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Future Perfect

by | 4th, May 2004

‘BEFORE OK! has even begun talking with Russell Grant, he’s already answered all their questions and written his carefully constructed replies on a sheet of paper.

On a beermat near you

This modern day Rasputin, who was taken into Princess Diana’s confidence, is always one step ahead of the game.

To go with the written word, he’s also produced some pictures, which he knew OK! and its readers would like.

In them, we see Russell’s Snowdonian hide-away, his tartan-carpeted dining-room and a wicker chair on which is sat a yellow scatter cushion with a red ladybird on top.

As for the clothes… well, even the best of soothsayers has an off day.

But given Russell’s gift of foresight, it’s an oddity that he did not realise just how awful the green moo moo with the gold brocade would look when transferred to the pages of OK!

It might well be that ‘it’s easy to feel giddy when Russell starts detailing the projects he working on’, but the lurching sensation is not calmed with a look at Russell a la mode.

As it happens, Russell is indeed a busy man. He’s planning a 13-part show for American TV in which he interviews American stars, a six-week showbiz series in LA and a ‘series of astrological DVDs for Spain’.

‘I’m like Lycra,’ says Russell. ‘I need to be stretched.’

But surely not to breaking point, until the entire thing starts to come apart at the seams with the massive strain of holding in Russell’s considerable talents.

But Russell is composed and oddly cool for a man wrapped in metaphorical figure-hugging Lycra. Indeed, he soon recalls a kind of waking dream he had.

It began with a conversation with Matthew Kelly. ‘He pleaded with me to do a programme with him for Yorkshire telly, and I said ‘No. I’ve been doing it for 38 years and I’ve had enough.’

But he relented, and on the way to meet with Kelly, there came a moment of clarity.

Driving down to the meeting with Matthew, Russell ‘received a psychic message for Matthew’.

‘I saw a policeman,’ he explains, ‘then people from his past life came to me in voice.’

They came from the dashboard of his car. ‘This is the news from the BBC,’ said one voice. ‘Matthew Kelly has been arrested on suspicion of child abuseĀ…’

But that came to nought; Kelly was acquitted on all counts, precipitating the happy ending for the presenter that Russell foresaw.

‘I knew the future would be bright,’ says Russell. ‘It had been foretold 18 months earlier.’

And with that Russell is gone. And the OK! magazine is gone. And the odd thing is that when we rang the offices of the famed showbiz glossy, do you know what they said?

They said Russell had not been interviewed, although they do have plans to meet him in the winter of 2005 – right after that unsavoury incident with the tartan-carpet salesman…’



Posted: 4th, May 2004 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink