Here Comes the Clown Read online

  When we’d been driving around London in the Toyota Previa for months on end filming Trigger Happy TV, there had been an in-joke about my potential second career. Everyone was certain that I should be a paparazzo, as I seemed to have an innate ability to spot a celebrity face, however minor, at a hundred metres, in a crowd. It was not an ability that I was particularly proud of, but it was what it was. I also happened to love taking photographs, although mostly of the travel variety. So when I was asked whether I wanted to be in a show called Deadline, in which a bunch of celebs would become paparazzi, I was interested.

  It was a typically telly idea: gamekeeper turned poacher etc. In hindsight, as with most of these things, I should have dug a little deeper, or indeed just thought – ITV2 . . . Nein danke. I did try to find out who the other celebrities might be, but they wouldn’t let on. I knew that Janet Street-Porter was to be the editor figure in the show. I liked Janet, despite her being a monumental egotist, so I took a punt and signed up.

  We all had to meet up in a boardroom just off Soho Square, like nervous schoolchildren on the first day of term. I was the last to arrive and, as I walked into the room, I desperately scanned it for a familiar face. I was to be disappointed. It would be fair to say that the cast was not a stellar one. In no particular order they were: Abi Titmuss, Dean Holdsworth, Chris Parker, Yvette Fielding, Iwan Thomas, Imogen Lloyd Webber, Lisa I’Anson, Ingrid Tarrant and Blair McDonough. I had fallen far and fast.

  The only two I recognised were the former Olympic athlete Iwan Thomas and the DJ Lisa I’Anson. I knew I’Anson because, while filming a character in Trigger Happy TV, I’d targeted her.

  I had this really fat, stupid American character called Dwayne, who wandered around London stopping passers-by and giving them a story about how his tour group had left him behind and asking them whether he and his dog, Jensen, could come and stay with them for a while. For the beauty, I put an announcement in the PR sheet, London at Large, that the winner of ‘America’s Stupidest Man’ was in town and available for interviews. I’Anson’s radio show were the only people to get in touch and so I went off to be interviewed by her. What followed was an excruciatingly awkward encounter in which she tried to ask me questions that I continually and purposefully failed to understand. She never worked out it was me and I wasn’t going to tell her now.

  She only lasted a couple of days. Our first job was to snap people coming out of the Met Bar. I was determined to find a fire exit and sneak into the back. She started bleating about how this was really embarrassing as she and all her friends went to the Met Bar socially . . . I asked her whether she might have thought about this before signing up. She had a meltdown. The following day she left the show.

  It turned out that we were to be overseen not just by Janet Street-Porter, but also by a curiously dressed, porky Australian called Darryn Lyons, who ran one of the UK’s biggest photo agencies. To say that he was a larger than life character would do a disservice to him. I think Charlie Brooker’s Guardian review of the show (that we gleefully passed around the office secretly) sums him up the best:

  The set-up: a bunch of glittering stars try their hand at producing a weekly celebrity magazine under the aegis of Janet Street-Porter, the Fleet Street legend famous for sounding like she’s rolling five broken dice in her mouth whenever she speaks.

  Each week, there’s a tense showdown in the boardroom (sorry, ‘meeting room’) during which she fires someone (although she doesn’t actually say ‘you’re fired’, she says ‘clear your desk’, thereby convincing the viewer what they’re watching is in no way similar to The Apprentice).

  Janet’s assisted by two deputies: Darryn Lyons and Joe Mott. Mott (played by a young Kenny Everett) spends most of his time quietly moping at the edge of frame in a stupid flat cap, a bit like Jack Tweedy in this year’s Celebrity Big Brother. He seems almost depressed, which is possibly something to do with having to share an office with paparazzi supremo Darryn Lyons, a monumental bell-end who looks precisely (and I mean precisely) like Mel Smith playing a King’s Road comedy punk, circa 1981.

