Help you, chuck?
Well, I don't know. I don't know as if you can help me.
Have you got any get well cards?
Dozens, we've got dozens. Dozens, we've got.
Oh, that's all very high and dandy, but have you got one?
You see, it's me daughter's 21st, a week Friday.
Oh, well you want a birthday card then, pet.
Oh, I wish it were that simple, I do.
No, it's just… Well, let me explain.
My wife… Well, she's me second wife, you understand?
My first wife drowned in a mixed salad in 1978.
My second wife is a younger lady.
-Like myself? -Like yourself.
Yes, very like yourself.
Slightly heavier beard-line, though.
I've got a photo somewhere.
Oh, lovely.
Yes, but it's of the Bolton Wanderers reserves playing away at Blackburn,
so it's of no use.
My second wife, you see, she's a difficult woman, very jealous.
She doesn't like to see younger ladies around.
It reminds her that she's getting on herself, you see?
And as I say, it's me daughter's 21st, Friday week.
So, that'll be her stepdaughter?
-Her stepdaughter, that's right, yes. -Yes, yes, yes.
Well, you see, it'll get her all in a bother and remind her how old she's getting.
Oh, well, it's never easy being a stepmother, is it?
Well, that's right, you see, so she'll have a spasm, she'll have a jealous spasm.
-A spasm? -A spasm, she'll have one of her spasms.
They can be nasty, them spasms, yes.
Well, that's right, you see, that's why I'd like a get well card, good and ready.
Well, you know, we got one here.
It's got a nice printed message.
“Sorry about the varicose veins, get well soon.”
Oh, yes, it's grand that, it's lovely, but I'm not sure as it's appropriate.
Do they all have specific messages?
Well, they do nowadays, yes. It's the acid rain, I think.
Now, let's see. Hold up, chucker-pet. Oh no, this is more like.
“Sorry to hear your teeth fell out in the Arndale Centre.
“All my love, Thomas.” Hmm?
My, that is specific, isn't it?
It is specific, doll, that's the charm.
I see, I do see, but it's still not quite right. Have you got anything else?
Well, now then, how about a nice printed poem?
“I'm right sorry to learn ya Succumbed to another nasty hernia
“You mustn't lift what you cannot carry All the best, your grandson, Harry”
I'll take that on the off-chance.
What off-chance, duck?
Well, on the off-chance that I change my name from Fred to Harry,
and me grandmother comes back to life and has another nasty hernia.
-I mean, you never know. -Well, just as well to make sure, isn't it?
But we must have something here that meets your case, petty-love.
Ah, now, look, here we go.
“Where are your youthful years? Your stepdaughter has 'em.
“That's why you had such a dreadful spasm.
“Hope you recover very quick. Your loving husband, Frederick.”
That's what you're after.
Oh, what a pity. Oh, what a shame.
I'm Alfred, you see, not Frederick.
Oh, that is a shame, yes.
-Oh, well, I'll best forget it. -Well, I'll tell you what, in that case.
Best take one of these from me then.
Oh, hello, what's this?
“Poor old Alfred, life is hard.
“You tried to buy a get well card.
“There wasn't one to meet your case.
“Ever so sorry, much love, Trace.”
-That's me. -Oh, bless you, chuck.
Well, it's the least I could do, dove pot.
Hello, I'm Tony Inchpractice.
Welcome to Photocopying My Genitals With…
Tonight, I shall be photocopying my genitals with Sir Alan Beaverby,
one time Labour Employment Secretary,
now an active member of the International Orphans Trust.
Good evening, Sir Alan. Thanks for coming on the show.
Good evening, Tony. Nice of you to have me on.
Right, well, Sir Alan, the equipment is ready.
-So, shall I go first? -Yes, after you, Tony.
Right.
Now, Sir Alan,
you recently retired from politics after a quarter of a century in the House of Commons.
Was that a particularly sad time for you?
Well, naturally. One makes a great many friends in politics.
