Authors Electric

  I recently watched an online clip of Robbie Williams making an acceptance speech for an award. He’d ‘like to thank drugs, alcohol, ADHD, anxiety, addiction, body dysmorphia’ – (and a whole host of other crippling conditions) ‘without which none of this would have been possible’, he tells us. Yes, it was funny, but as an author who is also a performer, I found myself relating to that strange dichotomy between self-deprecation and loud obnoxious drama-queen. You may think that we lie when we describe ourselves as socially awkward and shy – after all, we jump up to show off with the most massive egos at every opportunity. We can’t wait to grab the limelight in a blaze of ridiculous costumes and glitter – and in my case giant gold wings! But I’m here to tell you that underneath every mammoth motor-mouth is a quieter, sensible and often anxious human being. Just consider how many people in show-biz are addicts, alcoholics, reclusive, exercise junkies, dysfunctional, depressed – or use...

                                                         When the Drugs Don't Work                                                                                                                                                                            The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai                  I have always suffered from high levels of anxiety and slee...

‘Don’t panic!’ Corporal Jones on Dad’s Army used to yell at Captain Mainwaring and the rest. I’ve been saying this to myself rather a lot recently, with about as much success as Jonesy had. At the end of January this year, on a visit to my daughter in lovely Vancouver, I had to call on the emergency services to take me to hospital, following the onset of some worrying symptoms I feared might mean a heart attack. The paramedics and medics were wonderful, and thankfully my test results showed no heart attack – in fact it was unclear what had happened to me. I was sent home in the early hours, pretty much back to normal; a little shaken but hoping that would be the end of it. I went on to have a great holiday and flew home ten days later. I was eventually billed over £800 for my emergency callout and examination, and although money is the least of your worries in such circumstances, this was rather a lot and I put in a claim with my insurance company. The subsequent battle I had with...