matt's 101 in 1001

Went to the circus last night. Billy Smart's Circus, to be precise.

I really do have mixed feelings about the whole charade. I love the spectacle of the circus. Trapeze artists, contortionists, extreme acrobatics, fire-eating, magic acts, juggling, ridiculously overpriced food and beverages... only someone incredibly out-of-touch with the human body and its potential for feats of physical achievement would fail to be in awe at the sight of a Ghanaian artiste bent and twisted in such a way as to be able to play his own buttocks like a pair of bongo drums. Couple this with the absolutely essential purchase of a seven-foot tall stick of fluffy, sticky, sugary candy floss, and it seems like a fun night out!

But here's the thing: it's the zaniness that I can't handle. Anyone who's known me long enough to get me tipsy and confessing that I have a fear of clowns will know that I have a fear of clowns. And not just "Oh no, it's a clown"; I'm talking a total run-out-of-the-circus-screaming-maniacally-about-the-apocalpyse phobia. It's a fear that, despite what all you clown-adoring naysayers will tell me, I feel is entirely founded. I mean, seriously, these are grown men going to bizarre lengths to hide themselves! The face paint, the baggy pants, the big shoes, the fake nose, the unfashionable chequered shirts... I mean, it's just too zany! It's weird! What have they got to hide!?

So when the opportunity presented itself last night to visit a circus, you can imagine my trepidation given that the show will inevitably present its audience with a clown of some description.

Sure enough, we walk into the Big Top, and Chico is there, warming up the crowd by flailing his arms wildly, accentuating bald men's baldness and comically fawning over any woman, young or old, within eyesight. I breathe calmly and let the little chap do his thing. Throughout the evening, he continues to interrupt considerably more spectacular segments with his weird clown-fuelled antics.

Watch Chico - kitted out in a chef's hat - madly spinning plates to the thunderous sounds of Aram Khachaturian's Sabre Dance. See Chico - wearing a bathrobe - use an audience member as a human antenna so he can watch Coronation Street on his faulty television. Witness Chico - inexplicably sporting a sombrero - select the five biggest, toughest, leather jacket-wearing blokes from the audience and have them holding hands whilst skipping around the circus ring. Weird, weird, weird! But I somehow manage to keep my composure.

Having made it through to intermission without the anticipated breakdown, I treat myself to a couple of raffle tickets, which, in light of the prize being an oversized plush pink elephant toy, I happily did not win.

Suddenly, a massive spotlight comes on, shining directly into my eyes! Fearing permanent blindness, I recoil in horror, before realising that the spotlight is actually on Chico, who has positioned himself directly behind me. He moves a couple of steps down, before, in a suitably unnatural fashion, swivelling to face me. From nowhere, he extracts, with a murderous glint in his eyes, a medium-sized box of popcorn (circus retail price: £49) and thrusts his stumpy clown-arms directly at me.

I freeze, convinced that if I fail to move, he won't actually see me (it worked with the tyrannosaurus in Jurassic Park). Oddly, it seems to be successful as he promptly withdrew his hands. I let out a sigh of relief and move to turn away before I feel a piece of popcorn hit me in the side of the face. I look back to find him lobbing kernel after kernel at me. I soon realise I am supposed to have my mouth open so that he can manage to throw one in. Conveniently, my mouth was already gaping in sheer horror, so no action was required on my part (just as well, as I was too scared to move).

The clown was a lousy shot, with each kernel bouncing wildly off various parts of my face. Eventually, he tires of the whole affair and tosses an entire handful at me. Unfortunately, my face had adapted substantial adhesive qualities from the metric tonne of candy floss I had messily eaten earlier, resulting in much of the offending popcorn sticking to my face as Chico bounded around to the raucous applause of the audience.

Future blog entries may appear sporadically as therapy will be occupying a significant amount of my time.

Tonight, I'm going to a charity screening of Maria Full of Grace in aid of human rights, which I trust will be considerably more clown-free.