Krazy Kevin

Hi gang.  This past week something happened that I really hate!  It began on the fourth day of the computer show I was working at; starting with a slight fever and progressing to a nasty cough.

I’d come down with some yucky, mysterious illness that’s laid me low for two weeks…as I write I’ve still got a nasty cough, and it just won’t go away. 

I don’t get ill often. But it upsets me when I do because I can’t fire on all 18 cylinders.  If you’ve listened in during my Radio Bahrain morning shows this week you will have certainly heard a very different sounding me (my wife, Wendy said that I sounded quite sexy - but I know she was only saying it to cheer me up). 

It’s been a real struggle to get through shows with this horrendous cough.  Half the time I don’t know whether to cover my mouth or turn off the microphone so no-one can hear me. Quite a dilemma ’cause no-one wants to hear hacking noises over the airways. 

So this week it’s been “Koffing Krabby” Kevin, not Krazy Kevin.

On Thursday morning I was on Voice FM with Juhi. She asked our listeners to phone in with remedies for me and lots of people did. Thank you all so much for cheering me up. I’ve been having ginger, honey, tumeric, lemon, milk and hot water all mixed up in one big cup! What a concoction! I’m still waiting for it to make me better though, but time will tell.

I’m a “typical man” when it comes to being sick or injured and I remember years ago when I had a shoulder operation after dislocating it in a football match. 

I could hardly do anything for months. It was so frustrating and boring … and so was I. Another injury when I was young required me to have a plaster on my leg from the top of the thigh right down to my ankle. I couldn’t bend, so my mum found me a camp bed to sleep on in our lounge room. Don’t tell mum but when everyone else went to sleep at night I’d flick on the TV and watch it all night. Everyone wondered why I was so sleepy during the daytime!

Last week I left you with a little teaser about me getting a “different” look. So what do you think of the photo?  It all began when I got a telephone call from Beatrice Grossi, representing a local lifestyle magazine. 

They wanted an interview so I popped down to see them. They suggested we do a special photo shoot and I said “great”.

I may be a grown up but I still love to play dress ups and smile for the camera.

The very next day I met with editor Edward Smith and photographer George Mathew. Then Stephen Grant, hairstylist to the rich and famous arrived with Alison who was my make-up artist for the day.  Did I mention that as well as dressing up I quite enjoy to “make-up” too.

I thought, “wow, what’s gonna happen here?” 

I’d brought some of my own clothes and first we took some “serious” shots of me in a black suit.  Beatrice (who has a funny accent) said the shoot needed an umbrella; so off she went to find one.  George took loads of photos and when we finished, work began on my make-up for a ‘Pierrot’ look. A clown costume later and the transformation was complete. 

For me it was very weird because wearing that make-up changed my personality. I felt so solemn, not at all the kind of ‘clown’ I usually am. 

The pictures immediately made me think of mime artist Marcel Marceau’s melancholy, clown ‘Bip’ and shortly after the photo shoot I was sad to learn that Marceau had died.

 The world has lost one of its most endearing and original artists. He once famously said that mime, like music, knows neither borders nor nationalities and: “if laughter and tears are the characteristics of humanity, all cultures are steeped in our discipline.”

So, keep laughing until you cry and keep crying until we laugh.

Krazy Kevin