  This being a fabricated telly job, the bosses will have been instructed to behave like rude, uncompromising, dick-swinging bastards throughout – an opportunity Lyons gleefully seizes with both hands. He struts, he barks, he bollocks, and he bangs on and on about how important it all is, in the dullest and most macho manner possible, as though he’s single-handedly leading an SAS task force into Syria. It can’t be much fun being bellowed at by a man who looks like a 46-year-old Woody Woodpecker impersonator undergoing a messy divorce, especially when he’s shouting at you just because you failed to get a decent photograph of Pete Doherty – something the world needs like increased carbon emissions.

  Yes, because unlike a real editorial team, the celebrity trainees are expected to take their own photos as well as writing copy, which makes it about as accurate a depiction of the magazine production process as an episode of Ugly Betty. Of the trainees, only Dom Joly, who seems to have turned the whole thing into some surreal personal adventure, shows any promise whatsoever. The rest just mill around bumping into each other like blind chickens. Considering this, and the fact that 50 per cent of the job (i.e. typing) isn’t very televisual, the end result is far more entertaining than it has any right to be.

  Reading a review of a show that you are currently in could often be fatal but I think that I was too far gone for that. I actually got off on the paparazzo element but the weird, fake dynamic of the ‘office’ drove me to the pub far more often than usual. I think I was pretty much drunk from start to finish of the show. It was the only way to cope. ‘Reality’ TV is often very tempting to the ‘resting’ celeb as it normally pays good money to do something unusual and exciting. Unfortunately, the actual reality of doing ‘reality’ is that you always end up feeling rather cheap and abused – that’s what makes good telly after all. Also I had had my own little experience of being papped and doorstepped and I’d never enjoyed it. The Mail once decided to try and dig up some dirt on me and started doorstepping my family around the world. My sister set the dogs on them in Lebanon but my dad, from whom I was estranged, probably thought he was doing me a favour when he invited the pushy reporter into his house in France. Luckily the only thing he got out of him was an embarrassing photo of me on a horse. When the story eventually ‘splashed’ it was a bit of a damp squib – ‘Trigger Happy TV Star Is Middle Class’ was the genuine headline.

  I wrote to them to insist on ‘upper-middle’ but they never replied. I buried whatever scruples remained and dived into the world of celeb-hunting.

  I spent a lot of time outside Kate Moss’s London home. I’d have two cameras slung over my shoulders and an emergency compact version in my trouser pocket – the adrenaline was high. Despite my attempts to blend in by wearing a weird woolly hat and a scruffy mac, the other paps quickly recognised me and there was a sudden minor feeding frenzy, like hungry goldfish around a solitary plankton. I was photographed from every possible angle, powerless to do anything about it until their hunger was sated, which it quickly was, as my photo wasn’t worth much in the celeb market unless they could pitch it as:

  Has Celebrity Stalker Dom Joly gone mental? Comedian spotted looking like a down-and-out hanging outside Kate Moss’s house . . . An unnamed friend says that he is worried for the former funnyman’s state of mind . . .

  Paparazzi are many things, but they are the only truly honest yardstick of where you stand in show business. If they can sell your picture, they’ll snap you. If they can’t, you’ll be ignored, although they’ll always get a ‘death snap’ – one snap of anybody they even remotely recognise – this is in case they suddenly die. The ‘last’ photo of anybody, however lowly in the celeb food chain, is very valuable.

  I’ll never forget – having just recovered from a serious bout of pneumonia brought about by filming all day in a Welsh coal-mine (proof, if it be needed, that I was never cut out for proper work) – answering my door in Quenington to
see a rat-like personage staring at me intently. He was taking not-very-surreptitious photos with a camera half-hidden in his left hand. I was in my dressing gown and looking like I’d just got out of bed, which I had.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I asked the rat-man.

  ‘Are you ill?’ The rat-man was clearly assessing my physical state.

  ‘Sorry . . .’ I replied, confused . . .

  ‘Are you ill? We read you were in hospital with pneumonia.’ The rat-man appeared to be concerned that I wasn’t on my deathbed.

  ‘Sorry, who the fuck are you?’ I was angry now.

  ‘I’m from the Daily Express, we got a report you were dying . . .’

  I lost it and kicked the guy in the arse as hard as I could while ‘helping’ him off my property. It was like being circled by a badly dressed vulture . . .

