SOMETHING interesting has happened – I have won a lottery. Not, sadly, the Euro millions that I enter each week as part of a syndicate, mainly so that I am not left behind in rainy Merseyside when the rest of the office hightails it to Barbados.
This lottery is far less lucrative, at least in monetary terms, but it’s pretty exciting all the same and it’s a chance to be part of history.
I have been chosen to stand on an empty plinth in Trafalgar Square for an hour as part of Antony Gormley’s latest art work.
I know, pretty impressive, huh?
The best thing of all was that I didn’t have to do anything much to be selected – no terrifying Britain’s Got Talent-style auditions in front of a panel of Turner Prize-nominated artists with giant buzzers.
I didn’t have to offer to juggle/samba/turn somersaults/sing opera/get a full-body tattoo . . .
I didn’t even have to claim to be particularly interesting.
Basically, I just put my name into the online lottery along with thousands of other people and was one of the few to be picked out, demonstrating a level of luck I have never experienced in all my years of raffle ticket purchasing and tombola lurking.
So now the initial flurry of excitement is starting to wear off, I am faced with the challenge of deciding what to do with my hour on the plinth.
Gormley says you don’t have to do anything at all if you don’t want to. He’s quite happy if people read a book or take a nap.
But an hour’s a long time when you haven’t got much to do and, while I’m not about to embrace my inner Susan Boyle, I would like to have something to occupy me while I’m up there. Journalists are used to observing from the sidelines, rather than being part of the action, so this is quite a strange experience for me.ŠI don’t want to “perform”, but I would like not to be the dullest person taking part.
There are also many other considerations to think about, the unreliable British summer for a start.
What if I am mid-plinth stint and it starts to pour down?
Carry on regardless, says Gormley, who insists it would take a major act of God to disrupt the continuous 100-day stretch of one-hour shifts.
Not your common-or-garden freak shower of hailstones or high winds. If it’s not a plague of man-eating locusts or an attack of the Godzillas, then I’m up there for the full 60 minutes.
This goes both ways, of course. Once the hour is up, that’s it, there’s no chance to go back and do it all over again but better this time.
There’s no dress rehearsal or technical run-through. If I mess it up, that’s it – it’s all over and back on the train to Liverpool to hang my head in shame when someone asks how I spent the weekend.
A colleague suggests cutting out a sheet of paper to the exact dimensions of the Fourth Plinth and practising my special talent, whatever that may turn out to be, every day until July.
He seems keen on the idea that the experience is potentially perilous, even though I assure him a full feasibility study has been carried out and approved by the health and safety brigade.
He says that the paper idea is inspired and perhaps I’d like to stand on it in the middle of the office so everyone can give feedback on my value as an entertainer.
All well and good, but I have to figure out what I’m going to do first.
If I suffer many more sleepless nights worrying about it, an hour-long doze will very quickly start to look tempting.
ENJOYED this column? Read more by Laura at www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/lauradavis. If you have any suggestions of how to spend her hour on the plinth, email her at the address below.
