Big Secret about Your Host, Number 3,657:

I collect action figures. Toys, yes.

Currently on my desk: Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Starman (a junk dealer in a jacket and jeans, who doesn't want to stand up), two Spider-Men, a two-headed cat smoking a cigarette, the Reverend Jesse Custer, and a Half-Nekkid Journalist.

The Half-Nekkid Journalist is there to remind me why I bother doing this website.

So is Spider-Man, come to that.

ON TURNING 500

By Matthew Craig

I started this site as a way to get rid of some of the anger I felt over the whole Leicester debacle. That, and I wanted to put my Hondle comics on the web. I will get around to doing some more this weekend, I promise.

And, to be fair, the anger is going. I'm probably more upset over the Leicester thing than the Anna thing within the Leicester thing. And that'll fade completely by Christmas.

I think I've come to terms with the end of my original career plan. What I still don't know is what new direction my life will take. Because, right now, I'm going nowhere with gathering speed.

I like writing. I still haven't written a lot of fiction yet, but I'll get there. I've been practicing on this website and on message boards across the net.

The sainted Mother tells me I'm getting better.

I don't know whether to be flattered or scared.

As much as anything else, this site is supposed to be an outlet for that part of me that likes to perform. This, from the guy who used to waste hours of his workmates time on rambling anecdotes about the quality of TV porn, and bemoaning the lack of a decent tuna sandwich, while alternately leching at thirty-something married women and twenty-something caterers, and who got up in front of large audiences to perform "The Lumberjack Song" and the theme from "Red Dwarf" - with a straight face.

Even if no one visits the site for a week, I can still pretend that I have an audience.

I've noticed this trend in the last week or so: I spent ages preparing the Freddie Prinze, jr. pictures for the Spider-Man message board, and every other time I logged on was to see how many people told me they liked them.

Pathetic, yes, I know.

But at least it was a fun exercise.

There are a lot of wankers on these boards - people who, taking advantage of the written and relatively anonymous nature of these discussions to write endless reams of bitchery and abuse of and for other users - but I try to stay away from them, if possible. I've had people abuse me on the e-mail before, and I hate it. Makes me dead angry, 'cause I can't get to them. Either that, or, I turn the tables. Nothing annoys a troll bastard than when you give them a taste of their own medicine.

But I write my little notes on comics and things. And I go back and forth, checking to see who's responded, and how. I've recently begun to include this website, on the off-chance that someone actually comes to see it who I've never met face-to-face.

Maybe it's not that sort of site.

Today's debate, incidentally, was about the relative merits of Gridion (American football) versus Soccer (British football). The debate was largely irrelevant, as it was taking place in a discussion that was supposed to be about little tradable CD-ROMS and Wolverine comics.

I don't recall what the connection was. My response made me laugh. And there's nothing sadder than laughing at your own jokes:

"At least (gridiron or soccer) aren't as bad as the Irish and Australian versions, the latter of which consists of 64 men wearing vests, all called Bruce, chasing an egg around an oval field while six men dressed like janitors practice their Karate."

Maybe it's funnier when I read it out loud. No one's replied, yet.

And I think it's that reply that I'm after. That acknowledgement that I can still touch people, even from here.

The last time I was unemployed, I think I was much the same. Not as desperate, maybe.

Maybe, if I'd had something to take, I'd'a gone to Edinburgh.

Maybe not.

I'm gonna do it.

I'm gonna try and make some money doing this writing thing.

Damned if I know how.

Watch this space, I guess.

Maybe these web-page confessionals are a good idea. I'm certainly working things out through the typewriter. Not sure if they're things I need the world to see, but it's certainly nice to be able to do it this way.

Some people have more to confess than others. www.sheepworriers.co.uk, I'm looking at you.

Confessional websites only work, therefore, when you have something you want to confess, and don't mind who hears it. (although, I'm still nervous about the Bisto thing, so hush!)

I just hope I'll still have something to say in three months time...(having said that, I seem to be able to make nothing stretch to 1500 words and a picture of Moira Stuart, so maybe I shouldn't worry...)

It was nice to revisit all those old children's programmes in the Top 100 Greatest Children's TV Programmes In the World Ever! or whatever it was called. Nicer still to hear Ricky Gervais do a Top Cat version of my "How did they Pitch Scooby Doo?" story. Nice to see that there is some comedy potential in my little anecdotes...