It was a great pity to have to leave them behind, as it were.
Right, right.
Now, would you mind pressing the buttons for me?
No, not at all. How many copies do we usually have?
Well, one for each of us and one for luck.
Fine, yeah, that's fine, yes.
Right.
Now, Sir Alan, in the late '60s you suffered a particularly harrowing time,
when it was suggested that you were involved in the Dobro property scandal.
Were you at all tempted to leave politics then?
Well, naturally I was, yes.
But my wife was adamant that I should stay on and so I did.
Right, and…
Do you still keep in touch with the political scene now?
Oh, yes, I'm still very active in my constituency
and I like to drop into the House of Commons visitors' gallery whenever I can.
Right, right. Well, Sir Alan, your turn.
Right.
Would it be all right if I did something slightly different here?
I don't see why not.
It's just I'd be more interested in photocopying my bottom.
I don't know if that's all right.
I see no reason why you shouldn't do that. Can we do that?
Yes, yes, we can do that.
Would you like me to hold anything?
No, no.
I'll just hop on here, if that's all right.
Right you are, then.
So…
Three copies?
Again, you know, I don't want to go bucking the system,
and making a nuisance of myself,
but would it be all right if we had 100 copies?
A hundred? Wow.
Well, it's just, you know, I get a lot of requests to do things for charity, you know,
-for auctions and so on. -Yes.
-Be nice to have something to give them. -I quite understand.
So, Sir Alan, enjoying retirement?
Oh, enormously, enormously.
Good night.
My only criticism of David Icke is that he doesn't go far enough.
Well, I…
I had a sort of agreement with my father.
He promised me that if I didn't smoke before I was 21,
he'd make me Governor General of Canada.
Oh, believe me, God is big enough and strong enough to take a bit of blasphemy,
a bit of swearing.
What he really can't stand is the Daily Mail.
Now, there's…
There's a lot of crap talked about pit bull terriers.
But, you know, they're great dogs, absolutely great dogs.
You know…
I mean, Tyson here, he's absolutely,
he's a great dog and he wouldn't hurt anyone…
Jacobson, get your ass in here, right now.
Ten-hut!
Sir.
Jacobson, what the hell am I gonna do with your ass?
With my ass, sir?
Can you think of one goddamn reason
why I shouldn't kick your ass all the way from here to New Mexico?
-Well, sir, if this concerns… -You know what the hell it concerns, Jacobson.
It concerns your ass.
-What does it concern? -My ass, sir.
Do you recall what it was I said to you the last time you were in this here office?
Well, sir, you told me to move my ass,
and to haul my ass, and not to sit on my ass,
because if I did, you would personally rearrange my ass.
Wrong, Jacobson.
I was not gonna rearrange your ass,
I was gonna boil your ass in a bag and have that ass for breakfast.
Have the ass for breakfast.
Read the sign on my desk, boy.
“The buck stops at my ass.”
See, that's why I got this here star on my shoulder and you don't.
'Cause my ass is on the line.
-The bottom-line? -The bottom-line.
I understand, sir.
Well, I'm glad you got your ass straight on that, Jacobson.
Now,
I got me a problem.
A problem, sir?
Seems like some goddamn college boy on the fifth floor wants a piece of my ass.
-Your ass, sir? -You bet your ass, my ass.
-Sir… -Mmm-hmm?
How does my ass fit into all of this?
It's very simple, Jacobson.
You are aware that you ass is mine?
-It is, sir? -Oh, yes, sir.
Your ass is mine, mister.
The day you joined this man's army, you signed your ass over to me.
-Oh, I get it, sir. -Oh, you do?
This guy wants a piece of your ass,
so you're thinking that, being as my ass is yours,
maybe you could give him a piece of my ass as a way of saving your ass.
-Jacobson. -Sir?
Shut your ass.
Nobody likes a smart aleck.
Now, you got your ass with you?
Right here, sir.