  Back on Deadline duty, I asked a pap in Kate Moss’s road which celebrity he disliked the most. He didn’t hesitate: Jude Law. He nearly spat the name out. Around me every pap agreed. They all hated Jude Law and they all seemed to have stories about him.

  ‘His real name is Dave,’ said a very young pap with slightly crossed eyes. ‘Do you know he’s actually from Lewisham? When he turns up to premieres we all shout, “Oi, Dave, over here!!” and he ignores us. It’s really funny.’

  Everyone started blurting out their Jude Law stories. One quietish guy in a van with a little dog at his side told me a blinder: ‘I spotted Jude Law walking around Primrose Hill and I started taking pictures of him. Suddenly this elderly resident runs up to me. She starts telling me to leave him alone etc. I tell her to calm down, he’s a celebrity after all, and he’s in a public place and I’m only taking his picture, it’s not the Third World War. Suddenly Jude Law runs up to me, he’s been listening in and his face is twisted with rage. He shouts, “I’M AN ACTOR, NOT A CELEBRITY!!” From then on he’s known by all us “paps” as Celebrity Dave.’

  Another pap piped up about David Walliams.

  ‘He hates us,’ says the first guy. ‘He was desperate for fame and now he’s got it he resents us.’

  His partner interrupted: ‘Once, he came out of his house pointing back at it, saying, “See this house. I live in it because I’m rich and successful, unlike you arseholes.”’

  It rapidly became a therapy session and everyone wanted to pour their hearts out.

  On another day I decided that I wanted to get some photographs of Harry Potter, aka Daniel Radcliffe, who was appearing in the play Equus at a nearby West End theatre. I could have just waited outside the stage door and snapped some shots but this wasn’t terribly televisual, so I went and rented a chef’s outfit. I then repeatedly tried to gain entrance into the theatre by claiming to be Radcliffe’s personal chef. This was funny but both the theatre and Radcliffe freaked out – they thought I was some kind of homicidal stalker and extra security was added.

  My next plan was to hang around the theatre dressed as a street cleaner. This was going well until the comedian Alan Carr happened to walk past me. He recognised me and I could see by his face that he had just witnessed what he thought was the sheer horror of show business: one moment a successful comedian, the next a street cleaner. He marched on without saying anything but clearly determined to work even harder to avoid my fate . . . Eventually Radcliffe’s ‘people’ found out that I was linked to the Deadline show and they brought pressure to bear on the production company to make me leave him alone. Man up, Radcliffe, it was only a bit of fun.

  I had a bit of a run-in with James Bond as well. I was hanging around the rather sumptuous Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge waiting for someone (I can’t remember who) when Pierce Brosnan stepped out of the building. I seized my opportunity.

  ‘Hey, Mr Brosnan, could I get your photograph?’ I asked politely.

  ‘Why don’t you fuck off?’ came the unnecessarily aggressive reply.

  Brosnan started to cross the road towards Harvey Nichols. I had the bit between my teeth now, so I crossed the road fast and nearly got hit by a taxi. I lifted my camera and tried to get some more shots of Pierce Grumpy. Brosnan shot me a look of pure hatred and marched over to me. He stamped on my foot hard and kept me pinned to the spot. He leant in very close, so close that there was no way I could get a photograph.

  ‘You’re a persistent little fat fuck, aren’t you?’ growled Brosnan in a rather surprisingly sinister manner.

  I assumed that I’d caught him on an off day but a little internet research showed that Pierce was a persistent paparazzo antagonist. There was footage aplenty of him having a go at several snappers in the US.

  Ingrid Tarrant turned out to be the ex-wife of Chris Tarrant, and she took an instant dislike to me. The feeling was mutual. We would almost always be sent out in pairs and she clearly loathed being put with me. This, of course, made the show do it all the more often as (I’ve said it before) telly loves tension.

  So, the show paired me up with Ingrid and we were sent to get the photos of Liz Hurley that ended up with me lying in a ditch. This was particularly embarrassing as she was my neighbour – but I had lost all sense of right and wrong by now. Somehow, I had gone from having a US TV show, being nominated for three British Comedy Awards and the Golden Rose of Montreux, to sneaking into my neighbour’s garden to try and get photos of her for a magazine that didn’t really exist, while accompanied by Chris Tarrant’s annoying ex-wife. As falls from grace went, this one was pretty up there . . .

