Category: Memoir Type: Non-Fiction
Copyright: Dec 10, 2011
ISBN-13: 9781465923776
Welcome to Danland...
If you have ever wondered what it would be like to crash a fairground ride, upset the Russian mob, humiliate yourself before millions of people on national television, cause eleven thousand pounds damage to a restaurant in Blackpool as a result of your ineptitude with an industrial belt sander, be a bodyguard, make a movie with an A-list Hollywood actress, try to start a business in holographic confectionery, pole-dance, hang a lawnmower from a tree, receive a VIP tour of The Whitehouse, become a Born-Again Christian (for a bit), accidentally commit an armed robbery, be Santa Claus, become homeless after laundering twelve grand in Scottish hundred-pound notes from under your kitchen sink, learn to make weaponised plutonium, fall asleep on a push-bike, sell a pair of rusty skis, be sued over a fictional secret agent by an altogether terrifyingly real firm of international lawyers, hang twenty four thousand chickens on a rack, be pursued by the paparazzi, attend a fancy dress party as a serial killer, buy twenty five thousand terracotta flower pots for a pound, co-host a radio talk show, buy a crane, flee your home in fear of a gangster ordering your legs by snapped like Twiglets, experience a surreal time-travelling incident, mislabel boxes of creosote, throw-up on stage while trying to host a game show, learn to fly, escape an assassination attempt with the assistance of a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich, or be normal... then you're no longer alone.
Welcome to Danland.
Welcome to No stranger to the P45.
Excerpt
When it comes to rates of alpha decay and spontaneous fission, particularly in relation to the isotropic content of spent nuclear fuel, one finds that about 75% of the total content is due to Plutonium240, a figure we arrive at via a study beginning with a particular alpha decay rate of Uranium235. Any simpleton knows that rate is 7.94x10-4 (dis/sec-g), thus we determine our conclusion from the even more obvious rate for Plutonium242 of 1.44x108.
Oops. Sorry. Wrong book.
I’d very recently started a new job. I was White Van Man: hurtling along the M4 at ninety towards my (soon to be evicted from) flat. My battle of wits with the Mayor of London’s army of sour-faced parking attendants (or Bastards, as I prefer to call them) over for another week. My friend Jon phoned to ask how I was, what was I up to, and now, considering my latest vocation, just how many jobs had I actually ever had?
It was a question that occupied my mind long after I’d reached home, much of the remainder of the journey having been spent reminiscing about crippling the faintly-famous, being pursued by Oasis-seeking paparazzi in a limousine with Noel Gallagher’s wife-to-be, upsetting the Russian Mob, and accidentally causing eleven thousand pounds worth of damage to a restaurant in Blackpool as a result of my ineptitude with an industrial belt sander. For almost the entirety of that return journey I had sat grinning like an idiot, my foot pressed hard against the accelerator pedal as the engine screamed like a bag of lawyers in a vice.
Arriving home, shortly after wading through the piles of unopened bills, threats and court summons I fired up my certifiably-insane laptop, waited impatiently as it whined, whirred, beeped and crunched into life and then for no apparent reason rebooted itself, and twenty minutes later set about listing each and every job, role or vocation throughout my sometimes surreal, frequently chaotic, and quite absurd career. Ninety-nine: the final tally. The mention of which to one friend met with uncontrolled hilarity and to my parents’ complete horror, shortly before they disowned me.
Unable to ignore that ridiculous figure I continued to recall those rather odd incidents of leaping from a blazing BMW with a pistol in my hand in a desperate, albeit significantly flawed attempt to impress a girl whom three weeks previously had been entirely oblivious to my existence. My stalker, herself as dumb as a bag of hammers, a flying crocodile, a bizarre time-travelling incident with the actress, Jenny Agutter, and, of course, my attempted assassination at the hand of a tree-hugging hedgemonkey while getting pleasantly drunk with the comedian, Johnny Vegas.
I thought too about each of the business ventures that I’d attempted as time after time I’d embarked upon World domination: my antipreneurial endeavours, if you will. And I recalled my attempts to become an internet millionaire, a movie producer and a nightclub impresario, albeit not all at the same time. I had attempted product design too, attempted to sell fortune cookies and holographic lollipops. And I had attempted to make a living from buying and selling anything and everything from cars to coffeemakers to cranes, and from skis to plastic skulls and Betamax video players that didn’t even work. It was simply inevitable that early one morning I’d find myself the target of a rather reluctant hitman; financed by someone hell-bent on making my life very unpleasant indeed.
Anyway… It was a couple of days after the phone call from Jon, with my list of career failures increasing by the minute while wandering through Waterstones it struck me that I had something of a tale to tell. I had quite a few, actually. I decided on one final push. I decided to become a writer. I decided to write, No stranger to the P45. Sorry about that.
This book is the autobiographical account of my arguably-chaotic career to date: of those sixty-nine jobs, roles and vocations and the thirty-plus misadventures in business that I have enjoyed (a particularly loose and rather inaccurate term) throughout my many years of toiling and troubling and being run out of towns by gangsters and their merry thugs intent on snapping my legs like Twiglets.
I have been mistaken for the actor, Tim Roth, which is odd since I more closely resemble Shrek. And for a police officer and an assassin too. I have co-hosted a radio talk show, made a movie and a television advertisement and featured on a prime-time documentary on the subject of middle-class crime. I have also been a chauffeur of a high-profile actress and during a VIP tour of The Whitehouse could almost have caused World War 3. I have hung chickens upon a rack and mislabelled boxes of creosote. I have also robbed a shed.
Welcome to Danland.
Welcome to No stranger to the P45.
Professional Reviews
From Tony Brady - SCENES FROM AN EXAMINED LIFE (courtesy of Authonomy.com)
'You are a natural born script writer. What a wealth of fresh material is here and ready made for a sparkling TV series. There's brilliant situational knockabout action and scintillating dialogue. Superb quick-fire sketches and graphic portrayals of a host of disparate and real life characters. Action packed throughout and an exhilarating read that... all too soon comes to an end.'
From Abi (courtesy of Authonomy.com)
This is fabulously funny and approachable to anyone who's done the nine to five. The voice and style are unqieu and engaging, and this is a delightful read. Brilliant work
From Maria, COSMIC LYNX (courtesy of Authonomy.com)
Totally engaging, hillarious and action packed. I think your writing is good and you voice this so well. There is not one boring moment in the text. I guess that's because there hasn't been one boring moment in Danland.
TRUE STORY. Bella survived an abusive powerbroker father with organized crime ties, a drug-addicted mother and a physically/sexually abusive brother. Shocking & inspirational. When she couldn't cry, she tattooed a crying angel to cry for her.
