“Fuck me, I love you,” and “Come here” as
Well as half of my unintelligible whispering.
Stephen Hawking was very grateful. He said

“Thank you,” in his computer voice and then “Fuck
me, I love you,” in my voice. “Put yourself inside
of me,” I heard myself say, then “Come here.”

Stephen Hawking looked up at me and started
Gasping slightly and whispering things which I
Could not understand, so I left up some stairs.

I know that I will like this city from the second I step out of the cab. The houses are glaringly white in the sun; the rock of the mountains is yellowish dun; the sky is pale blue, bleached with heat. The three colours work, they fit this place as perfectly as the Omani flag: white, red, green and white again.

Mountains hem the city up against the sea. They are less mountains than cores of jagged rock, fissured, wadi-riven. Everywhere I look I see rock sprouting up, stark between the smooth white buildings. The domes of mosques glitter with intricate tiles.

I also know I will like this city from the unhurried precision of the man who brings me a glass of mint and lemon juice at an outdoor cafe by the road. And from the way, when I ask for an ashtray, he says ‘no ashtrays. There is no problem smoking. But there is a problem with ashtrays.’

Every bank and shop is sleeping. Children stare at cats, and cats stare back. The closed market stalls are swathed in tarpaulins, roped against the wind. Already the sweat has evaporated; my shirt is bone-dry.

The enormous pleasure and relief of reaching the Arabian Sea. Cargo ships are docked in the bay beside traditional wooden dhows. A section of the sea-wall has fallen, and I can see broken slabs of marble down there under clear green water, swum about by schools of unknown fishes.

Above the houses, now and then, a watch tower rises on a pinnacle of rock. The walls of the towers are brown and eroded, like pillars built by termites.

He lies, his eyes rolling like they are going to fall out of his arse.

He is being sexy.

I feel like I am dying.

I’d rather be dyeing t-shirts.

He is pouring vegetable oil over everything, he falls out and it hits the bedside table, he yelps.

Why so greasy?

Can we just do it normally?

No……. putting on Kings of Leon isn’t going to make me horny.

Sadly it isn’t that simple.

That thing between your legs isn’t a turn on I am afraid.

Machinery functions particularly well. Outboard engines make no sound. I am told this has something to do with the quality of the light.

The ferry to Finland takes two days, and you must sleep on the frozen deck in a special rubber suit. The sea grows steadily thicker the closer you get to the Finnish coast. As the shoreline looms into view, the ferry moves just a few inches an hour. Through the gritty air you can see the lanterns glowing in the towns, and the people moving on the quays, dragging wet knotted tangles of rope behind him. You can wave, but they don’t wave back. Once, you think you see a girl’s smile, though not directed at you. And then the captain turns the ferry around. It’s time to go home.

There’s little chance you’ve never wheeled out this old question onto the dinner table. The hypothesis is something like this: faceless studio executives have commissioned a film about your life, because you’re a well-known, exciting and naturally cinematic so-and-so. Uncharacteristically they’ve given you the executive decision on which actor will be portraying you, and a billion Hollywood dollars to convince them to do it. Who will you pick?

The industry takes fairly large leaps of faith when portraying real life figures. In I’m Not There (I think that was the name, no-one really remembers) Cate Blanchett played across gender to become Bob Dylan. In the last year alone whole handful of American actors including John Malkovich, Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman have portrayed real-life South African figures, presumably to the chagrin of ten thousand unemployed South African actors.

Elijah Wood, clearly too tall to be a hobbit, was shrunk with medication for the duration of the Lord of the Rings shoot to bring his height closer to the historical Frodo Baggins. And so on.

But before you choose your kinogänger, please consider the following:

- Can the actor who will play you act your age? Are they even alive? You can pick someone who is too old or even decesed only when there’s a real physical resemblance. By this I mean you have to really look like Orson Welles to get to pick Orson Welles. And you should probably watch how much you drink in the future.

- Have they shown they can act? Anthony Hopkins embodied Nixon perfectly in spite of looking, well, just like Anthony Hopkins. Obviously their ability to act will go far in negating any physical differences.

- Could they do your voice? It’s very hard for American actors to do an every day British accent, thanks to its ongoing mangling and maligning and the fact that many just can’t do it (i.e. Keanu Reeves) or just don’t care (i.e. Mike Myers).

