Do I have a problem separating fact from fiction? Yes. Do I care? No.
Something rather interesting happened to me today.
Tom had to deliver some tiles to a famous actor (whose name I shall keep secret, just to piss you off). This actor fellow is a favourite of mine. Made lots of great films on the 60’s and 70’s.
He has a house way out in the middle of nowhere, Kent. Tom called me up, asked if I wanted to tag along, maybe meet the guy. We could stop off on the way back for lunch at this great pub he knows.
Yeah, great.
I prepared for the journey with a potent bong and set off for Tom's workshop.
Only, when I got there, the bugger had been called out for a biz meeting with some other people and had left a note begging me to please make the delivery for him.
I had nothing else to do, and there was still the chance of meeting the actor bloke, so I thought, fuck it, why not?
I jumped in the delivery van looking forward to a little country road trip. After all, I hadn’t left the city for weeks.
Despite being wildly stoned, I found the famous actor’s place with some ease.
Big house he's got, on top of a hill, a long winding lane leading up to it from the main road. The lane petered out into a dirt track maybe two hundred yards past the end of the house on the slope down the other side of the hill.
On either side of this dirt track lurked two deep dry ditches full of mean boulders and tall weeds.
Outside the house, I parked up, got out and wandered round the back of the van to open up.
As I did so, the fucking thing began rolling forward. I'd forgotten to apply the handbrake.
Luckily there was nothing ahead, just two hundred yards of open lane before the dirt track and the ditches.
I jogged alongside the van, opening the driver’s door on the run.
Mighty tricky thing to do, actually - more so when yer minds bathing in the soothing effects of hi-octane marijuana.
But before I could jump in, the van picked up speed and began rolling so fast, I couldn't keep up, let alone get inside and put the brake on.
Eventually the fucker rolled away from me and I just stood in the middle of the road, head in hands watching it go, waiting for the inevitable crash down in to either of the huge drops on either side.
How would I explain any van trashing disaster to Tom? He’d never forgive me.
The van’s front left wheel struck a large stone in the road and veered off sharply to the left.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit…
The pavement had long since ended, but there was still a high curb, the only thing twixt the van, a long drop and an inevitable business vehicle wrecking incident below in the ditch.
Miraculously, with about twenty yards to spare, the van hit the curb, front tyres squealing as it rode up and over to a metal scraping on concrete stop.
I held my breath, hardly able to believe my good fortune, but there the van remained, wedged on the curb rocking to and fro like a see-saw.
I ran down to inspect the damage, foolishly climbing down into the ditch trying to pushing the van up off the curb, back on to terra firma, but it was just too heavy. Also, with the van balancing on a knife-edge, full of heavy tiles, rocking back and forth, there was danger the fucker would tip over and bring me to a horrible squishy end in the ditch.
Nope, there was nothing for it but to go back, knock on the famous actor’s door, explain the situ and seek help. He apparently did all his own stunts on his classic films. He'd be up for a spot of excitement.
The actor answered the door himself, which was quite cool, except he wore a blue blazer, and a yellow silk cravat.
I explained what had happened.
"We get a lot of stolen cars abandoned down this road,” he said, shaking his head. “But I've never heard of anything like this."
He peered out from his front doorstep along the road to my forlorn vehicle and back to me, by now suffering from post-shock nervous giggles.
Being now an elderly thesp, he poor git didn't look physically up to walking down to the van, let alone helping me shift the bastard off a concrete curb six feet above a dry ditch, nor did he seem keen.
He told me there was a farmer who lived about a mile down the dirt road who had a tractor. He might be able to help.
I set off in search of this tractor farmer fuck and sure enough, found him at his farm. He had a very big tractor and a thick rope, plus an impressively ruddy complexion and a nose like a strawberry.
He was willing to haul the van to safety, pouring one hundred weight of scorn and dry disdain on my idiotic London behaviour in his broad Kentish accent as he did so.
A wince-inducing scraping of metal sound accompanied his efforts, but amazingly a cursory check revealed no serious damage done to the van and I was able to deliver the tiles to the famous actor geezer and return the van to Tom’s workshop in one piece.
What are the fucking chances of that?
