A Life Changing Amount of Money

I got an email last night which made me feel slightly horrified, I don't know if you've ever had that feeling, similar to the feeling you get when you realise you've locked yourself out, or when you realise you are watching a really dodgy show about fatal circus accidents. Well this moment was more specifically to do with feeling you've somehow ended up in a TV show without quite realising it.


It all started about four months ago, when I saw an advert in Time Out which went along the lines of "People wanted for new TV show - The System - where contestants could end up winning a life changing amount of money". Being poor, the phrase "life changing amount of money" is very appealing to me, and in my little life, I don't come across this phrase very often. When I take my son to playgroup, and one of the other mums calls me over saying "I've got something for you", it's never a life changing amount of money, it's usually a book called "How to stop toddlers taking over and turning you into a nervous wreck." So I felt compelled to fill out the long online application form and got called for a camera interview. I was reassured that the show was not in any way dodgy or embarrassing, they just couldn't tell me anything about it as the show was a secret. So I sat there, in front of the camera, answering their questions "How much is a life changing amount of money to you?" (£500k) "Do you take risks?" (No. But I have done a parachute jump before, which is a bit of a risk). "Do you consider yourself to be unlucky?" (No....waffle waffle...sometimes...waffle waffle....Yes).


They had three weeks of auditions to get through, but I had a strange feeling I would be picked somehow and excited when I got the confirmation email. All they could tell me was that the show was about horse racing and a tipster would give me a series of tips, all I had to do initially was watch the race without betting any money. I was a bit concerned due to the fact that I don't really agree with horse racing, it's against my principles. But as I am quite greedy, and ready to overlook my ethics, what with the pound signs in my eyes getting in the way, I thought I'd go along with it. I also thought if I did win a life changing amount of money, I could make up for it by sending a load of horses off for a spa day or something.


Now while all this was going on, I'm trying to figure out what it's all about. I just happened to be reading Derren Brown's book "Tricks of the mind" at the time, and started thinking it could be something to do with him, I'm not sure why. I then looked up Objective Productions, the company behind the show, and saw that they were behind Derren Brown's TV shows. It was weird as well, Derren kept popping up everywhere, in magazines, pictures, interviews. It was around this time I came across an interview of his in a magazine and texted my sister with the urgent news "DERREN BROWN IS GAY!!!". She was as shocked as I. We both fancied him quite a bit, although after finding out he was gay, it did seem really obvious that he was so, totally gay. And funny how it puts you off. Like a relationship was ever in the wings.


To be honest I went off him a bit when I read his book. He is an illusionist, an entertainer. I was expecting something a bit lighthearted, but it was just one huge rant, and many things got my goat. His dislike for religion and alternative therapies was quite offensive and totally irrelevant. I don't care what you think Derren, I just like the way you do your hocus pocus, talk about that. I found a lot of what he wrote was hypocritical and misleading. I thought he was so vain to think that we would be that interested the narrow minded views of an entertainer. Not a scientist, not a medical expert, an entertainer, someone who in a home filing system somewhere, could be filed in the same category as Paul Daniels. He went from being a fantasy playmate to a gay man who stopped being fanciable and talks a load of rubbish. And to be honest, I've been a bit miffed with him ever since the time I went to see him live, where I got pulled up on stage as a volunteer, took part in a Ouija board, ok it was all very clever what with the glass moving about and all that, but then as he shook my hand to thank me for my participation, I puckered my lips for a kiss and he walked off!! So, to save myself from embarrassment from the hundreds of people in the audience watching, I had to keep my lips in the puckered position as I walked back to my seat, as if my lips sometimes naturally fall into this puckered state. No I haven't been turned down for a kiss by Derren Brown, my lips always do this. It's a pout. Or maybe I've just been stung on the lips by a bee. Or maybe, I'm just preparing my lips to give my cousin, who's been sitting in the seat next to me, a kiss when I return to my seat, after being away on the stage for so long. We're Turkish, we're always kissing, us Turks.


So on one hand I was hoping it would be my one time favorite sexy illusionist idol, on the other hand, I was hoping it had nothing to do with the anti kissing rubbish talking non heterosexual.

So I got an email with the tip, a name of a horse, one of those crazy horsey names that I can not even recall and was told not to bet - just to check the results afterwards. Unfortunately the horse didn't win. I received an email shortly afterwards to tell me that as the tip was incorrect, the production company were now having huge reservations about going ahead with the show, thanks for my time, no life changing money, get back to your boring life missus. So I did, and forgot all about it. A few months passed, I then received the following email:


From:
(Name removed)
You may not know this sender.Mark as safeMark as unsafe
Sent:
25 January 2008 12:34:46
To:

Hi there,

We hope you are well and a belated Happy New Year. We realise that it’s been a while since we’ve been in touch but we just want to let you know a bit more about “The System” before it finally goes out on TV. We've not been able to fill you in on everything before for confidentiality reasons.