Sir, with respect, don't jerk my ass around.
Hmm.
Nice ass.
Well, with me to discuss that scene
from Scorsese's new release, From Here to Just Over There,
is the critic, critic and critic, Ray Daugh.
Now, Ray, you've written countless, almost worthless books
on the iconography of the bottom in American films.
In what context could we approach this piece?
Not really, no.
I think that we already knew that the ass had come to mean…
By ass you mean bottom?
That's right, you'll have to forgive me for lapsing into jargon, there.
By jargon you mean a series of specialist phrases, an argot if you will,
to describe the particular area of criticism?
Hmm, um…
In my last book, what I…
A book being, well, what?
A work of thought or prose bound together between hard or soft covers
and distributed by means of a bookshop.
Broadly.
In my last book, which was called Backside Story: The History of the American Bottom,
I devoted an entire chapter to what I…
Chapter…
A subdivision in the book, of which there may be 10, 12, 15 or so,
creating blocks of writing?
Partly, yes.
I devoted an entire chapter to the phrase, “My ass is on the line.”
-The line being… -Oh, I think we all know what a line is.
Yes, a line in this sense being the vestigial notion of the frontier.
To put his bottom on the frontier, or hers,
is still very much the goal of the modern American.
Hmm, and by this you mean an absolutely infuriating gesture
guaranteed to put people's backs up in quite a major way.
-I hope so. -Hmm.
Well, sadly the clock has…
The clock? The large, round timepiece,
a device that is used for keeping check on the register of hours as they pass.
…has beaten us once again…
It's flagellated us, it's whipped us, it's lashed us for a further time.
So, thank you…
I'm grateful, I'm beholden to you, ta, cheers, mate.
-Ray… -Shaft or beam of light,
or it's a flat fish, in the sense of a manta ray or a stingray.
-Very much… -A huge amount, a great deal, vast quantity.
-Pat. -Small slab of butter, or knob.
The atmosphere outside Bristol Crown Court was tense this afternoon as the defendants…
-Oh, sorry, sorry. What?
-Better just let these people through. -What people?
Oh, they've gone the other way. Sorry, I thought they were coming this way.
Ready whenever you are. -Right.
The atmosphere outside Bristol Crown Court was tense this afternoon as the…
Oh, damn, sorry.
What? -Sorry.
Sorry, I said Plymouth.
No, you didn't.
You said Bristol.
Okay, right, let's just go ahead and do this, all right? Okay.
Jesus Christ! -Right, okay.
The atmosphere outside Bristol Crown Court was tense this afternoon…
Sorry, would you mind, just…
Sorry, there's some kid staring at me.
Thanks very much, that's great.
Right, okay, right, this is it, here we go.
The atmosphere outside Bristol Crown Court was tense this afternoon…
Oh, I don't believe it.
What is it now?
Aeroplane.
What?
-Can't you hear it? -No!
Well, isn't it…
The atmosphere outside Bristol Crown…
Actually, you know, I've just had a thought.
Wouldn't it be better if we filmed it around the corner?
Then, when they come out…
Do this now or I will kill you.
-What? -I will kill you unless you do this now!
Now, come on, no, no, no, all right, okay, okay, I'll do it, I'll do it.
The atmosphere outside Bristol Crown Court was tense this…
-Oh, my God! -What?
-Look, there they are, coming out of that door. -Where?
There, there, there!
God save our gracious Queen,
long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen.
Send her victorious, happy and glorious.
Long to reign over us, God save the Queen.
Now, some of the younger people watching me here on this programme tonight
might think that that there is something amusing or ridiculous
in the words of that grand old hymn,
our own great British national anthem.
I happen to find such people sick, disgusting, degraded,
and enormously limp-making in a sexual sense.
There is nothing arousing at all
about people who can mock and sneer at simple love of country,
nothing to make the loins twitch and quiver
about the kind of hooligan who can despoil our flag.
