I would like to start this entry in almost the same way as I started my last but one post. I don't think it's possible to get this far through life without asking yourself what you would do differently if you had your time all over again. Would you be content to make do with what is known as "real life" or would you rather be part of a long-running TV or radio series such as Line of Duty or The Archers? Would you rather spend your days in the company of interesting, talented and exceptional people or with the incredibly boring souls you are bound to meet in real life? Personally, I wouldn't hesitate a second.

The only danger with a life on screen is that you might become typecast, like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, or perhaps discarded all together. There are ways of avoiding this fate: many people would be surprised to learn that the actor playing Steve Arnott as a southerner in Line of Duty in fact has a broad Scottish accent in "real life", and of course Hugh Laurie has changed a lot since his days in Blackadder.

Changed, perhaps, but not out of all recognition, and that is why I would plump for a life on the radio waves every time. You see, just as nobody knows you are a dog on the internet, nobody knows you are a star on the radio. Ideally, I could spend my whole life on The Archers, and no-one would be any the wiser. And I wouldn't even have to learn my lines.