Why?
Travelling around with a signed photograph of Arthur Bostrom you say? Whaaaa? Well yes, er… The quest began as something to get her of the house when she was really really sick in 2007 and it got a bit out of hand when she ended up in Finland.
We need 2190 random people to have their photo taken with the signedphotograph. Along the way we try to raise a little awareness of this often misunderstood debilitating physical illness.
And here’s thesignedphotograph’s side of the story…
“Over the 7 or 8 years since Mistress Anna bought me online from that man in Rhyl she has treated me moderately well. I was even up on the wall once (nasty nail) but have mostly been living next to thesignedphotograph of Jasper Carrott in a shoe box under her bed. “
“The thing is I’ve never really felt wanted, you know. I got given away pretty much at birth and I’ve always got that feeling from Anna that she never really wanted me either. I’d been settled on the mantlepiece looking at the layers of dust accumlating around my frame with mild distain thinking of ways to attract attention. I threw myself at the teapot once. It didn’t work.”
“I’d noticed that Mistress Anna had not moved for a quite a while and had, come to think of it had been lying on the sofa for long periods of time, moaning and groaning a lot. I’d expected it was guilt about me and that incident with the hoover.”
“Anyway, one day after I’d fixed her with my steely eyes for a stern staring-at-her session of guilt inducement she grabbed me and I was thrust to her bosom like a polo mint to a tongue piercing. “
“An odd similie I know – but I mean. Neglected for years and now bosomed! Next thing I know. *SNAP* a photograph, and some mumbling about ‘now I know why I bought it’ “
“Livid, I was. I’m not an it! I’m a potential heirloom! Next thing I know I’m being thrust in front of other idiots – *SNAP* then I’m stuffed in this smelly bag and transported against my free will to various time zones and put in over 700 pairs of grubby little hands for Anna’s delectation, amusement, and raising awareness of M.E.”
“I knew it was getting out of hand when we ended up in Finland”
“Apparently there’s this illness. They don’t know much about it and not many people understand it, but it makes her feel bloody awful. She said that I became the main reason for her to get out of the house. A self fulfilling therapy quest she calls it. I think she is ill, but not sick in the way she thinks…”
“But, for an easy life, I thought, I’ll go along with it. It gets me out a bit. We’ve seen some interesting places. Although I didn’t enjoy diving in that lake in Surrey. I swelled up like nobody’s business, and that Father Christmas in Lapland was a bit suspect with his chubby fingers no matter how clean they were.”
“She says we have to get 2190 pictures of me holding other people. It’s apparently the number of minutes Arthur Bostrom was in ‘Allo Allo. 73 episodes multiplied by 30 minutes. Geesh… give me strength… whatever floats your boat… just bring on the book deal, I need a new frame already…”
