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Monday 13th June 2005

After a lovely gig at a lovely little venue hidden away on a scary estate in Camberwell (it's the only arts centre in the world that I have been to where you have to ring the doorbell to gain entry) I returned home to discover that Michael Jackson is as innocent as OJ Simpson. Another triumph for the American legal system!
Actually I genuinely think it might be. Even though the jury system does occasionally make mistakes it is important to trust that the people who hear all the evidence are in a better position to judge a case than the millions of people who just get the selected highlights from the media. That interview didn't do him any favours, and there is definite room for valid suspicion, but all that is certain is that it is hard to trust people who have been guilty of lying in court before and who also are happy to let their children stay overnight with someone who has been involved in these kind of accusations before.
No smoke without fire? Well even from my very minor amount of celebrity I have heard rumours and accusations about myself that are not true, or which are exaggerations of a very flimsy bit of truth, so I would imagine that at Jackson's level of fame the liars and the mad would increase by at least a million-fold.
Let's face it it was still stupid of him to sleep with kids in his bed whatever his motives and whether he had given them Jesus Juice or not. And even though I am trying to be reasonable there is still a part of me screaming out- "He did it! He definitely did it!" Which is why I am glad we have a rather more considered jury system to decide these things, rather than going on basic instinct.
When I went to bed my old adversary Grub Smith was on TV, not surprisingly defending himself against accusations of rat rape, but talking about the strange things that have been found in people's stomachs. The ultimate one in his list (how refreshing to find there is one of these programmes that even Jimmy Carr will turn down) was an Indian gentleman who at the age of 36 went to hospital in pain, due to a distended abdomen. He'd always had this gigantic stomach, since birth, and he'd always assumed it was a gentetic defect and never had it looked at. Though his stomach by now was huge, not fat but almost pregnant looking.
Nothing really showed up on the scans, but when the doctors opened him up they found that the foetus of the man's unborn twin brother was inside him and had been growing all this time and feeding off him. It wasn't quite a human being as we'd recognise - its head had not really formed properly - but there was a big mass of skin and bone and hair and recognisable bits that were all growing. Quite incredible that it took him this long to complain of the problem, but the reason I mention it is that I wonder if the same thing has been happening to me.
Despite all my best efforts at dieting and exercise I still have this distended stomach, and if I push it out it looks like I am pregnant. I also seem to have to eat a lot more than a normal man of my size, which suggests to me that I maybe have a twin (probably an evil twin) feeding off me and taking all the nutrients that the Mr Kipling cakes have to offer.
Perhaps my twin foetus is a properly developed 37 year old and can think and reason. It might well have worked out what is going on and decided that the life he or she (hey it might be a girl me - I wonder if she is hot. Is it wrong to fancy your own twin sister if she has spent her whole life inside of your own stomach? Yes it is. Actually thinking about it, I'm not all surprised by the rumours I've heard about myself) is going to stay in there where things are all cushy and food and transport comes on tap.
It's certainly a possibility and I find it interesting that Grub knew about this case and had seen me and yet didn't feel the need to tell me about it.

I forgot to plug the Blue Elephant's forthcoming attractions last night, so I will do it now. Especially if you can't get up to Edinburgh. I particularly recommend Russell Howard and newcomer Ray Peacock is not without his charms, but the peach of those shows is the one with Chris Addison and John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman. If you can't get up to Edinburgh, go and catch them on the 11th July for (I think) six pounds. You can't argue with that.

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