The sequel

Let joy be unconfined. Sound the celebratory sirens. Wave the happy flags. Jump up and down. Place your hands in the air. Indeed. Like you just don't care.

Why the happiness? The back pain from last week appears to have subsided. It has abated. It has gone away, eased. Buggered off, even.

Which is just as well, as the new raft of injuries I picked up at the weekend just wouldn't have played well if Mr Sciatica was still at home.

The weekend was not conventional. At one point I was hanging out of a van, aiming a 9mm semi-automatic pistol at people. Hard though it may be to believe, this is not typical behaviour for me.

Well, there was that time in '98, but a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.

I was helping out a friend, Chris, with his latest film project. He does these about once a year - writing, directing and doing a bit of acting. And he gets dozens of people to help out, too.

This year's film is a mash up between RoboCop, Goodfellas, Snatch and The Fly. and I play an evil henchman. Never having henched before I was interested to see what was involved. Sunday's shoot involved the bad guys storming a compound, shooting lots of people and springing their boss from the cops.

A Toyota HiAce van - apparently the singular choice for the criminal underclasses - was driven by Chris (wearing a wig because he actually has another role in the film). Busily henching was yours truly, skulking in the back of the van with the sliding side door open, plus Jamie in the passenger seat. Jamie has spiked pink hair and black lipstick. We're all tooled up with fake guns but it's Jamie who does so much better than anyone else. She scares me, anyway.

Take 1: the van screeches onto the set, side door open, I'm shooting from the opening and there is plenty of fruity language, as directed. You could have had 'Ride of the Valkyries' playing. Until Chris stood on the brakes. The van stopped. Chris and Jamie, bracing themselves, stopped. The open side door kept moving. As did I. Just before the door slammed shut, the camera picked me up, my forward momentum only being slowed by my right knee on the van's floor before being finally halted, courtesy of my shoulder getting personal with the van's bulkhead.

There was more fruity language, although unplanned this time.

Chris leaned over from the driving seat to inspect the human wreckage. "Sorry mate, should have warned you. Think we'll have the door closed for the next take, think you can open it and leap out instead?"

Leap? Leap?

Take 2: as planned, we make it into the compound. "Eat lead, muddyfunsters!" we scream as the doors open. I then manage to shoot the actor playing my boss in the head. That wasn't in the script.

"Cut!"

Take 3: everything comes together. I leap out and take out several cops. I then notice that my knee is smarting ever so slightly. I'm wincing when I move my arm, too. It's not a good look for a henchman, to be honest, however I manage to put down the final policeman with the odd punch or two. I must be acting, I'm a confirmed pacifist. Plus, he's about 6" taller than me and has clearly seen the inside of a gym at some point in the last 15 years. Back into the van and off we go.

"Cut! That's a wrap, thank you everyone."

When I got home I checked and saw that my right knee looked like Tasmania on Google Earth. Not a good look. Well, not for a knee, anyway. My shoulder was really starting to join in the fun whenever I twisted or picked anything up. Or just moved around. Then my left knee and ankle were making themselves noticed, too. To add to the mix I seemed to be suffering from sunburn.

I think I've slightly dislocated my shoulder. Is that possible, or is shoulder dislocation an absolute, binary, all-or-nothing sort of thing?

You know, I can't help thinking that Steven Segal doesn't have these problems.