You know you're getting on when the children's programmes are ceasing to make any sense, and the footballers are younger than you are, the old chestnut goes. It's definitely true, though. Although, I can't see today's toddlers putting up posters of the Tweenies and Rosie and Jim (Serial Killer Dolls! Seriously! They've had three "handlers" to my knowledge, and two of them have never been seen again!) when they go to University..

Bob the Builder, maybe. He's more your classic British kid's character. Great voice, ambiguous sexuality. Just like Postman Pat (Patricia when the lights go up on stage, Darling).

Creepy Gypsy Hex Dolls Scare Me! Click on the Picture to Enlarge it...if you dare!

And, I suppose, now's as good a time as any to tell you my Wacky Mr. Benn Theory:

MATTSCREW'S WACKY MR. BENN THEORY

The conundrum that is Mr. Benn can be answered by consideration of the following questions:

Question 1:

What was Mr. Benn's full name?

Question 2:

What was his job?

Question 3:

What was the shopkeeper's name?

Question 4:

Why did he appear "as if by magic" all the time?

Question 5:

Just why do we never see anybody else in the shop?

The answer to all these questions is contained within these two words:

Fight Club.

Think about it.

We're led to believe that Mr. Benn is some sort of civil servant, by the cut of his pinstripe suit and his bowler hat. But even in the Seventies, this was no longer de rigueur for the belts-or-braces brigade.

His house is neat and tidy, and in fact almost looks unlived in.

He doesn't have a first name.

And neither does the shopkeeper, the "imaginary friend" he creates for himself out of thin air ("as if by magic," indeed).

He has a rich fantasy life. This much is obvious. He spends all his free time at the fancy dress shop, trying on new clothes and going on adventures through the "other door."

But what if he spends all his time in the fancy dress shop?

Think about it: he gets up in the morning, puts on his suit and hat, turning him into Mr. Benn, the respected civil servant. Then he walks down Festive Road, turns onto the High street, and walks into the costume shop.

Once through the door, does his imaginary friend, the shopkeeper appear, "as if by magic?" Or does Mr. Benn put on a second suit of clothes, including a fez and waistcoat, and take on a second identity?

Does he take on a second personality, too? One that allows him to cope with his dreary, suburban lifestyle without losing it completely?

As If By Magic: the Soap-Keeper Appeared

I want you to hit me as hard as you can.

In Fight Club, Ed Norton's nameless character invents Brad Pitt's Tyler Durden as a method of coping with the insomnia and terrifying boredom of his Ikea-driven, humdrum lifestyle. Tyler Durden appears "as if by magic" all throughout the early stages of the movie, right up until the apartment burns down and they move in together. After this point, it is Norton who becomes the hallucination, and the fantasy personality, Tyler Durden, who becomes the reality. And this continues until Norton discovers the truth: that fantasy can be dangerous if built up too much.

And this is what has happened to Mr. Benn. Tired of running his shop, tired of living his suburban nightmare, his personality has fractured. The Pinstripe Mr. Benn is his idealized public servant half: mundane, average, blending in to the suburban jungle. The Shopkeeper Mr. Benn is his familiar: his medium between the world of the mundane, and the world of his inner self - his fantasy world, where he can be any number of different people, each with a much more interesting life than his own.

I look the way you want to look. I fuck the way you want to fuck. No, really.

Superheroes are the chief proponents of the theory that "clothes maketh the man." Imagine Mr. Benn's shock when he discovers what being the world's Premier Gay Superhero, the Midnighter, entails...

Every time he puts on a new suit of clothes, he takes on a new personality, all with a common theme: he always wants to help people. This, it seems, is a benevolent psychotic. I would suggest, also, that none of his adventures are "real:" why would they need to be?

He probably goes through the "special" door in the changing room of his shop, and into a broom cupboard. He stands there, catatonic for an hour, or a day, until this week's fantasy psychosis is played out. Then, grabbing a "souvenir" from the props box, he returns to his house, ready to do it all again the next day.

Mr. Benn is a man who lives inside his own head most of the time. And the outside world is either irrelevant, or something to hide from.

I can relate.

Thanks for reading in droves. Fight the Power!

Matthew Craig, putting on his Mad Ideas Helmet and Cape, Sept 2nd, 2001