How I got my hands on sexy Cillian's underpants, with his wife's approval
Persuading the actor to part with his Calvin Kleins was tough, but it had to be done, says Victoria Mary Clarke
I've been thinking about Cillian Murphy's underpants. Not, I hasten to add, in a pervy kind of way. I just happened to find myself getting involved with them last weekend, and in that peculiar way that seemingly innocuous objects can appear in your life and then take on enormous significance and even change your way of looking at the world, Cillian's quite ordinary dark grey Calvin Klein underpants caused a kind of epiphany for me.
I should begin at the beginning, really, and put the pants in context. I need to firstly explain that I am a highly cultured, artistic type of individual and because of this, every year I get involved in a fine festival of arty and literary activities in Clones called the Flat Lake festival. This year I volunteered to help out by co-curating an art auction to raise funds for the festival. And because most actual art bores the pants off me, I decided we would liven things up by having a few celebrity items to auction, in between the paintings. To this end, I persuaded my long-suffering partner, Shane MacGowan, to part with a complete set of his clothing, (including a hat and a shiny red jacket) and also a bottle of his own pee (authenticated).
Having perused the list of performers and got all their phone numbers, I then set about bullying, cajoling and blackmailing celebrities into parting with personal items. I got a nice wool suit from Pat McCabe and a sexy, low-cut dress (worn at Glastonbury) from Lily Allen, a hat and a bottle of poitin from Stephen Rea and a book from Neil Jordan. Jasmine Guinness volunteered to take someone out for a pint of Guinness, and Sir Jack Leslie offered to take someone dancing in Monaghan. Things were looking good, but I was not satisfied with good. I wanted the auction to be truly sensational.
I happened to know that Cillian Murphy would be doing a DJ set in the Butty Barn on the Saturday night. Wouldn't it be great, I thought,
if we could persuade him to snog someone? Or better still, snog them and then have breakfast in bed with them? The star of Breakfast on Pluto having Breakfast in Clones with you, in a camper van? Wouldn't a person pay an enormous amount of money for that privilege?
Being the tenacious type and unafraid of handsome actors, I got his phone number and left a message to this effect. There was no response. But I did not despair. On Saturday afternoon, I spotted the unmistakeable cheekbones of the cute Cork man, as he chatted to Kevin Allen at the festival. I marched straight up to him and informed him that he would be auctioned the following evening, all in a good cause. And that he would probably have to snog the person (be they male or female) and have breakfast in bed with them. I was horrified when he said no, he didn't think he would want to do that, especially considering that his wife was with him. He offered to autograph a T-shirt instead.
Dazed, and momentarily deterred, I backed off. "A T-shirt is no good," I told Kevin Allen, who invented the Flat Lake festival. "See if you can get him to sign a pair of underpants." Amazingly, Kevin went to work and within the hour we had the Calvins in our clutches and we were hanging them in the gallery, ready to be auctioned.
"Are you absolutely sure you want these?" Cillian said, blushing charmingly. His lovely wife Yvonne was both bemused and amused at the prospect of someone buying her husband's pants. As indeed I would be if someone bought Shane's.
Just as I predicted, when the time came for the auction, the bidding was fast and furious. Indeed I was bidding myself, but I lost out to a more determined lady, who grabbed the pants immediately, paid in cash and disappeared off into the night. Unfortunately, the same level of enthusiasm was not in evidence when we announced the other celebrity items, and although we did sell Shane's pee, we had to withdraw his suit and Lily's dress as they did not make their reserve.
Undergarments were clearly the way to go. Maybe we should have asked everybody for pants? Maybe we should have a whole gallery of celebrity pants next year and offer prizes for guessing who owns which pair, as well as auctioning them off. We could put them on Ebay and make an absolute fortune. Would they each donate a bottle of pee as well? Wouldn't that be art? Perhaps we could even start a permanent collection and become as famous as Charles Saatchi.
I was extremely pleased with myself for having these genius ideas. But then suddenly, out of nowhere, as I was relaxing in the Eco Bus, eating a mixed bean chilli and contemplating the naked pictures of Robbie Williams that I had just purchased, an awful thought struck me. A thought so awful that I had to buy an organic wine to calm myself down. What if that had been me that was the celebrity who was bullied into parting with her pants? How embarrassing would that be, to think of some pervert doing rude things with them? And worse again, what if my pants were up for auction and nobody wanted them? What if they had no bidders at all? How humiliating would that be? How cruel must I be, to inflict such horrors on innocent famous people?
I contemplated my conscience. Cruel and horrible, I decided. It's a nasty job, inventing Great Art.
But somebody's got to do it.
