"Evens" Book Extract #3

[One of a series of extracts from Leon Blackwell’s infamous autobiography “Evens”. The diary of Old Lynn’s most revered psychopath.]


Pages 113-114

I could also see several video boxes in the bag, Jeremy Beadle’s cheery molester-esque smile leering up at me. You’ve Been Framed; The Best Of… (Volumes 1 & 2), Beadle’s About (Easter Special), and a copy of the short-lived ITV series Beadle’s Prison Pranks.

Talking of Mr. B, the legendary jester is actually scheduled to appear in Cracktown next month (July 12th 2004), in a local reality tv event called Celebrity Camping Live. He’ll set up tent in a field in Gayton, sharing mess tins with such luminaries as Eamonn Holmes, Bernard Matthews, Linsey Dawn McKenzie (a big coup for West Norfolk), and Garry Bushell. The Daily Sport constantly refers to Anglia TV’s forthcoming effort as “Bootiful Big ‘uns & The Bastards.”

Believe it or not, many people who visited the shop over the years have expressed interest in such japery and gag fodder. A chap who used to come into the shop every Monday morning was a professional “Viral Goofer”; large companies would pay him £250 a time to film 30 second clips of humorously staged mishaps and faked falls (often featuring the company’s logo somewhere in the background). These companies would then sneakily attach these clips to a funny message and start an email chain for the co-workers to pass on to their friends, families, and so on. Can you beat that? Pretending to bump into a conservatory door with a can of coke in your hand. For a living. Jesus wept.

This middle-aged Goofer stopped coming in to give us his endless stream of World War II documentaries (VHS format, natch) after he broke his leg during one particularly tricky viral film. Firemen were called to his warehouse and had to cut him loose from a giant plastic vagina after he ‘pretended’ to fall into the vulva for a stunt covertly financed by Ann Summers. Not only did he break his left leg, but he allegedly suffered concussion after cracking his head on the clitoris on the way down.

There was a general assumption at the time that he was goofing for Summers’ Thermal Lubrication.





Leon Blackwell

“Evens” is available from all good bookshops now.
ISBN 1010 2020 1010 0102
£6.99 paperback.