Organisational debacle

My old pal John Otway called me yesterday to rope me into doing some work for free on his new film. Having persuaded his fans to get him a hit single and a subsequent appearance on Top Of The Pops for his 50th birthday in October 2002, the latest scheme for the “clown prince of rock and roll” as he was described earlier this week in The Daily Telegraph, after tearing up Glastonbury in his customary fashion, is his long-held dream of making a film (about himself of course) with a release aimed at his 60th birthday in October next year.

The first scenes will be filmed shortly, in fact next weekend as he has been asked to open the new Age Concern shop in Aylesbury, the perfect opening scene for an aged attempted musician. Anyone concerned about age and its effects on John who wants to attend should have a look at the link here.

This of course gives me an excuse to dig out an old photo of myself, John Otway and the Reverend Jeff who was unaccountably going through a bad hair period in his life, and thought the wearing of crimson strides might take people attention away from the mullet. He was wrong. I believe I am sporting a “I knew John Otway even before he was a star” badge, a huge collection of which were always about his person.

from left to right; The Reverend Jeff, John Otway and myself circa 1974

A pleasant trip down to Frejus yesterday became the trip from hell once the jobsworths running the camp site set their levers to “disappoint and irritate holiday makers wherever possible”, but all was solved after a mere  two hours of delays and petty officialdom with various copies of passports summoned to the front desk to enable the camping trip for my daughter and some friends to go ahead.

Last night to the Thornton Allan’s across the road to welcome back Mr Clipboard and his lovely wife, Lady Clipboard. I had thought I may be off their radar as I have not yet received my detailed timings for golf, lunch and tennis which no doubt await me over the coming few days. Perhaps he has heard that I am unbeaten at tennis this year and can bear to be a part of extending that unbeaten run? or perhaps he has finally run out of or more likely got bored with giving me 10 euros each time we play golf, that being the agreed wager, and seeing his bank-note subsequently attach itself to my forehead in customary fashion.

However,when I arrived I discovered that the organisation for golf and lunch had been delegated by Mr Clipboard to the wingco. This is an unmitigated disaster because the wingco is to organisation what Rudolf Nureyev is to sheet metal welding, ie one is totally alien to the other.

I will draw a discreet veil over the debacle of organisation, but suffice to say that once I took over the logistics, everything was arranged in a trice so tennis and lunch are on the agenda now later this morning. Before that however I must complete my days work arranging the careers of some dead pop stars and putting considerable time into my commitments to Currencies Direct, which once again I have not plugged today, so I should be ready to play tennis at 11.00.

Lunch will be taken at the Auberge St Donat at Plascassier and we will be joined for both tennis and lunch by renowned local author Bill Colegrave taking time off from running his boutique hotel and wonderful wedding reception venue Bastide St Mattheu. Please do not search google for the photograph of Bill asleep on the lawn at a party last year.

Chris France