanted to be with her it was her way or the highway.

  In retrospect, a bit of Geri-domination is something I could probably have done with, but in those days my eyes and ears were closed to anything that might be good for me. I had duped myself into thinking I liked being out of control and half out of my mind, so when Geri came along and I realised she preferred quiet nights in, as opposed to very loud nights out, I suspected this union was probably not the one for me.

  Not that baling out of the relationship was by any means easy. Geri was gorgeous, interesting and fun enough for me to be easily tempted to hang on in there and see if we could bridge the gap between our differences. But Geri was looking for a truckload of love and I had shed mine a long time ago.

  There were other girls too – some you may have heard of, others you won’t have. There was a door-less door frame that led from my bedroom through to the hallway and as each lady departed, I saw her momentarily freeze-framed and wondered if she would ever come back. She rarely did.

  It wasn’t all about the bedroom at Wilton Crescent. For this was the height of my TFI Friday era and many of the guests who appeared on the show used to end up back at mine as we attempted to discover how far we could stretch another crazy night.

  There was the famous Ant and Dec incident, which I only remembered when they wrote about it in their own book and it was picked up by the tabloids. They’d come back to my place after appearing on Rock and Roll Football and later that evening we were very merry, to put it mildly.

  I was still with Geri at the time and we’d slipped off to bed, leaving the boys downstairs in the kitchen. Apparently it was Ant who came to look for us whilst Dec was having a serious word with himself in the loo. The story goes that Ant stumbled into our bedroom to witness some Ginger on Ginger action. I don’t recall any of this but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

  Other famous pals who were always welcome included one of the most beautiful creatures on earth, the enchanting and hugely talented Anna Friel, the rebel-rousing tour de force that is Ray Winstone and even the surprisingly open-minded Ms Dannii Minogue.

  Then there were the odd curve balls; for instance the six weeks during which the criminally handsome American actor Aaron Eckhart came to stay after turning up unannounced on the doorstep one evening. He claimed his agent had given him my address as his place of residence whilst he was filming his latest motion picture on location in London.

  To this day I have no idea what he or
his agent were talking about but no matter, I was more than happy to have another interesting, energetic and colourful character around, so I let him stay on the top floor. By the way, if you really want to know how American film stars stay so thin I can tell you; they simply don’t eat – anything – ever. Aaron just smoked Marlboro Lights cigarettes – that’s all he ever did; I never once saw a single morsel of food in his fridge. It was as clean and empty the day he left as it was the day it came out of the factory. How he had the energy just to stand up every day, let alone go and look beefy and gorgeous in front of a film camera, I have no idea.

  My best guest story from the Wilton years is, however, reserved for Tara Reid, American film star and all-round Hollywood babe. Tara was over in Britain to publicise the first of the American Pie movie trilogy, her first port of call, luckily for us, being an appearance on TFI Friday. Just how lucky I would get, though, I couldn’t possibly have imagined.

  Tara was part of a three-pronged publicity assault on the UK’s media, along with her two co-stars, Jason Biggs and the really good-looking tall guy – you remember, the one who was a bit too nice for his own good and a bit wet generally.

  I’d already seen American Pie at a pre-screening, along with some of the production team before the stars were due to come on our show. We were all very much in agreement that the film was going to be a smash as it encapsulated the spirit of our times, very zeitgeisty. The Graduate of its day. In fact we were so convinced of its success that we declared that week’s TFI the American Pie Special.

  Now, here’s the thing. Americans are really good when it comes to appearing on chat shows; they consider it a part of their job. Sell, sell, sell is the order of the day and absolutely right, too. Their attitude is, ‘We’ve worked bloody hard to make the product, we might as well finish the job off and get as many people to go and see the damn thing as possible.’ They also know it doesn’t hurt to put in a few sharp performances in the interview chair in case any movie directors may be tuning in with thoughts about whom to cast as their next star.