Diary

It was Tuesday, and I'm just about to go to Manchester when my agent calls.

Could I do an audition? In London? On Wednesday?

For a TV commercial. For a well known brand of confectionery. They're looking for an older trans trailer trash mom.

I'm a bit lost for words.

They're like despots, these film and TV companies. They seem to imagine us just hanging around waiting for their phone calls. Like courtiers in the palace of some dictator, they must imagine us loitering in the outhouses. Waiting for their summons.

So I was taken aback by somebody imagining I could just drop everything and rush to London and rustle up some look of bad taste ugliness.

And after I'd thought of it it was just obvious there would be nothing positive and almost certainly something transphobic in the commercial and I would so humiliated even if I did ever appear in it.

But none of that occurred to me at the time. I just thanked my agent - whom I'm very fond of - and found myself saying

"It wouldn't be very good for the brand, would it?"

And realising that yes, I am a brand now. Among a million other things...

As for the well known confectionery:

I have to admit I rather hope it does them harm.