Previously, on "GAYS OF OUR LIVES"...   Our hero, Gat...oh fuck that!  Let's just get on with it.......     A QUIZ TOO FAR     In case I haven't mentioned it - is that possible? - I was invited out of the blue (several months after applying) to attend an auditon to appear on the tea-time television quiz show "The Weakest Link".  This is a new general knowledge quiz in which the contestants in a team ruthlessly eliminate one of their number in each round for being..well..shit...and holding them back from making as much money as possible.  The one person left standing at the end gets all the cash they've made.   Meantime they've had to survive the sarcastic bitch of a host, Anne Robinson, who spends her time telling them how awful they were, they were the weakest link, they're going away with nothing and Goodbye!   Yeah, yeah, I could handle that......And I could certainly handle the audition, since I've been on a much harder quiz show before, dontchaknow, and knew all it consisted of was a mock round of the game to see if you could answer questions.  No problem!  And so I was to attend the BBC in Manchester.....     Now as it happened Andy had to be in Manchester on Wednesday afternoons too, in order to snatch children away from their screaming mothers, while tossing his head back in a demonic laugh.  He's a social worker by the way.  So how he finds time to keep up with this hobby of his, God only  knows.  So we travelled over there together by train, spending part of the time discussing upcoming ..er..things.  At the weekend he's expecting to be introduced - and so it seems am I - to James' ex, described as "Victor - a 6' 6" Danish Leather Master".  Uhuh.  He would be.  I enquired if by any chance he'd be bald with a goatee.  And, do you know,...       The other event to which I'm invited is a bonfire night /firework do at the Manor House in Birkenhead  (that's not a pub - it's James' home), and I suggested the Chester boys might be interested (not that they're invited), especially Alex the German.  "If we tell him he can throw a few books on the bonfire..."  Anything to make him feel at home.       Anyway, we arrived in Manchester an hour and a half before my appointment and went our separate ways.  So I had a bit of time to wander the streets of this city which is only next door and a 50 minute journey away but which I've never payed attention to, except to dismiss it to foreigners.   Well it is big and sprawling.  And..um..beyond that I really can't see the point of the place.  Having wandered through the heart of it for a few hours I still couldn't tell you what it looks like.  It's just there.  And there is far too near to here.  I got to the studio desparate for a pee and headed straight to the girl on reception, asking for a toilet.  She was very apologetic but they can't let members of the public use them for security reasons.  I dashed out and found a MacDonald's to pee in.  So to speak.  When I got back and presented my credentials to the girl on reception she was even more non-plussed.  "Why didn't you say??  We'd have let you use the toilets!"  Contestants don't plant bombs?  "I thought you were someone who'd just come in off the street."  Thank you.       The other contestants slowly arrived in reception, none of us talking to each other, and there was only - eventually - one other young male there.  Quite dishy too!  I later discovered he was also from Liverpool, currently unemployed and had been on the same quiz show (15-to-1) as me.  Actually half of them had, and nearly everyone on at least one quiz show or another.  We were lead upstairs to the room where the audition was to take place, run by a rather posh girl researcher and a lad who was operating the video camera and would keep scores.  Now let's get the practical stuff out of the way - there were three mock rounds of the game, the questions presented no difficulties and we were assured beforehand were irrelevant to whether you were chosen anyway.   They were inundated with thousands of people applying and they'd be chosen over the next 4 to 6 months.  Fine.  No problem.  The rest of the exercise, however was one long experiment in extreme blush-making embarassment....     Now let me explain to those who haven't seen it that "The Weakest Link" is not a "personality" type show.  There is no requirement to have one.  At least so I thought.  There is no audience, no conversation, no funny anecdotes or jumping up and down with excitement.  Just people in a row rapidly answering questions from begining to end.  That's it.  So what the fuck they were thinking of in this audition , Christ only knows.....Firstly our darling host suggested we start with a game to loosen us up.  My bowels took her at her word.  The veins and arteries in my neck however have never felt less loose as we were required to each do a funny movement as we announced our names.  What?  To demonstrate she said "Hi! I'm Alice!" and put one arm and one leg forward in a "Ta-Dah!" pose usually associated with Magician's assistants.  We all had to repeat the move and the words.  Then I shat myself, being first in the row, as the camera man standing between her and me said "Hi! I'm Ryan!" while wiggling his hands, Moose-fashion, to his head.  Everyone followed suit.  Fuck.  They want me to do it next.  