Escape From Camden Town... December Density... Torchwood's Back...

The other day, I was trapped inside my own flat. Lost my deadlock key and couldn't get out. Of course, this couldn't just happen on any old day, when I was merely planning to stroll casually down to the shops for a pint of milk. Oh dear me, no. It happened on a day when I was due at Waterloo station 45 minutes later to meet an amazing young lady, so that we could go off on a little trip for the weekend, with train tickets booked.

Being locked inside your own home is truly bizarre. Couldn't quite believe it had happened. Then, as reality dawned, I started looking around my bedroom for the key. With something approaching calm at first, then like some kind of Bushtucker Trial celebrity with the clock on them and finally like a frenzied gorilla scooping great handfuls of DVDs, CDs, papers and assorted crap into the air behind it.

Still couldn't find the key. So, following a brainwave, I worked out how to open the kitchen window wide enough to let me out onto the fourth floor walkway, and climbed up on the kitchen counter. My jacket went out first, then the suitcase and then me. Running to the tube, I saw a police car speeding towards me and momentarily imagined it screeching to a halt, whereupon I'd be arrested for breaking out of my own home. This didn't happen, needless to say, and there was a happy ending when said amazing young lady became my amazing girlfriend during the trip. Hooray! To commemorate the happy occasion, I've commissioned the above photographic reconstruction of my heroic escape from my abode, using an actor's hand and some specially-built window bars. Sadly, I've had to fire the art director, after she made the mistake of leaving the keys on the inside. (Or, alternatively, I might have simply Googled for a generic image. You be the judge).

Satan's wizened head in a breadbin! December is so hectic, I've been forced to draw up a kind of schedule-graph, using four differently-coloured pens. Get a load of this mother, which you can just about make out in my murky phone-snap. Looks like the goddamn tube map, I tells ya! I've got Draft Two of the ASK script to work on, heat reviews sections to edit, crosswords to design, booze to drink and geese to strangle. Maybe without so much of the goose-strangling. Trying to cut down. Really, I'm trying.

Went to the preview screening of Torchwood Season Two Episode One yesterday morning, and it's great stuff. More fun and funny than before, it benefits from a great performance by James Marsters, who plays a superb bastard. See James 'The Moranster' Moran's blog for more details. Before the screening, I particularly enjoyed a typically ebullient John Barrowman sitting next to co-star Gareth David-Lloyd and loudly exclaiming, "Ohhh, it's Ianto! I'll give him a wank!", with an accent presumably intended to be Welsh, but which came out far closer to the West Indies.

9 comments:

William Gallagher said...

But there's one thing I don't understand, inspector: how did you get back in after the weekend?

William

Jason Arnopp said...

Good question, sarge! Thing is, I didn't. I came home on Sunday, to discover that my flatmate was in Suffolk 'til Monday. I just didn't mention that on the blog-post, for fear of an already lengthy anecdote becoming an insomniac's dream...

William Gallagher said...

So about ten minutes after you said a tingly farewell to this new girlfriend, you were knocking at her door and putting on your best puppy-dog expression?

W

Phill Barron said...

Jason's got a girlfriend! Jason's got a girlfriend! Jason's got a ...

Oh wait, I'm thirty-five. Sorry.

Congratulations, I hope you'll be very happy.

I've locked myself in a house before, it's fucking annoying.

James Moran said...

I never lock the deadlock thing when I'm inside, just in case of such an eventuality. But if there are any burglars reading this, I carry a knife with me indoors at all times, and sleep with one eye open.

Jason Arnopp said...

Mr Gallagher: yep, that's almost exactly what happened. But she was pleased to see me. Thankfully.

Piers said...

Also, if you lock the deadlock when you're inside and there's a fire, you'll burn completely to death.

So let this be a lesson to you.

(My current record: two hours trapped between the door of the flat and the door of the house, hungover, and bursting for a piss. It was not a good experience. Oh, and did I mention the mobile was out of juice?)

Dominic Carver said...

Nice one, chap. So did you get a bonk?

Jason Arnopp said...

Dear lord. Just when I thought the world had seen the last of the word 'bonk', along comes Carver.