An evening with Anton

Hallelujah, Match postponed; apparently the opposition could not raise a team (this game is dying a death I tell you) Sergeant Bonkers and his junior assistant have had to seek new areas of entertainment and inspired by all things CERN and scientific are attempting to build their own Hadron Collider in the garden. Some flexible two-inch pipe has been arranged in a circle around the garden with two hair dryers attached to slots cut in the side. A large chart on the wall of our Kitchen indicates that they are to attempt to accelerate two ping-pong balls in opposite directions around the collider by turning the hairdryers to no less than 5. At a critical juncture, over which it seems to me they have no control, they will bump the two ping pong balls into each other and as if by magic a third ping pong ball will be created. If the experiment can be made to work with ping pong balls the whole shebang will be scaled up to provide a ready supply of Footballs for their team.

At the moment they seem to be on some scientific team building exercise which involves Sergeant Bonkers pushing son and heir around in his old baby stroller wearing a Cyberman voice simulator pretending to be Steven Hawking; Looking to me for laughs when husband handed the faux Hawking some leaves from the herb garden and asked him for a brief history of Thyme.

I did laugh, but only because I am escaping Bonkers Central for the night. A few friends and I have tickets to see an “evening with Anton” The Dreamboat Dubeck plus guests in the bright lights of Birmingham. We are staying overnight at the finest Novotel Brum can provide, and will be returning at our leisure the following day, when I will be called upon to clear up the mess made at home from husband and son’s attempts to create a new universe, or at the very least another ping-pong ball.

Ginny picked me up and we set off north, two hours of irreverent chit chat about nothing in particular to some background music provided by Abba. The Novotel was located, thanks to the nice man in the Sat Nav, and we headed to our rooms to prepare ourselves for Anton. I was to share with Ginny who produced a bottle of fizz as a “livener” for the four of us before we hit the town. Fizz consumed we headed for an Italian Restaurant near the hotel, a delicately flavoured dish of pasta, some perky Pinot Grigio and some even perkier Italian/ Brummie waiters were followed by a bucket of Ice Cream and a Taxi to theatre land. On getting out of the taxi a large black car drew up outside the theatre with the number plate DAN53 1, the occupant of the back seat emerged and there he was.

“Its Anton!”

Squealed Ginny,

Resplendent in Cape, Cravat, Cane and Fedora, flashing his smile in our direction at Ginny’s reaction, he shuffled his feet and was away sweeping into the theatre. Weakened at the knees by our encounter with the man of our dreams, we wobbled into the auditorioum and settled down for two hours of dance heaven.
It started with Anton running through a ten minute dance routine with various partners, a little bit of Paso, Rumba and Samba before putting on his jacket for a little tango, mostly Latin dances which is brave in itself as he is known for his expertise in the rise and fall and all things ballroom. A half hour of chat, jokes and questions followed, as he just sat on a stool and sparkled. His early life doing tap, his preference for dance over sport (Yes!), how flattered he was to have become a Gay Icon, denying rumours that Bruce Forsyth was his natural father, and revealing an ambition to become the next James Bond, or at the very least the man in the Milk Tray advert. A short interval and then he was back. A beautiful tuxedo and slicked back hair it was Ballroom time, First a quickstep, and boy was it quick, from the waist up it was all elegance and poise, from the waist down - a blur. Next a Waltz in unison with seven other couples, technically superb and no one got hurt, as they did when we tried it in our dance class.

And then it was just Anton, on his own, walking among the audience, looking for a partner to help him with a foxtrot,

And then he was there,

Right in front of me

Asking me,

Yes me.

OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD (as my daughter would say)

He took my hand led me to the stage and then it was just the two of us, the audience didn’t exist, he had me in his arms, I could smell his honeyed breath, see his chiselled chin, gaze into his sparkling eyes as he led, yes led not hauled, me around the floor, rising and falling, our bodies moving in time in what for me was a life changing moment, until I felt the sudden urge to speak.
With a brain turned to mush from grape juice and the power of Anton’s prescence the only thing I could come up with was

“ Who, who, who who do you support?”

NOOOOOO bloody football has invaded my brain and is making me ask stupid questions.

Anton bought the dance to a close and led me back to my seat whispering from the corner of his mouth to me as we went

“ Look love, we don’t talk when we’re dancing, Tits and Teeth that’s all you had to do, and didn’t you listen earlier in the show when I said I didn’t like sport”

Chastened by my encounter the remainder of the show was a haze, we got back to the hotel where a Giggling Ginny kept stroking my arm and saying that I smelt of Anton, and I climbed into bed reflecting on the fact that Football had penetrated deeper into my psyche than I thought. I could have asked him about shoes, clothes, toothpaste, but in my moment of fuzziness football pushed its way to the front and made me look stupid in front of my soft shoed superstar.
The journey home passed without incident, bar several stops for a hungover Ginny. The house was a tip when I returned, no ping pong balls had been produced or black holes created, my Coldplay CD had been worn out after repeat playing of “The Scientist” and husband and son were settled down in front of the midday match still in their lab coats but all out of scientific theories. Such is the power of football to distract the mind at possible life changing moments. If Einstein had been a Watford fan we would never have had any relativity and if Eddison had been a keen follower of Exeter we would never have had any light bulbs, or was it lighthouses? I don’t know I’m going to bed.