Why the fuck Am I sitting at the end??  The least embarrassing thing I could think to do was touch my toes.  I hadn't taken into account that 2 of my fellow participants, obliged to copy me, were clinically obese.  Oops.  They held off calling an ambulance and simply issued a directive for the others to not do anything quite so "energetic".  I simply don't remember seeing any of this on the TV show.  My face was burning scarlet with the embarassment of it all and never stopped doing so.     Next we had to look into the camcorder and say , as they would on the show, your name, age, occupation and where you're from.  PLUS the reason you want to be on the show/think you'd do well at it.  Eh?  Me first again??!  What is this Shite??  I claimed, since they put such an emphasis on competitivenes, that I wanted to go on it because "When I watch the show at home I win EVERY day."  Believe me, you're not cringing half as much as I am - especially since everyone who followed me gave either funny or sucky-up answers about what great fans they were of the show or Anne Robinson, and how they loved general knowledge.  Ho-hum.  Then we had to partner off and spend 30 seconds telling the other person about ourselves, before switching roles.  Except, as I keep repeating, I was at one end.  And there were 11 of us.  My partner therefore was Ryan, the lad with the camera.  And it wasn't a bad prospect.  Hardly stunning he was none the less in his twenties, short and rather shaggable.  Besides he was a young male researcher with the BBC.  I'm as prejudiced as the next man and happily assume people in certain occupations are gay.  Let's assume.   Especially as when I ran out of things to say about myself after the first ten seconds and invited him to ask me something the only question he could come up with is "Are you single..or..?"   Oo, Ryan!   "Single!"  I said and stared at him red-faced, mentally daring him to follow the question up "Go on ..!"  I insisted, though God knows what I expected him to say in reply.  I think for a second I'd forgotten where I was and was urging him to ask if I was gay and what was I doing tonight.  Whether he sensed this or not he didn't ask and time ran out.  Then he told me about him.  Apart from his desire to live in Sydney (He may as well have said San Francisco) I really wasn't listening.  I never do when there's an opportunity to think about me instead.  Which is a bit of shame since I never realised we were then expected to tell the group what we learned about the other  person  (Why??  WHY?!?).       I listened in dread as it went around the room and they each gave a half hour's life story for their other half.  Come my turn and ..erm...  Not that he had that much to say about me either (apart from telling them all I was single if anyone was interested.), and finished his summary by saying "I think that's all I got from him.." and looked to me for confirmation.  Well actually he missed a few things out, but nothing relevant, so why I felt the need to remind him lightheartedly of this fact is beyond me.  "What?  What else was there?"  He asked earnestly.  "No it doesn't matter - you've upset me now" I said,  trying to be light-hearted.  Except the words came out of my mouth as an embarrassed incoherent mumble and I was surrounded by deathly silence.  (Jesus!  Get me out of this!  If I ever have sex I'll stop!) He looked confused and worried.  "No - I'm just joking!"  I mumbled, looking all the time at him and away from everyone else.  He spoke up for me.  "He's a joker" he explained.  AAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!  No I'm fucking not!!!  The idea that I was supposed to fancy myself as "a bit of a character" is so obnoxious to me I'd willingly choose death instead.  I entered this world without a personality and I thoroughly intend to leave it the same way.  I never spoke again but to answer my quiz questions.     Following which came the final bit - going out into a corridor alone with Ryan to speak into the camera as he asked you a few questions.  This was not as bad as the girl had lead me to expect when she told us to really sell ourselves.  (Have these people actually watched the fucking show they produce?!)  In fact it was just a kind of photographic test as he asked me why I picked such and such a person etc. and if I thought any of the contestants was particualrly strong.  I named Anne, a elderly woman two seats away from me.  "And how do you think you do coming up against Anne?"  "I'd do fine"  "So even if she put you down..?"  Why would a sweet old Lady put me down?  It dawned on my already scarlet face that I was talking about the contestant while he was talking about Anne Robinson, the deliberately sour faced host of the show.  Naturally.  If, as they said, they're choosing contestants on grounds other than knowledge we can draw are own conclusions.  I left the building and let my face light up the darkening skies of Manchester like a beacon.  Manchester needed it.  I needed prozac.   And as I returned home after sharing a drink with Andy in the astonishinlgy over-rated "Canal Street" gay area, I reflected on  something once said by..er..someone in er..some place.  Once.  Probably:     A fool can ask more questions than a wiseman can answer.  Amen to that.