cries & whispers

2 Last week I mentioned the cult game Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon. The English version must be Six Degrees to Ralph Brown. His brief, glorious incarnation as avatar of the Sixties, Danny the Drug Dealer in Withnail and I, already connects him to half Hollywood via Richard E Grant. Only the other weekend he appeared twice in two days on telly, pouting cruelly in a curled wig as Prince John in Ivanhoe, and au naturel in squaddie- in-peril drama The Place of the Dead. Once I was unwise enough to suggest that Ralphy hadn't done too much since Withnail and was promptly served a six-page fax by his irate agent listing every role he's ever done. Your task for this week: from Laurence Olivier to Ralph Brown in six moves without going through Richard E Grant. Hint: he was in Wayne's World 2 (no, not Olivier).

2 Among the gongs for Sir Paul McCartney, Andrew Lord Webber and Frankie Vaughan, it's good to see that everybody's favourite Wotan, the opera singer John Tomlinson, deigned to accept a modest CBE. How will this go down at home, though? Tommo lives in Lewes, a town with staunch republican credentials. Tom Paine founded a radical debating club there in the 1790s, and 200 years later, who could be found addressing the Headstrong Club on the worthlessness of Honours but, er, Tommo himself.

2 Jubal Brown is a Canadian performance artist (or "pissed student", as it was called in my day) who goes to top art galleries and vomits on "lifeless" paintings. I wonder if we could induce him, after a suitably splashy meal of chianti and spaghetti, to anoint the Canalettos in the National Gallery. This is just to annoy the pompous curators who have evidently all been trained by Nigel Tufnell of Spinal Tap. You remember the scene involving Nigel's treasured guitar: "Don't point!" "I'm not pointing, I'm just look-" "Don't even look at it!"

2 Good news for Mr Stoppard. Not-so-good news for Mr Caton-Jones. Last week I asked you to suggest titles for Stoppard's new play about Housman and for C-J's Day of the Jackal remake. Jasper Winn of County Cork suggests the title The Jackal Trades, Master of Gun, which sounds like the badly translated title of the latest Jackie Chan movie. For Stoppard, Adrian Brodkin hits on "Every Shropshire Lad Deserves Favour" (a prize wings its way to you, Ade, either the plastic ring off a bottle of Hard Candy, or a copy of cult periodical Books From Finland, I haven't decided yet). Meanwhile, Don Stallybrass of Bognor Regis, who says he is the reincarnation of Roman poet Propertius, sends me a letter bursting with classical quotations. He suggests Quiet Days in Clunton, the cast to include Clunes, a Roman soldier, and Clun, a Shropshire Lad. The obvious person to star? "Libra regit (Martin) Clunes", as Don nearly said.