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quandary! My personal pride has been attacked, but by a great man. He has shot me down like a hangdog gunslinger riding a young pretender out of town. Except, I do have that line.
    I don’t know what to do. Bob’s over at the pulpit giving his speech and I’m welded to the spot, still trapped in the moment where his curse pierced my flesh. I look over. I can’t hear what he’s saying, only my mind ticking. “Shall I say that line?” it asks. I can’t see the audience, only the glare and Bob’s great past and my mum at home on her sofa with her cat holding a mug, stung. Maybe she’s crying. I don’t know what to do. I’m up there alone, my first big gig and an international human rights campaigner has just dug me out. Do I fight back? Can I use the line?
    Then I remember Matt. He’s in the wings. Slowly, so slowly the audience and Bob don’t notice, I turn my head. There’s Matt, and like me he’s motionless. He looks proper pissed off. We lock eyes. Me and Matt are mates. We’ve been through some capers. I’ve dragged him through brothels and made him score me smack. We’ve been in gruesome threesomes and nasty rows. Across the floor and through the silence Matt hears the wordless question.
    “Shall I, mate?”
    Slowly and with no trace of doubt Matt nods.
    I turn. Take aim. And fire.
    Now it’s Sir Bob’s turn to reel with stinging shame, the philanthropic Goliath felled by a wise guy slingshot. I don’t get too many opportunities in life to look cool. But in this moment I was an assassin. Now the rest of the show should be a doddle. There is, however, a further challenge. Shaun Ryder, the legendary front man and doomed genius who fronted the Happy Mondays, had been up to collect an award and was a bit “the worse for wear”.
    He was as “worse for wear as a newt”. He was “worse for weared” out of his fucking mind. I admire Shaun, he is the Queen Mother of junkies, but later in the script we had a reference to him, which was funny but, after seeing him looking a bit vulnerable, was now inappropriate and defunct. I don’t get a kick from upsetting people or joking about people who are vulnerable – there have been famous occasions where I’ve had lapses, but they were mistakes and I urge you to stay tuned for the justification. After an emotionally exhausting night, with which I was coping, with the end just in sight I stood at the podium relieved it was almost over, when I noticed the offending joke on the teleprompter.
    “NOOOoooo! Shaun Ryder is the punchline of the final joke!”
    I ran over to the side of the stage.
    “Matt, fucking hell! We can’t write another joke. We’ll have to change the name for this to work.”
    Jesus Christ. The joke is this: Jo Whiley is a woman who insists on breastfeeding her children. (That’s the set-up.) Curiously she considers all homeless people her children. (That’s the introduction of a comical idea.) Earlier today security had to physically prevent her from putting her booby in Shaun Ryder’s mouth. (Punchline.) A bit daft, yes, but as an intro to the lovely Jo Whiley, who’s about to walk on, it works. Or did till Shaun Ryder turned up all drunk and in need of compassion. For this joke to work we have to replace his name, we have to find someone. Somewhere in this room. Who we don’t mind offending. Who looks like they might be homeless … Bob Geldof.
    It was a tough night but an educational one that gave me experience that would prove invaluable in the coming years. I learned never to say anything controversial at awards ceremonies ever again.
    Under any circumstances.
    Unless I was absolutely certain that it was funny.
    †

Chapter 3
    Big Brother’s Big Risk
    Blundersome TV producer and cohort Gareth Roy does a very good impression of my orgasm, having once overheard me dispensing with some effluvia with a couple of young people lit only by the tangerine sea of twinkling LA street lanterns, that make the Hollywood Hills so desirable a