TIME FOR HEROES

‘A happy visionary fantasy of hopes, ambitions or magnificent awesomeness, experienced while awake,’ is how UK publication Helicopter Life describes Daydreams. Daydreamers get such a bad rap in society, thought of as head-in-the-cloud slackers and conniving Communists. But daydreaming can be hugely constructive in many contexts. Not only for people in creative and artistic professions, such as writers and film-makers, but daydreaming is also incredibly beneficial to important people like research scientists, mathematicians and homosexuals.

 However, my daydreams seem to take gentle strolls down more egotistical paths than that. I go all out in mine. In my daydreams I’m a cross between Jack Bauer, John MacLean, T-1000 and Pacey from Dawson’s Creek. In my daydreams I am the quintessential lone renegade in a city of injustice, and I’m out for blood. And justice. My daydreams have Superman wearing a pair of Gary Crombie pyjamas by the end. Sometimes in my daydreams I’m even played by Josh Hartnett for crying out loud!

The first set of these aforementioned daydreams (and I use the word ‘set’ due to multiple variations on the same theme) came about after events such as 9/11 and 7/7. I’m talking about the fight against international and domestic terrorism. Sometimes at work I would find myself on flight KF209, zipping over the Atlantic Ocean from New York back to London after a successful meeting with L’Oreal, who want me to be the face of their new range of concealer products. While deeply engrossed in a fascinating article on Bolkow 105 Air Ambulance helicopters, my spidey sense tingles and I look up to see a terrified air-hostess with a smoking hot body being held by a balaclavad man, who is holding a knife at her throat. (I’m using a balaclava on this occasion to avoid any racial offense, but usually they’re either Pakistani or Russian)(the latter being used more for their accent than anything else) Anyway, I rise slowly off my seat to a tirade of shouts from the terrorist. ‘Sit down or I’ll kill her!’ he screams. I then take off my sunglasses and throw them onto the floor, crushing them like a menthol cigarette. ‘You’re not killing anybody today, pal. Not on my watch,’ before whipping out a shiny Colt 45 hand cannon. ‘How did you get that past customs?’ asks the bewildered air-hostess. ‘Don’t worry about backstory,’ I tell her, smoothly. ‘The only thing you need to worry about is your husband, your conscience, and our impending wild and passionate affair.’ (That’s just how this lone renegade rolls!) In the flicker of an instant, I raise my handgun, and with barely no line of sight, I let off a round which passes straight through the terrorists left eye, through the cockpit door and into the back of the captains head. But due to an outbreak of colourblindness at Pilot HQ, there’s no co-pilot! The shaken air-hostess grabs the microphone for the PA system. ‘Is there anybody on board who was in the air-cadets for four years and once went to Norway in a Nimrod after school one evening, and who thinks they can fly this plane?’ I pout my lips and raise my hand.

The second daydream is not original and basically consists of me winning the World Cup with Scotland, with me being the Maradona ‘86 of the team, orchestrating every attack and putting my body in front of every thunderbolt the opposition unleashes. I’m 32 now, and haven’t played in any team, 5-a-side or 11s, for many years, yet like every boy of my age and nationality, I still harbour genuine hopes of a late call-up to the national squad. And if we’re being honest, with Scotland being Scotland, it’s not entirely out of the question. I still think I could add value to the squad. What I’ve lost in pace, I make up for in fatigue. I did audition Josh Hartnett for this role too, but that smooth-talking dreamboat from Minnesota has two left feet, and is more a hockey guy anyway.

My third most popular daydream involves me saving a child from being run over. This started as an actual sleep dream I had and stuck with me, before being promoted into the echelons of my most popular daydreams. Basically, it’s me walking down the street, and just as I’m about to pass a group of pretty French girls, I see a child out the corner of my eye. The child, usually a two year old girl, has let go of the buggy her mother is pushing her little brother in, and makes a dash for the road between two parked cars. But there’s a double decker bus coming straight for her! So with no regards for my own safety, and heavy traffic in both directions, I leap out onto the road, race over to the girl, pick her up in my arms with not a second to spare, and leap onto the bonnet of one of the parked cars. The bus screeches to a halt, I light a cigarette, and the crowd goes wild. And before I know it, I’m suddenly grabbed and pulled into the ample bosom of the relieved woman pushing the buggy. In my life I fluctuate a lot between thinking having kids would be incredible, to then thinking it would not be so incredible, so the woman in the dream fluctuates between a hot single mother and a dirty Mexican nanny.

I’d like to think that this is indeed how I would react in such situations. With bravery, style and aplomb. But I fear this would not be the case. Realistically, I’m ashamed to say that I’m probably more of a freezer. When people take suddenly ill on the tube, I seem to back away, panic and hope that somebody closer to me is medically trained. I do know that if it was only me and the ill person in the vicinity, I would spring into action with no hesitation, 100%. And if I was in a stand-off with an armed terrorist, and I had a gun, I’d probably would fire off at least one shot. I talked about fear recently, and another fear of mine is the thought that I may be walking home one night and see four or five dangerous-looking youths beating up an old man. What would you do? I’d like to think that I’d do something, but then, if I did, it would almost certainly result in my death. I pray that I, nor any of you, never find ourselves in that position. And in the mean time, I’ll go back inside my head and embark on a one-man mission to find and arrest Osama Bin Laden.

Yippie Ki Yay Kimosabe!