Incidently, Robert Downey Jr. does an excellent job of it in the new schlock Sherlock Holmes film. But on the whole, it’s like Hollywood learns the accent from just these voices: Trever Howard in Brief Encounter, Ralph Fiennes, any Guy Ritchie gangster, Madonna and Daphne from Fraiser.

And if your Irish, you’re screwed. Even Liam Neeson’s accent is a bit ropey these days.

- Will they do nudity? Is this a problem for you? What kind of film are you making, anyway?

- Are they too good? If you’re have insecurities about being portrayed on screen by a Hollywood dreamboat, perhaps choose one of the more unconvential beauties. How about Merry or Pippin, the lesser hobbits? Or the bus-stop face man from Twilight?

I’m interested to hear who you pick, so please comment below.

And choose wisely! If you miscast this one you’ll NEVER WORK in Hollywood AGAIN.

John Bxxxxxx CV

CONTACT ME!:
EMAIL happyslap987xxxx@aol.com
TEL 07907 121xxxx
MOBILE TEL 07907 121xxxx
BIRTHDAY 12th September

PERSONAL STATEMENT:

Dear Sir Or Madame,

I have spent the last 2 years of my life in THAILAND. This was an amazing experience and I went there to Explore Myself. I am now back home ready than ever to work for your company as a Web Designer. I have a lot of experience as a Web Designer . When you employ me I will shoot to the team! Try it and see how good I will be.

SKILLS
Windows PC (Personal Computer)
Excellent recognition tactics
Computer Word
Computer Excel
Computer Paint
Spell checker
Organisation/organization
Music

EDUCATION:

I have always said that the best people are one that teach themselves and I’ve lived by this motto since birth! I also went to three schools and university where I studied to be a Web Designer .

P(lease).T(urn).O(ver).

After her step-mother had finally died in her hospital bed, Odede inherited and then sold the old house. Some of the money she saved, some she spent, and life went on. The idea to buy the android came from a conversation that she’d had one hungover Sunday morning with a work colleague. It was her idea. She hadn’t seen them in any adverts. At that point, she wasn’t even sure if you could buy them.

But after some research on the internet and a few emails here and there, Odede found a Slovakian university teacher that would help. He had planned the whole thing after she wired him the deposit. He booked her flights, found a place where they scanned her body in a 3D imaging machine and took a thousand reference photos. He went as far as getting his uncle out of retirement (a tailor) to make a replica set of clothes of the ones she felt the most comfortable in.

With the android she bought, Odede thought, this unique experience. And the story, which she would lay out to anyone who visited her apartment, telling them which parts were made of whichever new silicon or plastic or metal the engineers had used. The experience of having hours of Skype conversations recorded, and then intricately poured over by the language programmers, whose first language wasn’t even English. And, of course, what it was like to live with an android.

No-one ever asked about it, but these days Odede spent more time talking about what it was like now that she – and not the android – was aging. Just around the edges, around the eyes, she thought. But noticeably so, especially in comparison.

This morning Odede stood staring at the android while she ate her cereal, lost in thought, chewing and frowning. The android was benign and silent as always. It sat on their sofa, it’s perfectly lifelike hands placed still on the glass table.

In the kitchen, Odede rinsed her cereal bowl under some cold water and left it next to the sink. She put her coat on, and her scarf.

‘I’m going to work now,’ Odede told the android.

Its hands upon the table, the android turned towards Odede and in a familiar voice said goodbye.

Last summer coming back from Corsica my saucepan, which had been used on a camping stove for cooking purposes, and at home for many years for the same purposes, was confiscated by the airport staff. ‘No way! Surely not my saucepan!’ I said. ‘Mais oui I am afraid so’ replied the Corsican guard. ‘But why?’ I said. At which point he picked it up and made a gesture of bludgeoning someone over the head with it. Until this point I had never thought about attacking someone with a saucepan but for the duration of the flight I could think of nothing else.

Were other people on the flight, victims of the same confiscatory policy, now going down imaginative routes of murder involving their own lost objects? The man in front of me had had his nail clippers taken and I wondered if his mind was now full of images of him slowly clipping through his neighbour’s temples. The woman next to me had had some tent pegs taken. Did she just now contemplate how she could have stabbed someone straight to the vena cava?

What is better? A plane full of people with benign objects in their bags which could, if animated by the will-to-kill, become weapons, or a plane full of people with no weapons but minds full of unusual and resourceful murder techniques, suggested implicitly to them by the very guards employed to ensure their safety? The act of confiscating an object changes the status of the object itself. A saucepan becomes a potential, and potentially fatal, club.