As you know the programme had a basis in gambling and horse-racing. What you didn’t know was that it was Derren Brown who was providing the predictions behind the winning horses and “The System” is his new one-off special for Channel 4. His operating anonymously was a big part of the show, so unfortunately we weren’t able to tell you it was him behind it. However, you have played an important part and we hope that when you watch it all will make sense and you will see that your involvement was invaluable.

The programme is currently scheduled to go out on Channel 4 on Friday 1st February at 9.00pm so we hope that you’ll be watching and you’ll get a much fuller picture of what we set out to do. We hope too that you’ll be proud that you were a part of it all; these programmes are impossible to achieve without the trust and kindness of people like you, willing to join in with our rather mysterious introduction to an unknown someone's claimed gambling system.

It was a genuine pleasure meeting you and taking things as far as we did and we want to thank you once more for the time you gave us which we are all very much appreciative of.

We wish you all the very best, and hope you like the show.

Best Wishes,

(Name removed)

Associate Producer, Objective Productions

I knew it was him! Then my imagination took off; what do they mean "you have played an important part", all I did was go to the camera audition and receive a useless email. Have they been secretly filming me? Maybe I've actually been down the bookies and Derren has hypnotised me into forgetting all about it? Who was looking after Ky? My imagination then went for a coffee break and I started to see things more realistically. All they have of me on film is the camera audition. So the chances are, they've probably edited that and probably in such a way that I look like a complete idiot. Then my cousin calls me after reading the above email which I forwarded to her, she has spotted a review on her sky listings which states "Derren Brown sends his racing tip to a single mum from London..." Well that's clearly me! I'm the only single mum in London (imagination back from coffee break).

Then my sister saw the trailer for the programme. It definitely wasn't me. It was another single mum from London. What a slap in the face. Not only has Derren Brown chosen someone else to enjoy all the fame and money, but he's cheated on me with another single mum from London. What was the matter? Was I not single mum from London enough for him? First he insults me with his book, then he rejects me in front of a live audience, and now this. I'm beginning to take this all very personally.

After much speculation I read the email again, then I realised it doesn't necessarily imply that I'm featured in the program at all. I think, he sent an email to a selection of people with the crazy name of different horse on each one, and the person who got the email with the name of the horse who happened to win, got to be 'the chosen one'.

Paul Daniels was alright you know. He would have treated me like this.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article3233325.ece

Bruce, eat your heart out

At my local playgroup, where I take Ky to trash the joint while I have a bit of a gossip with the mums, a delightful OAP who helps out with serving coffees and teas and whatnot, never ceases to amuse me.

Tim, who fancies himself as a bit of a Bruce Forsyth, will always try his best to fit in a joke or two during any conversation. Sometimes they are quips, sometimes long drawn out anecdotes.


This morning, I gave him a crumpled £5 note to which he replied "You need to take that back to the mafia to get it laundered!" (Nearly always followed up with an explanation) "The mafia, you see, would get that £5 note all cleaned up and ironed. Laundered you see!"


Then after I'd changed my mind from having tea to coffee "Nothing wrong with changing your mind...it's..cleaner" I don't think he was sure where he was going with this one. "Are you saying I've got a dirty mind Tim?" "NO! No, no! I..er...is that milky enough for you?"

Last Christmas he dressed up as Santa, walked in with the presents, then while all the kids sat drooling for their gifts, he seized the opportunity of having an engaged audience by performing a stand up routine. No-one could understand what he was saying, his beard completely muffled him, but I don't think there was a Santa for miles who had more fun than he.

Burglars, murderers etc.

The further irony of locking myself out yesterday, was that I noticed only this afternoon, that my back door had been unlocked all along, since yesterday morning. So, I could have just climbed over the garden fence and got in. And so could have any burglars, murderers, psychos, sleepwalkers, Alzheimer's sufferers and bears. I won't be mentioning this to my mum. It's not so much that she'd be annoyed about having to come down with the keys, it's more the burglars, murderers etc. that would disturb her. Especially after last Christmas. We went to Brent Cross shopping centre for a bit of Christmas shopping and we returned several hours later to find the front door, wide open. My mother stood outside with Ky whilst I went in to check for burglars, murderers etc. with my mum shouting out helpful instructions such as "look in the fridge". My mum was horrified that I could overlook such a thing, and she didn't even know I'd also left the door open a few months before - luckily it was only a short trip to the post office.

