Congratulations, your childhood hero hates you.

So here's Dirk Benedict looking a fair bit like my childhood guitar teacher. He didn't look all that much like him when I met him the other day in Blackpool after seeing him playing the part of Lt. Columbo in a stage interpretation of the pilot episode of Columbo. Well, not enough to think of it, anyway.

So what happens when you're known through your 20's as The Face Man? A cool headed van-driving fuck machine, jumping and diving almost unscathed from explosions and bedrooms? What happens when America tells you that you're the hottest shit available for the majority of the 1980's? What happens to a guy who "met Mr T back in '83... No, wait... it was '82"?

You apparently read the Daily Mail, moan about the treatment of Victoria Beckham in the press, whinge about dog shit on Blackpool prom and praise David Cameron. Maybe mistake the British political system for a presidential one and punctuate your point with the phrase "NEXT QUESTION!" You get pissed at me bringing up that Dave Egger's paragraph about Mr T cutting down those trees, deny it, then re-tell it almost word for word, complete with added phone call: "So Mr T, he calls me and he's giggling. Mr T, man! He's a giggler!"

Thoroughly psyched on being an audience to Mr Benedict in the theatre bar. Particularly enjoyed one employee's assumption that Dirk would give a shit about what he had to say:

"My dad owns a block of flats which I actually live in and look after for him..."

Later on, the same employee (who was the kind of guy who probably equates his theories on the final series of Lost to The Big Bang, closes his eyes as he explains) muttered in passing, "Finally met my childhood hero... That's one the perks of working in show business."

Well, congratulations. Your childhood hero hates you.