OGrady - Open the Cage, Murphy!

To describe Open the Cage, Murphy as action-packed is a massive understatement. The book takes us on a roller-coaster ride through a decade of Paul OGradys life and is stuffed to the gunwales with hilarious stories, extreme situations and outrageous one-liners. At the end of Pauls previous volume of autobiography, Still Standing, his brilliant comic creation Lily Savage stood on the brink of fame. Here, Lily embraces success as to the manner born, and world domination beckons!

Along the way, the stories come thick and fast. Paul is involved in a plane crash, gets caught up in the LA riots and has a close encounter with Madonna. He takes us with him to a gay-themed weekend at Butlins in Skegness, on a rowdy tour with Prisoner Cell Block H the Musical and into the depths of the Australian rainforest, where he befriends a rare bird that can disembowel a man with a single kick.The dramatis personae include a family of dolphins, Charlton Heston and the ghost of Joan of Arc and theres a starring role for a certain remarkable dog, Buster Elvis Savage.

But whether hes writing about star-studded Hollywood parties, the devastating loss of close friends to AIDS, or late-night shenanigans at the end of Blackpool Pier, Pauls wit and humanity never desert him.

Open the Cage, Murphy is a genuine delight all the more so for being delightfully genuine.

Contents

For Brendan Murphy, who said Id never write a book

AS I WRITE this, sitting up in bed, the overhead lights have started flickering and an old leather captains chair on castors that lives in the bathroom has just casually rolled into my bedroom. Theres an ominous rumbling sound and my heavy brass bed is starting to shake, doing a damn good impression of the one in The Exorcist. The dogs are going berserk at this unexpected disturbance at a quarter to three in the morning, set off by the noise that makes it sound as if an express train is running through the middle of the house, as Alma Cogan was wont to sing.

Naturally I immediately put this unusual occurrence down to paranormal activity, having just watched a series about the Enfield Poltergeist on the telly. Leaping out of bed and on to the landing, my suspicions are confirmed as I witness the light suspended over the stairwell swaying gently back and forth of its own volition.

Yes, I tell myself with the authority of Yvette Fielding, this can only mean one thing and thats poltergeist activity and any second now a child with no eyeballs and wild hair, wearing a dirty nightie and baring a set of yellow fangs with claws to match, is going to come tear-arsing down that lobby and leap on me.

However, the racket and shaking is over as soon as it began. Since theres no sign of the demon-child apparition I go back to bed and turn the radio on to see if BBC Kent has any information to impart on what might have been the cause of this palaver.

Unfortunately theres nothing to report. It all seems very laid-back at Radio Kent and since theres no newsflash to tell us that

A. Weve been invaded by aliens,

B. Theres been an earthquake,

C. Dungeness power station is under attack from terrorists and has exploded,

I go back to my original deduction that the fuss was down to a visit from something unholy from the Other Side and that I now live in a house inhabited by a violent poltergeist, which means that Ill have to move.

If I were on Twitter or Facebook then I could check to see if anybody else in Kent had felt anything similar but as Im not I have a quick shufti around the internet and, finding nothing of any help, call it a day. Telling myself that the dead cant hurt you I leave the landing light on and try to go to sleep, half expecting the duvet to be pulled off me at any moment and a pair of invisible hands to seize me by the ankles and drag me around the bedroom floor.

Turns out it was an earthquake after all, 4.3 on the Richter scale. Not that I fully understand what that means but Ive been assured that although its nowhere near the strength of the one that hit Nepal, thank God, its enough to ruffle the feathers of the residents in our part of Kent and give us something to talk about.

You wouldnt expect earthquakes in Kent but this is the second in the fifteen years that Ive lived here. The first one brought houses down in Folkestone but thankfully the only casualty incurred during last nights episode was a pottery garden gnome, who has been neatly decapitated.

I like the wee small hours of the morning when, apart from the occasional earthquake, the house is silent and peace descends. This is the best time to write, undisturbed by the phone and free from the daily hassle, with just a pack of snoring dogs and the radio for company. I tap away with two fingers on a laptop so old that if the nerds at the Apple Store clapped eyes on it theyd probably fall about laughing, like those aliens used to do in the Cadburys Smash advert when encountering a real spud.

At this hour of the morning Im at peace with both myself and the world. You could casually drop into the conversation that the banks had gone bust and that as a result Id have to sell my home and return to some scuzzy flat, and Id probably take it on the chin and resignedly start packing my bags. Then Id see if Channel Five are thinking of adding a show called Celebrities on the Dole to their already growing roster of programmes about folk claiming benefits.

Lying in bed before I drift off to sleep, curious thoughts occupy my mind. For instance, if Hitler had been accepted by that Viennese art academy would the Second World War never have happened? And what is the point of Kim Kardashian? At first Id always believed that the Kardashians were either a species from Star Trek or some fundamentalist group of religious fanatics. Im still none the wiser about what they do apart from the bitter fact that its hard to escape this family of American oddballs even if, like me, you dont share the medias obsession with them and are completely, totally and utterly underwhelmed by this ragbag of reality TV narcissists. One thing I have learned is that Our Kim has made her vast fortune out of a low-rent home video of her getting shagged and exposing her gargantuan arse to all and sundry. Oh and then theres the boyfriend/husband/partner whatever-he-is who gets up at awards and abuses those whove had the temerity to win one. It doesnt take a lot these days to become a celebrity. Forget years of study at drama school or trawling the pub and club circuit, just get your arse out and give someone a ham-shank on YouTube and the worlds your oyster.

Its a different story though when the alarm goes off and I have to get up as thats the time when evil lurks, for festering underneath that duvet is malevolence personified. If ever I was to murder someone then undoubtedly it would be at seven a.m. Im not a jump-out-of-bed-and-greet-the-dawn-with-a-song-in-my-heart kind of person; on the contrary, grumpy and resentful at having to leave the comfort of my bed, I lie there contemplating all the trivialities of life and enjoy myself for just ten more minutes.

At the moment its Operation Stack and the closure of a large section of the M20, turning the Garden of England into a lorry park courtesy of the striking French dock workers in Calais. Im off the French at the moment and wont even buy their butter as theyve made life hell for our local businesses and, thanks to the gridlocked side roads, getting into North Korea would be easier than getting home from London.

Our current government and their treatment of all our public services are guaranteed to get me going, as is the Inland Revenue, who hammer the little guys while turning a blind eye to the huge corporations with their offshore dealings who blatantly disregard our tax laws while the majority of us are forced to toe the line under the threat of imprisonment. Every time I walk past a Starbucks or Topshop Im tempted to pop my head round the door and shout, Pay your bloody taxes!