LAST Wednesday I spent the whole day carrying a coffin fall of potatoes around clones. They weren't friends of mine the spuds. In fact I didn't know them at all. So why the long face and the bruised shoulder?

Well, there is an explanation. I'm playing a small part in Neil Jordan's latest movie, The Butcher Boy, which is being shot in the Co Monaghan town. Clones itself has been transformed into a 1960s town for the shoot. That took about five minutes. Removing Metallica T-shirts from willing extras is a relatively simple task, although one lad had to go to hospital to have his removed by a surgeon.

The film is, of course, based on Patrick McCabe's extraordinary book of the same name. It's one of my favourite books of all time and that, more than anything else, is the reason why I'm delighted to be involved. Well, it's certainly not for the fun or the glamour.

The truth is I've never been so bored in my life. I know, I know, it's an unforgivable complaint. The cast and crew are all very pleasant, I'm being paid well, put up in a hotel and pampered like a sick baby. It sounds ideal. So does prison, depending on which brochure you read.

The problem is, in a word, waiting. Waiting endlessly for something to happen. Standing around in a powdered wig and tights just for fun, wondering whether they'll get to my scene today, this week, this year, ever?

Think of the longest queue in the world, the queue for Wagon Wheels in a Moscow supermarket, for example. Now, imagine you are seven years old and at the back of this queue. When you get to the front with your long grey beard and obsolete money, they're out of Wagon Wheels. That's what it's like working on a film.

Apart from the interminable funeral scene, during which the town sank to below sea level under the weight of hundreds of shuffling mourners, I've had absolutely nothing to do. I've been stuck in a hotel 40 minutes away.

I'M not staying in Clones. They've put me up in a surreal construction called the Slieve Russell Hotel, near Belturbet. This town is definitely one of the wettest places on Earth on the Erne, surrounded by lakes and rain drenched fields. It's often referred to as the Venice of the north east. What it lacks in gondolas, it more than makes up for in Emerald Star eight berths cruisers.

To describe the hotel as an eyesore is to underestimate the effect. It is a 150 room migraine. This is a place there reality and unreality meet. It's a toy hotel, conceived and built by a set designer whose favourite film was Gone With The Wind.

In my line of work, I end up staying in all sorts of accommodation, from the luxury hotel to the cardboard box. But I'm a modest man, if somebody who describes himself as modest can be such. The best place I ever stayed in was a B & B in Der, run by a dead ringer for Norman Bates. He waited up until I got in at about four in the morning, showed me to my room, closed the curtains, removed the hot water bottle from the bed and then he actually tucked me in. It may seem weird but, it's true. And be wasn't flirting with me or going out of his way. This was the normal service.

Unfortunately, there is no such attention to detail on this cruise shipin a field I find myself on.

MY schedule appears. It seems I have several days off and nowhere I begin to panic and tug gently at my hair. Fortunately there is a leisure centre attached to the hotel and the facilities are excellent.

On my first day off, I swim six lengths of the pool, run in and out of the steam room and sauna about times, have numerous cold showers and loll about in the jacuzzi for ages before collapsing in a heap, exhausted and dehydrated. Sadly, the novelty soon wears off.

On my next day off, to swim one length of the pool, stay in the sauna for five minutes and fall asleep in the Jacuzzi. On my third day off, I splash water on my face up in the room.

I really don't see the point of a sauna. You go in, you get hot and you sweat a lot. Jump on a crowded bus and you can achieve the same effect. It's just another leisure fad. They tell you that it's therapeutic and relaxing. Supposedly, after a few minutes in the sauna, you sweat out all the impurities in your body. Well, I've a pair of kidneys and the remains of a liver to do that job. And what's more, my idea of relaxation is not talking to a naked, middle aged farmer about how hot he is.

Yes, I know it's popular in Sweden. That's because they are colder than we are and like being somewhere hot for a while. It's quite simple. Also, I think you'll find that alcohol is twice as expensive in Sweden as it is here. By sweating profusely in a sauna, the average Swede greatly increases the proportion of alcohol to water in his body and doesn't have to buy as much drink.

I'll tell you what I do need, though, a mental sauna, something to purify my mind of the lewd thoughts and prejudice and cynicism poisoning me in my idleness. A video of Mary Poppins or something.

I still don't fully appreciate the difference between the sauna and the steam room. All I do know is that people talk more in the steam room. In fact I would say the steam is generated from the amount of bullshit deposited within. I overheard an American gentleman explaining to his son the principle of the steam room.

The steam opens your spores."

His spores! The poor kid. I could see him in years to come covered in tiny plants. Are you coming out to play, Brad?" "No I can't. Dad has entered me in another exhibition."

In fairness, the jacuzzi isn't bad. Once you're in, you can stay for hours. Only, I happened to be wearing inflatable logs and there was nothing I could do to prevent the air bubbles from being trapped inside them. Before long I was floating above the pool. The lifeguards ignored me. They were more concerned with forcing a bald man to wear a swimming cap than with a resident pinned to the ceiling. Eventually I managed to burst my logs with the safety pin attached to my locker key and belly flopped into the pool.

That was the last straw. No more leisure centres for me. No loss. You exert yourself vigorously for a couple of hours to feel good for a couple of minutes. And then you remember who you really are and spend the whole night in the bar undoing all the good work. And then you go to bed and drunkenly pray for a call the next day.