If you can't meet 'em, stalk 'em
Behold:
I give you the Superman.
He is this lightning.
He is this madness.
And now:
Andy, my stepfather who I've mentioned here previously, has a new book out dealing with a slightly different subject matter than his previous one. It's a combination of his thoughts on recent international events as well as a memoir telling the story of how he grew up in a London working class family, his time spent with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and how he almost got fired from Harrods for telling Diana Spencer not to marry Prince Charles.
But that's not important right now. What is important is that last night I went to a cracking debate at the ICA between him and the famous author Martin Amis on the topic of radical Islam and its future.
I walked past Richard Ayoade on the way inside the institute (whose normal hairstyle is only slightly less geekier than his IT Crowd one) and having been seated, whilst looking towards the back with my mother to see if any of her and Andy's friends had arrived, I saw Chris Morris walk in and sit down next to Ayoade at the back of the auditorium. At this point, I did two things: (1) started typing up this entry in my head and (2) prayed that Morris would pipe up in character during the questions at the end (more on that below).
The debate was fairly interesting: mainly about world history over the past century and Islamism's place within it. Andy came across as more amenable to the arguments of others in comparison to Amis, who to his credit cheered me up by quoting-disapprovingly-Trotsky's motto "We must put an end once and for all to the papist-Quaker babble about the sanctity of human life." I love Trotsky.
When it came to question time, we got the usual bleating nonsense from the plebs before Morris put his hand up and immediately got into an argument with Amis over the precise meaning of the term takfir which went on for Christ knows how long whilst Andy looked on in wonder. An excerpt if I can recall correctly:
MORRIS: You haven't yet addressed the issues of Islamists who decide not to use violence.
RANDOM AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah, Martin! Christ!
MORRIS: Well, don't just sit there invoking some deity. Give him an answer, man!
When it was all over, I got the chance to speak with Morris for several minutes who was chatting with another fellow, apparently a Muslim. I also noticed he had a notepad with him (research for his next project?) The three of us ended up talking about religion and culture before he went off to meet his friends in the bar; I'm not sure he realised I realised just who he was. I actually wanted to take a picture of him as future proof against unbelievers but it seemed all a bit gauche and twatty at the time.
And as if that wasn't enough for one night, whilst having a celebratory dinner in the Groucho Club with Andy's friends, I passed Dominic West (McNulty from The Wire) drinking with some other folk. So, all in all, last night was a rather good night for semi-stalking minor celebrities.
As for the bloke in the pic, I dunno. He just seemed like star material at the time.