Who Do You Think I Am?

During the last year working at the animation studio the doorman at The Ivy started acknowledging my presence each evening as I walked past on my way home from work. Why? I haven’t the faintest idea.

The first time it happened I suppose I was smartly dressed and wearing the long black overcoat I had bought for the winter break in Venice with my then-girlfriend. As the evenings got progressively lighter and I dressed down, he would still nod his head and say hello, or wish me a good evening, as I headed for Leicester Square underground station and I’d cheerily respond.

I mentioned it in passing to the studio producer and it really pissed her off, especially since I’d never eaten at The Ivy in my life and she had. So I’d regularly bring it up in conversation just to grind her gears. Maybe I reminded him of someone higher up the food chain. Or, failing that, he was just being pleasant.

Years before, going out with the girlfriend who would later try to stab me with a big old kitchen knife, we drove up to collect take-out from an Indian restaurant in Whetstone. I went inside while she stayed in the car and was immediately welcomed like a long-lost friend by the owner.

With the food still not ready, he insisted I have a drink on the house. Once ensconced at the bar he asked me if I had enjoyed my holiday. Having not had the opportunity to leave the country for at least a year, I told it had been very pleasant and just what I needed.

Then some months later, with the same girlfriend but at a different restaurant, a young waiter mistook me for Gérard Depardieu. In hindsight I should have played along, blathered some cod Français and seen what we could have got out of it. That was the girlfriend’s immediate thinking because she kicked me hard under the table when my immediate response was to mutter “cheeky fucker!” rather than keep up the pretence.

I’m mentioning all this because last Friday evening I could have been easily mistaken for a total asshat. First, with pretty much nothing in the schedules to watch, I decided it would be worth rewatching an episode or two of The Wire’s second season to fill the time.

Then, slipped my mind that the chap at Granada wanted to see this script of ours, I figured it was worth having a quick skim through before I sent it off. You can probably guess the rest.

With the final episode of season three just finished and the rewrite done, I suppose I could do with a couple of readers on top of the ones I’ve already sorted out. Anyone interested?