Nowadays, when I leave my house, I look back at my front door at least a dozen times as I walk down the garden path. It's become quite annoying; it's turned into a bit of an OCD twitch.

Mother's Day

Icicle is actually quite a tricky word to spell, so by the time you come to write Bicycle, you are confused and unsure. After both words, you lose your confidence as a speller, so that you start hesitating before writing every few words.

Anyway! I was quite looking forward to my son Ky seeing Icy-cle By-sickle, a show at our local arts centre, which I presumed would be full of trapeze artists and circus type cheery fun stuff as the write up seemed to

imply. Ky went into the auditorium with no problems which was good. I thought he might get flashbacks of Christmas, where I tried to take him into three different Santa’s grotto’s; all the anticipation of queuing up at the prospect of something exciting about to happen would get him on edge, so by the time we walked into a grotto which, if you are an edgy 2 year old with reservations, looked nothing more like a dark cave housing a fat old man.

Once inside, we had great seats which is a bonus and the one thing that gets my goat during the whole performance, the rest of the day, and normally a few days afterwards. The show begins. After a minute, Ky exclaims very loudly “It’s dark”. Pause. “It’s dark”. Pause. “It’s dark in here.” I tell him it will get lighter in a minute which I hope it will. Then the second actor to come on is an adult pretending to be a small child, and he is really, really intense. Does this child character he is playing have ADD? I can see he is trying very much to be like a child but as he is clearly an adult, he just looks demented. At this point Ky announces “Let’s go.” I managed to encourage him to stay, telling him there would be a circus soon, sat him on my lap and kept him busy with biscuits, of which he nervously scoffs many. The show does not get any better. Three actors tell the tale, which very basically is this; Two children who are twins and living with their gran, wonder what has happened to their mother. The gran then explores different possibilities within a circus; could she have been a trapeze artist who fell off the swing? Maybe she was a tight rope walker and fell off the rope? Or maybe a clown (who was the only one lucky enough to forgo a fatal accident). But don’t worry, the twin’s mother hasn’t died at all. She just ran away and joined the circus to ride an Icicle Bicycle. The End.

When I saw the poster advertising the play (see image above), I did not realise the colourful character was actually falling to her death. Luckily, Ky was unable to really understand this morbid story about a mother abandoning her small children. Halfway through, his apprehensiveness gave way to boredom, because although the show was advertised for being suitable for 2 year olds, no 2 year old would really have understood the storyline, (thankfully), but apart from that it was nowhere near visually entertaining enough for toddlers.

Maybe I should have walked out, but after the possibility of the mum falling to her death from the top of a circus tent, I was hanging out for a happy ending. I’m not sure which is happier. Your mum’s dead, or your mum’s not dead, she’s just ran off and you’ll never see her again. It was a strange performance, almost like it was a special show for children who had problems with abandonment issues. Even then I’m not sure if it would have been a good thing. “So, child victim of abandonment, could you relate to this performance?” “No sir, my mum didn’t run off to ride an Icicle Bicycle, she ran off with my uncle.”

I, along with three other mums complained to the duty manager afterwards who took our numbers and promised us a call back from the manager who booked the show. I shall be expecting complimentary tickets to another show.

It wasn’t all bad. Ky had an excellent time in the café afterwards, frolicking with another little girl, a little bohemian chick she was, who kept offering him fluffs of dirt from the floor, to which he would politely refuse “no thank you.”

Then when we arrived home, I realised three things simultaneously:

1. When I arrive home, after unlocking the front door I always put my keys back in my bag and never in my coat pocket. Apart from yesterday.
2. I have, since October, been wearing the same coat. Apart from today when it was unusually mild.
3. On my way out, I always check my keys are in my bag before closing the front door. Apart from today.

I called my mum, who has a spare set of keys, to tell her we were locked out and then we went to a local pizza restaurant for dinner. My mum arrived half an hour later and and as were chatting she told me that my aunt, who had been clearing out my grans room, found a sealed card addressed to me, which she obviously meant to have given me before she died. I burst into tears, which then nearly got my mum going, so I managed to stop the rest of the tears from flowing; we were after all, in the middle of a pizza restaurant.

On our way out, ky got distracted by the waitress waving goodbye, then quickly turned to head out of the door, unaware there was a pane of glass before him which he whole heartedly walked into. This gave my mum the fit of giggles which I was kind of pleased about, after all I had dragged her from her online poker game to come and rescue us, the least we could do was to make her laugh. Ky went all stiff and expressionless as he does when he is embarrassed.