Questions for Chris Evans? Start here

I am pleased to say that I have been able to hire, at enormous expense, the services of Chris Evans in writing today's column. Chris Evans is currently unemployed, so we feel that both sides will gain from this arrangement.

Today Mr Evans has agreed to kick off by answering some of the questions sent in by readers about showbiz and the media.

All yours, Chris, and thanks for agreeing to rescue this column!

Dear Chris Evans,

I wonder if you can help me, in the light of your recent experiences?

I am at present Prime Minister of your country and under the rules of my contract I have to resign in a few months' time and reapply for the job. I would like to get the job again, not particularly because I enjoy doing it, but because it is getting a bit late for me in life to get another decent job and this is the only thing I do well, if I could be said to be doing it well, and I certainly think I am.

However, if I fail to get the job I would then be appointed Leader of the Opposition, but there is a very real danger that my supporters would come to see me as a bad luck charm and turf me out on my ears. Even worse, they might turf me upstairs into the House of Lords as a peer, only for the new Labour prime minister to abolish the House of Lords and me with it! Well, obviously it would be pretty humiliating for me to have to get shot in the back by the Tories - and the Tories are pretty good at getting rid of leaders when they are past their has-been date, witness la Thatcher and Nicholas Scott etc - and as you are an expert in being hired and fired, I wonder what advice you might give me? If I fail to retain my job as PM, should I go before I am pushed, as you did? Should I stay on as Tory leader, but ask for Fridays off? Can you help?

Chris Evans writes: No. Piss off. Next please.

Dear Chris Evans,

I would welcome your advice on a long-term contract I once ill-advisedly entered into and now cannot get out of. The thing is, my name is Ted Hughes (yes, I have a Welsh surname like you, though no Welsh accent - again like you) and being something of a brilliant poet I landed a job as Poet Laureate, a job which entails writing a set of verses on notable royal occasions. At the time I thought it would be a doddle to turn out the occasional bit of doggerel every time the Queen Mum lasted another 10 years, but it has turned out to be a real grind. I ran out of ideas years ago and still I have to go on doing it. It's not as if the money is very good - I get 40 gold sovereigns a year and a butt of malmsey, and my agent takes 10 per cent of that, which doesn't leave much.

At the moment I am working on a short poem about the phasing out of the Royal Yacht `Britannia', welcoming the new royal yacht which the Government has announced, but now I have learnt that the Labour Party may refuse to build a new one if elected, which is going to make my poem look pretty stupid. My feeling now is that I should jack the job in, even if I have to buy myself out. What do you think I should do?

Chris Evans writes: Get stuffed. Next!

Dear Chris Evans,

I wonder if you can help me?

My name is Peter Stringfellow, and I run the most successful club in the history of the world. Twenty years ago I was unknown. Now I run the most successful club in the history of the world. This proves several things, including that it is quite possible for a young fellow like me to come from nothing with a stupid name like Stringfellow and end up running the most successful club in the world.

There are several perks to the job, including pulling lots of lovely birds, but one of the oddest perks is getting on TV - I mean, I am invited on to chat shows, and quiz shows such as `Have I Got News for You?' and really quite classy stuff like that, where you are expected to make jokes and offer opinions, and stuff like that etc. The only thing is, I don't really have many opinions or make jokes, so I don't really have much to talk about. Except running the most successful club in the world, which is all I know about. So I refer to that a lot. But I am still puzzled as to why people ask me on radio or TV. What's your suggestion?

Chris Evans writes: Bugger off. Which is exactly what I'm going to do. If I had known that writing a column for a Monday paper meant working on Sunday morning, I'd never have taken this job. Never again!

The charismatic but unpredictable Chris Evans will be back again soon. Or not, as the case may be.