The sort of cynical, atheistical, unpatriotic yoboiks,
who hold nothing sacred,
have no power at all to bring me to a proud twitching stand.
You're gonna have to do something a little bit more
than repeat a few cheap jibes about the land I love,
if you want me to thicken and engorge with mounting excitement.
In the old days, as soon as the national anthem was heard
the whole nation would rise stiffly to attention.
Am I the only one left?
Good night.
Yes, I've never actually owned a piano.
But, I used to have a photograph of one on my bedroom wall.
But then the neighbours complained, so it had to go.
Apparently, there's a Frenchman from Provence who's written a bestseller in France
called Une Année en Essex, A Year in Essex.
I'm just terrified it's going to spoil Essex, that's all.
All right then, ask me what my favourite food is.
Lancashire hot pot.
Why?
Lancashire hot pot, you, in the name of the law.
Irish stew, damn.
Irish stew.
Right, so…
Peter, would you like to start?
My name is Peter Bales and I'm an alcoholic.
I last had a drink two years, seven weeks and three days ago.
Well done, Peter. Well done, well done.
My name is William Gerard.
I'm an alcoholic.
I haven't drunk for five months and six days.
Well done, Bill, well done.
My name is Andrea McLain and I'm an alcoholic.
And I last had a drink two days ago.
I'm sorry, I…
That's all right, Andrea, we can talk about that later, that's no problem.
Thanks, thanks.
Now, would our new member like to speak?
Erm…
Well, I know it can be hard,
but everyone here at AA will tell you that the first thing to do is to face your problem,
to give it a name.
Right, I see that, yes.
Right, if you can't stand up and say it, we can't help you.
I know.
I'm sure that everyone here can confirm that AA is about confidence and sharing, okay?
-Yes. Yeah, very much so.
Right.
My name's Trevor Wareham,
and basically my problem is that the starter motor gets stuck
especially in cold weather.
Have you tried putting it in first gear and rocking it backwards and forwards?
-Yes, I've tried that, I've tried. You've tried that, right.
Well, we'll send someone around as soon as possible.
Thank you.
-Have a drink while you're waiting. -Oh, thank you.
Darling, could you pass the marmalade?
What?
The marmalade, could you pass it?
You want me to arse the parlour maid?
No, dear…
There's a pot of marmalade at your elbow. Could you pass it?
A potty marinade in my dildo?
Have you run mad, woman?
Darling, I want you to pass the marmalade.
You want me to fart the hit parade?
Pass the marmalade!
Smile at Roy Hattersley?
You want me to smile at Roy Hattersley?
Doesn't sound anything like “pass the marmalade.”
Roy Hattersley hasn't found anyone to pass the marmalade?
You're babbling, woman.
No dear, I want you to pass the marmalade.
Roy Hattersley wants me to pass the marmalade?
No, I do, darling!
Eiderdown?
Roy Hattersley wants me to pass him an eiderdown?
If you'll just listen.
Expecting people to pass him eiderdowns as if he were someone special.
No one's ever passed me an eiderdown.
I want you to pass the marmalade!
No, I will not go to bed with Les Dennis.
Not at any price! You must be off your chop.
“The Substantial Tide's Indebt smell by more quoits”?
No dear, “The Financial Times Index fell by four points.”
Oh. Pass the marmalade, will you?
You want mad? I'll show you mad, hang on.
There.
Jason, the Blue Peter's first cat.
Mad as a nail he was.
BBC kept it hushed up for years but it was an open secret.
Thought he was a Siamese.
Sad, really, but bonkers.
♫ Too long, Johnny
♫ Too long, it's way too long
♫ Too long, Johnny
♫ Too long, it's way too long
♫ Make it shorter, Johnny
♫ It's been too long for way too long
♫ That's a perfect length now, Johnny
♫ It just may be a bit too wide
♫ Don't make it any shorter, Johnny
♫ It just may be a bit too wide
♫ Take a little off the width, Johnny
♫ And we got ourselves a perfect size
♫ Oh, now that's too much, Johnny
♫ Gone and made it all too thin
♫ The length is perfect, Johnny
♫ You just went and made it all too thin
♫ Looks like I'll have to throw it away, Johnny
♫ Start all over again ♫
Hello.
