Cooper Brown: He's Out There

'It's weird how pregnancy flips a girl's hormones. Victoria's now in a good mood for about three days a month'

It's time for Coop to go to court and face up to the might of the British Establishment. In an unfortunate incident in Italy I managed to punch a Conservative lord unconscious after he'd been more unpleasant than you could imagine. My whole future here in the UK seems to be in the balance. This guy has serious connections and my barrister says that I might have to plea-bargain and eat some humble pie if I want to keep my work visa.

That, however, is not the way of the Coop and I decide to brave the thing out, so the court case is underway and, annoyingly, I'm not allowed to write about it. All I can say is that the peer in question is not Lord Archer as many hopeful readers speculated. Watch this space.

There is, suddenly, a particularly strong reason for my wanting to stay in this country. I have some news to share with you dear readers: Victoria, my other half, is pregnant. Praise the Lord, the Cooperman is not firing blanks and a mini-Cooper is on its way. I'm totally freaked. When Victoria told me, she was really excited and I did my best to look how you're supposed to when you receive this kind of news. I had this terrible thought that I had to keep to myself for once, which was: "You're sure it's mine?"

I don't really do kids, they tend to cramp the Cooper style a little. In the past I've normally jettisoned any friends who have them as it's simply a matter of time before you stop hanging out together anyway. It's the equivalent of joining a weird cult and if you're not singing from the same mantra sheet then forget about it.

Victoria has already gone a bit hormonal and is obsessing about names. At the moment, if it's a boy she wants Aubrey and if it's a girl she wants Cordelia. I looked at her in total dis- belief. There is no frickin' way that any kid of mine is going to end up with any gay name. I want something strong like Ford or Dakota but she wouldn't even consider them. It's weird how pregnancy can flip a girl's hormones into the air so quickly. Victoria's always been temperamental but this has reached new levels. It's like her whole cycle has been put into reverse. Now she tends to be in a good mood for about three days a month.

She's also getting a little stocky already. She's a tall, willowy type thing (think Lady Victoria Hervey, but it's not her - although they're friends) and anything shows on her. Whatever they say, it's not a good look. She's got a friend who has a store selling unbelievably expensive maternity wear. She got really paranoid and went out to buy a whole lot of this shit. She now looks like a freak but she won't listen to a word I say. If it's good enough for Gwynnie, then it's good enough for her. She's already started gravitating to more annoying friends like Mrs Martin who is only too pleased to get another willing recruit into her celebrity baby entourage. And there's no way my kid is hanging out with anything called Apple.

I tell Ben the news over a late-night whisky in the Electric and he looks like I've just told him I've got an incurable disease. He knows, like I do, if I'm going to stick with this, it's the beginning of the end for us. Ben being Ben, he decides we should go out in a blaze of glory. He has three trips planned for us by the time we say goodbye. I ask him to be the godfather and he almost looks pleased. He admits he already has 23 godchildren. People always ask him because he's so loaded, in the hope their kid will get a Ferrari on their 17th birthday.

I was asked to go on BBC radio this week to talk about 9/11. I was in New York on the actual day. I was staying in the Soho Grand and had a brunch meeting there with a couple of guys from Miramax. I'd just sat down when the doorman came running up the stairs to the lobby area and started shouting about something exploding in the World Trade Center. Everybody made a move to the windows and a couple ran into the streets and I followed them. The hotel's on West Broadway and the towers dominated the horizon. All I could see were flames and smoke and there were people just staring upwards, mouths wide open. I had this weird feeling of realising that I was witnessing a defining historical moment.

I was there, the right place and the right time, like being at the Kennedy shooting. I would forever have one hell of a story to tell people. I know that this might sound a little callous but at least it's real. It's no different from what TV viewers thought as they watched this real-life disaster movie unfold before them. I remember thinking that this had to be Saddam Hussein and that he'd just made a seriously big miscalculation. We watched as the other plane slammed into South Tower and then everything just went crazy. A wall of confused cops tried to herd us uptown. I spent the rest of the day with an old girlfriend in her apartment in the Village. We watched from her rooftop and then, when she got too emotional, we went downstairs and just hugged and ended up making out on her sofa. It was that kind of day.

When you've seen stuff like that with your own eyes then court cases really get put into their proper perspective. I've seen shit that this crusty old asshole couldn't dream of and I'm ready to fight and kick his ass. Bring it on, you moron. When you've been attacked by Saddam Hussein and his crazy crony Osama you realise that what doesn't kill you makes you strong. Cooper Out.

scoopercooper@gmail.com; www.myspace.com/scoopercooper