  Ingrid Tarrant had the most cringeworthy moment on the show (and that was quite an accolade). She was chasing people at some film premiere and saw the late Peaches Geldof getting into a limo. She chased Peaches, shouting something like, ‘Peaches, please, I knew your mother . . .’

  Bringing up the name of Peaches’ troubled, dead mother was not the classiest thing to do and Peaches Geldof snapped back, ‘For God’s sake, have some dignity . . .’

  Now, at that particular time, when Peaches Geldof told you off about dignity then you knew you were in trouble. Years later I was asked onto her short-lived chat show. The producers plied me with wine before I went on and I was steaming drunk by the time the cameras rolled. I was interviewed by some weird wet-wipe who had something to do with producing the Chris Moyles breakfast show. The whole thing was so inane that I started taking the piss, loudly. After this disaster they then made the mistake (or was it?) of sitting me directly behind Peaches while she interviewed people dressed in furry costumes. It would be safe to say that I interjected quite a bit. For the next week or so I got slammed by the Chris Moyles radio sycophant gang, but the Sun TV reviewer admitted that I was probably speaking for the nation. Personally, I can’t remember too much, which is probably for the best.

  I spent my last day on the job chasing Lily Allen around the East End and ended up getting a great photo of her trying to playfully punch me in the face. Job done, I retired to the Groucho Club to get wasted and try to forget about the whole experience. I was about an hour into festivities when in walked Lily Allen. My knee-jerk reaction was to try and snap her but then I remembered that I was demobbed, in my own club, and that I could behave normally. Lily sat down next to me and we started chatting. She was at the peak of her success, with a hit album and another one on the way. She started grumbling about all the work she had to do and how she had now agreed to write a book. It all seemed too much for the pop princess. Slightly oiled, I decided to play the role of mildly elder statesman of show business. It was crazy how quickly I’d forgotten my recent foray into alternative careers. Now I was back, a middle-aged statesman of comedy giving wise advice to a young novice.

  ‘Lily,’ I said. ‘My advice is don’t spread yourself too thin. You’re at the top of your game so concentrate on what you do well and don’t start getting distracted by other stuff.’

  I could have been talking to a younger version of myself.

  ‘Why would you bother to start doing a book when you’ve got the music going so well right now?’ I asked gently.

  ‘They�
��ve offered me £700,000 to do it . . .’ said Lily, sipping on her drink casually.

  I sat there silenced. That seemed to me a very good reason to write a book. I looked up towards the bar while trying to think of something else to say. Lily’s dad, the very intimidating Keith Allen, was standing there nursing a drink and giving me a look I would long remember in my nightmares. I took the hint and slipped away to the smoking terrace. I needed some fresh air.

  Chapter 9

  Wanderlust

  With my brief career as a paparazzo over, I was starting to get wanderlust again. I decided it might be time to take up the Sunday Times on their kind offer. I became a kind of international gonzo correspondent. It was my dream job and a lot easier to negotiate with Stacey, as I was able to balance the home/away periods better.

  I went everywhere: the USA, Malaysia, South Africa, Zanzibar, Costa Rica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dominica, Jamaica, Norway, Turkey, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Canada, the Arctic Circle, Kazakhstan, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Morocco, Italy, France, Spain, Vietnam, Belgium, Mexico, Thailand, Corsica . . . even Scotland.

  I’d just think of somewhere to go, ring the paper, ask them to sort it out and then go and have fun. I realised just how lucky I was to have got to this position and I was determined to make the very most of it. For instance, I was flicking through a magazine when I saw a photograph of a weird rocket contraption that hung on a wire over a valley somewhere in the South Island of New Zealand. The moment I saw it, I knew that I just had to try this thing. So I did.

  I flew to Auckland and then to Queenstown via Los Angeles. Big mistake. This was when I first started to get real problems due to the fact that I was born in Beirut, Lebanon, one of the twenty-five countries that US Homeland Security had designated to be a bad place to have been born in, whatever your actual nationality. The ‘bad’ countries in question were: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.