Hugh Jackman stars with fake elephant in Barnum flick The Greatest Showman

PT Barnum
Drawing by Douglas McPherson

Well, the Ringling Brothers dropped the elephants - and we know what happened next - so perhaps its unsurprising that you'll have to make do with GCI pachyderms when The Greatest Showman, a musical biopic of circus founder PT Barnum rides into cinemas this Christmas.

Talk about movie 'spoilers', I have to say I lost some enthusiasm for the film when its star, Hugh Jackman, was snapped looking completely ridiculous astride a mechanical bull on the back of a truck during filming in Manhattan... the elephant he's supposed to be riding being added later by computer trickery.

Barnum himself would probably approve. The showman was known for his far-fetched publicity stunts such as presenting a white elephant... courtesy of a bucket of whitewash. As one of his competitors once said of him, "There's a sucker born every minute!"

Douglas McPherson met
only real elephants, not CGI ones,
in the research for
Circus Mania!

In the meantime, click here to read all about Barnum and his real-life elephant Jumbo - the world's most famous elephant - in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed of Running Away With The Circus.

What does it mean when you dream you're a clown?

I had a funny dream last night. I dreamt I was a clown doing a cookery routine with an Invisible Shelf. I kept putting things like the kettle on the Invisible Shelf and, because there wasn't a shelf there, they kept clattering to the floor and bashing me on the foot. At the end of the routine I had a tray with a plate of salmon sandwiches and a cup of tea. I put the tray on the Invisible Shelf and a pair of hands came through the wall and held it. The hands were wearing orange gloves, the same colour as the wall, so the audience couldn't see them. After the crowd applauded, I left the tray on the Invisible Shelf, drank the tea and passed around the sandwiches to show they were real.

Douglas McPherson's review remembered... 20 years on!

Not circus, but it was nice to open the new issue of Country Music People and see my name in the above paragraph by BBC broadcaster and broadsheet writer Spencer Leigh.

It's gratifying to know that something as ephemeral as a review can stick in someone's memory twenty years on.

And if my reviews are that memorable, think of the impression my books must make!