Guinea pig

(A homage to Jonny B - not that I'm in any way claiming to fill the void while he's away sunning himself in Rome, you understand. No, keep on visiting his place in his absence because Jill Twiss is house-sitting.)

I volunteer to have my head read.

Naturally I am worried.

What will my head say?

Will it embarrass me?

Will it even be legible?

Unlike palm-reading, which is done by wizened bandanna-wearing gypsy crones in caravans at fairgrounds, head-reading is carried out by Scientists in the sort of clinically clean laboratories which are so brightly lit that, if you’re at all hung over, your eyes start to feel like they’re bleeding.

Fortunately, yesterday was my weekly day of abstinence. Even then, it’s still very bright indeed.

Upon arrival, I learn that the Scientists will be aided in the head-reading process by a machine called an MRI, which contains a magnet.

This is no ordinary faintly-amusing-fridge-magnet or red-and-silver-move-it-around-to-give-the-man-iron-filing-facial-hair-magnet.

It’s a BFM (Big Fucking Magnet).

Before entering the room in which the MRI is housed, I have to divest myself of anything metallic. This, it is explained, is because the BFM is so powerful that it can rip out piercings, surgically implanted metal plates etc.

A thought pops into my head: the thought of a piece of metal, implanted without my knowledge, bursting 'Alien'-style out of my torso during the experiment, and me suffering a horrible death surrounded by my own now-external internal organs.

This is not a comforting thought.

I lie down on my back, and my head is clamped into place. By looking up at a mirror placed in front of my face, I am able to see a swirling pattern of dots, not the scenes of gratuitous violence the film 'A Clockwork Orange' has led me to expect.

I am handed a "panic button", which I can press at any time to stop the head-reading process.

I am reminded of a story called 'The Chicken Switch' which fascinated me as a child. A journalist interviews a trainee astronaut about to go into an isolation chamber for a month. During that month the journalist experiences all kinds of horrific visions, suffering from extreme paranoia about the astronaut's condition. When he emerges, the journalist asks how he has resisted flicking the chicken switch. He gazes at the journalist and says something like, "In the minutes before I went in, I picked someone I'd seen recently and focused all my fears and anxieties on them. It could have been anyone, it could have been you...".

As I am slid gracefully into the belly of the machine, I feel a pang of remorse that Angela Lansbury will be suffering acute psychological trauma on my account.

Half an hour later I emerge, the panic button unpressed. Though my hopes of a "Today I was good for the Scientists" sticker are dashed, there is a bounteous stockpile of sweets.

I am invited into the Scientists' inner sanctum and am shocked to discover they have neither white coats nor glasses nor beards. In fact, two of them are ladies! I await Jeremy Beadle or that fat one off of 'Emmerdale' leaping out and informing me it's all been an elaborate and hilarious hoax.

I am shown images of the inside of my head, and one of the Scientists informs me my optical nerves are exactly level, which is apparently unusual. Something to boast about down the pub.

The same Scientist then does one of those computerised facial reconstruction things. I sit and watch. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was just arsing about.

The resulting hairless version of myself looks like someone off 'Crimewatch', someone who might assault you with a pool cue if you looked at his pint funny.

Or like a prehistoric man unearthed in a bog: "Peat Ben. The contents of his stomach reveal his last meal was one of bacon and cheese sandwiches".

I walk home, my head read, kicking myself for missing the opportunity to dress as a guinea pig for comic effect.