Iestyn Edwards is...what?

  Oops, let's maybe fully write out Save the Date...   Another Animated Brain Tableaux email today from my future self.  'Remember that you must act from a position of full achievement.  So, to take just one example of your self-perpetuated negative self-imaging [crikey], imagine that you are already fully qualified to give expert advice on weight loss. '   Okay...   Raw Till Four...?   Cookie Dough.

  The secret of success, as Buddha said, is "To walk on.  Walk on..."   "All well for you to say, Master.  But you never walk.  You sit constantly in Padmasana."   "Precisely, child.  My legs are buddha'd."

  Call me soon, mother dear, for I'm to be Queen of Saturday Live, Radio 4.   9am March 4th, with Lee Mack.   I was on the phone to the producer, Steven, for forty two minutes; he kindly worried for my phone bill and offered to ring me back on the Beeb's dime.  Other than the book coming out in a minute, he never mentioned any other hooks for my being guest on the programme.  Just asked questions and either giggled or sharply intook breath at my answers.   So I thought I must sidestep quoting Hercules Ease, Prettiest Boy of 9th Squadron, Camp Bastion.  When I told Herc in June 2006 that I was going on Woman's Hour to be crowned Forces' Sweetheart, he wanted to know why I was mentioning him on Woman's anything when he was a bloke.   'What is it, exactly, Eddie?'  He called me Eddie, never making it to Iestyn.   'Magazine programme, Radio 4.'   'Eddie, I'm just an honest joe.  My magazines are Men's Health, FHM and Nuts.  A...

  Another Animated Brain Tableaux email from my future self. Would I really want to risk not magically visualising my way to absolutely guaranteed success with a purchase of, let's call it, Rehash Resplendent?    At the bar after my recital recently, drinking with Claud and Gordon, the M and S obsessed couple that my mother has fag-hagged since 1976.     Gordon said we must be wary of false prophets. 'Booze.'     'I always get the right message from my fifth voddie,' said Claud.   'Drugs.'   'Only Night Nurse with a cod liver oil chaser.'   'The rehashed trend for living in the visualised desired outcome of dreams.'      'Is that false, too? But I do my affirmations with tealights, a mini gong tinkled, wearing my mother's wedding veil. Shall I not  get my high tea at the Ritz then, with Doris Day, Marian Keyes and  the Briefs Factory boy with the YoYo?'   'Oh, you fickle queen,' said Gordon.  ...

  I sing as chosen by Joanna Lumley about 8 minutes in...   The daffodils I bought opened overnight. They're more flat leaf than trumpet. I knew I should have turned right rather than left on the abandoned railway and bought a bath mat.    An email from Kiki in Walberswick saying that she went online and listened to Joanna Lumley's Desert Island Discs, and hearing my dear, unadorned (what? !) voice was like turning in the lane and seeing the first crocuses, or lambs - or realising that, yes, the days were really lengthening.  She hopes I will sing at the Hippodrome gig as she's planning on being there.    I've been helpfully paraphrasing:  '...turning in the lane and seeing the first muntjac's scavenged carcass, the Thorpeness ladies golf four doing execrable things with high-vis, fuchsia unwashable nylon shorts - the village idiot singing "Oh, God our Help in Ages Past" masturbating with a still bloodily pulsating ear stuck in his arse crack....

  Also a tie in with my talk at the Ink Festival: We'll do the Show Here!   Ken Levison, writer, editor, dramaturge of brilliance, rang to say that I of course must perform Dulcamara the quack doctor's aria in my book show at the Hippodrome London.  'How nice of them to lend you the theatre!  Gosh.  Yes, I listened to your CD. And speaking as a layman I think you have a beautiful voice and should be doing the character parts in opera, because you have a sense of humour.  And, let's face it, are no longer - perhaps never were - the ingenue.'   Brera PR agrees with me that acrobat Stefan Alexander in his underwear would be a good selling image in certain quarters.  'But for something like the Woman's Weekly, let's go more with you as Madame Galina off-stage. Perhaps some crocuses at your feet. No, not strewn on the carpet, go out for a walk.'     This reminds me, idly, of my mate Gerard's younger brother, Montgomery, asking not to have...