The Taxman Cometh?

  Hot to frot with the weatherman Fish

  

  Remember when Barry from the council came round to check on my financial status, said that I needed to get clear in my mind what constituted being self-employed as opposed to 'employed' and forewarned me to expect a pamphlet from the inland revenue?

  Please see this previous blog entry

  Well, the pamphlet came when I'd just been coaching one of the adult actors in a Derek Crofts production.
  Said Derek to me, 'His flesh is thrilling, but the speaking is weak!'
  I referred to this coaching job when I filled in the questionnaire section on the pamphlet. Permitting myself some artistic licence, at times, obviously.
  
  Are you confused about what constitutes being self-employed as opposed to employed? For your own self-elucidation we advise you to answer in writing the questions highlighted in the enclosed pamphlet with specific reference to your last completed paid employment. Your answers should be written in ink.

 Not blood, then?

  Did you “A” instigate the work or were you “B” hired to do the work?

  B

  If “B”, by whom were you hired to do the work.

  By Derek Crofts. 

  What did the person named in “B” hire you to do?

  Voice and performance coaching on a gay pornographic film.

  Did you work directly with the person named in “B”?

  No, I worked with the actors. Derek was the director. He acted in the films when he was getting started, but then he got some kind of burn out...porn out, maybe...the too much of a good thing syndrome?  I see it with my four-year-old niece. Boxing day night, parade of presents passed, she's already back playing with the little bag of pre-decimal coins I had when I was little. Derek, you see, got so far into porn he fell out the other side into a kind of skewed celibacy. Now the only thing that turns him on is a weatherman showing a bit of bicep pointing out dodgy fronts over Norfolk.

  Poor Derek, being hot to frott with Michael Fish.

  Did you provide the tools used for the work, by which we do not mean the small tools many employees take with them as a matter of course?

  Wait a moment, Mr. Tax Man: I wouldn’t let our Hungarian bit of buff - Ferenc Asztalos, star of Take Me Up The Danube - hear you casting aspersions about him having a small tool for his work. He’s a Magyar, ex-army, competitive gymnast. He can kill with his bare just about anything you fancy.

  Was your work hands on?

  No...sadly.

  Did you have to correct unsatisfactory work in your own time? Give reasons for this. What was the outcome?

  I had to dub the one line Ferenc had in Doctor Fine-Lay's Casebook: 

  'You’ve been hospitalised with an acute myocardial infarction, complicated by ventricular fibrillation. And just so you know, the in-hospital case- fatality rate among patients with MI complicated by VFib-CA is significantly higher than that in patients without VFib – CA. Oh, now, what might this previously undiagnosed tumefaction in the front of your hospital gown be?'

  The reason for this was because as I watched the rushes of the scene I became aware of something awry with the soundtrack. There were the Europop, pre-tumescent pig-rootling noises from the other actor.  And Ferenc himself speaking his line like Zsa Zsa Gabor with a cleft palate. But there were other sounds on the track that really ought not to be there. These were first the slam of a door, then the shouts of Emily, Derek's six-year-old:

  'Daddy, daddy, Lenka wouldn’t walk behind me in the street again. I don’t have any homework. I did a painting of two horses. Can I put it on the fridge with a magnet? Da…Um! Mummy told you you weren’t allowed to have the rudey-nudey men to play here any more, didn’t she daddy? She told Uncle Thomas thank Christ she’s got a proper job. And you’ve kicked Nemo under the sofa. I can see his quills, bloody daddy!'

  The outcome was that Ferenc became bellowingly morose, shouting: 'I am Magyar, we are prouds peoples.  Not good to fail and not have line said by me, Ferenc.'

  I had to talk him down by reminding him how the line was the only thing in the film that he couldn’t get his mouth round.

  This last page has been left blank.

  Except you’ve written on it.

  Funny I never got a reply...