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If you're James Acaster you might want to avoid reading this one.
Happy 70th birthday, a day or so late, to comedy legend Rowan Atkinson from off of that Barclaycard advert. I might have missed the occasion completely were it not for the good people at Movies Attack on Facebook (I don't follow them - yet- but they popped up in my feed and if they keep providing content of this quality then I must surely have to make sure I receive every post).
They show Rowan as a crazy haired student who has presumably never had sex, as the brilliant star of Not The Nine O Clock news (where I became an ardent fan of his - even backing the first series of Blackadder because of his involvement) and as Mr Bean, where I more or less lost interest in him and his work.
And then, in an amazing scoop, Movies Attack has a photo of Rowan presumably on the way to his own party. He looks every one of his seventy years, a shadow of his former self and he's precariously holding his own birthday cake in one hand (watch out Rowan, I suspect a Mr Bean style accident at any second) - helpfully with his age written on the side so we can see. It also has just four candles (wrong comedian) and they're all lit. Which as he seems to be in the street, on the way to his party (I presume) is a bit foolish. Light the candles at the last minute, Rowan. And ideally someone else should be doing that. You're a multi-millionaire comedian, capable of seducing women half your age - standing in the street with your own birthday cake with the candles lit makes you look like a loser.
Weirdly Rowan is holding an umbrella in his other hand. What an eccentric he is. If he is eating his cake alone then he doesn't want the whole thing destroyed in a downpour, but it's not even raining and the chances of him dropping the cake- especially given how decrepit he looks and how weak his 70 year old wrists must be - are much higher than it getting drenched in a sudden storm. Also the candles are lit. you'd probably set fire to your umbrella, maybe not notice that and wander around with a blaze going on above your head. Oh my it would be funny. Not Blackadder funny. But definitely Mr Bean funny.
Rowan doesn't look happy about turning 70 and he's definitely not playing up to the camera. He's just sadly holding a cake that declares his age and looks like it might be disgusting and an umbrella, alone in the street.
How the mighty are fallen.
But then I looked more closely at the photo and began to wonder if it was real at all or if Movies Attack were trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Last time I saw Atkinson he looked nowhere near that old. Also he wasn't holding a cake or an umbrella.Was it possible that AI had been used here? It's terrifying for humanity if it's got this good. I think a lot of people would be fooled into thinking Rowan Atkinson, old and confused, is wandering around with his own birthday cake, with the wrong number of candles on, hoping that someone will recognise him.
But Rowan is a vibrant, sexually attractive man who probably has someone to carry an umbrella for him. I hope he sues Movies Attack for this misrepresentation.
AI will one day take away all our jobs and possibly make humans redundant completely, but for now, thanks to eagle-eyed people like me, if you're really clever, you can spot it before you make an idiot of yourself.
Happy Birthday Mr Bean. Feel free to use the burning umbrella idea. Luckily AI isn't good enough to come up with great comedy ideas like that just yet.