I'm Gelliant Gutfright,
your host on The Seventh Dimension.
Tonight's story is called “The Red Hat of Patferrick”.
But I must add a warning.
The BBC do not advice that you watch the unfolding of this dark tale
if you are, in any way, of an erotic disposition.
Office life.
It seems so ordinary, doesn't it? So mundane.
What is the worst that could happen in an ordinary publisher's office?
Suzy loses the Tipp-Ex, Lucy forgets to fax that contract to Stuttgart,
the wrong package is DHLed to San Francisco.
Nothing sinister…
in an ordinary publisher's office, is there?
Is there?
Or is there?
Jonathan Hadey. A nice guy.
One of the world's good scouts.
Governor of his local primary school, Rotarian,
Chief High Coven Priest of the Amersham and District's Satanic Abuse Club.
An ordinary, decent British citizen.
Every day is much like the day before for publisher, Jonathan Hadey.
Except for today.
Except for April, the 29th of August.
Oh, yes.
Except for today.
Louise is out of the office, flirting with Ted from marketing
while she makes Jonathan's mid-morning cup of coffee.
He might as well answer the telephone himself,
for once.
-Hello? -I want to speak to Jonathan Hadey.
Hadey, here.
You have the Red Hat of Patferrick.
-The what? -Don't play games, Mr Hadey.
You have just seven hours to return it to its rightful owners.
Shall I put you through to marketing?
Sorry I took my time, Mr Hadey, but Ted from marketing was licking my breasts.
-Who was that? -Oh, a wrong number probably.
Except they asked for me. Something about a hat.
-A hat? -Yes, the hat from Portmerrick or something.
Not Patferrick?
Yes! That's it. The hat of Patferrick.
-Did they say what colour? -The red hat, I think they said.
Oh, no! Not red! Please God, not red. No, no, no, no!
Oh, my God, Louise!
Hadey speaking.
Police?
Yes, Caroline Hadey is my wife.
What kind of accident?
Oh, my God! Squashed?
In the name of heaven, what by?
A hat? What kind of hat?
A sort of marooney, sort of burgundy-ish crimson.
Damn it, man, you mean red. If it's red, say so. A red hat…
From the dust on the brim,
it could only come from one place, you say?
Thank you, Inspector, but I think I know already.
It's Sergeant, actually.
Patferrick.
The Red Hat of Patferrick.
Wake up, Mr Hadey. It's your coffee.
What! The hat… The pat… The redferrick of hat pat…
Dreaming again, Mr Hadey? I don't know.
Ha! But it was all so, so real.
Oh, what's the matter with me? I think I need a holiday.
Oh! There's a man on his way up to see you.
Said he's bringing the red hat of somewhere or other.
No! It can't be! It's happening just as…
-The red hat of where? Speak, girl. -Well, Pat-somewhere or other, I think he said.
No, no, no, no!
The Red Hat of Patferrick! Here in Amersham.
No!
Something wrong, my dear?
Mr Hadey, he just…
Twenty-three floors up and he just…
Oh!
God!
Well, in that case, I had better take the Red Hat of Patferrick elsewhere, hadn't I?
The red hat? That's why Mr Hadey jumped. What is it?
Oh, just the manuscript of a story, my dear.
A wholly improbable tale.
It concerns a young publisher who has a dream about a hat,
and when he awakes…
But it is nothing but fancy.
Could never really happen, could it?
Could it?
Or could it?
Perhaps, it could.
Or could it?
Good night.
Well, that's about it for this week.
That's right. Hard to believe that 30 minutes has just flown by…
Oh, do shut your neck.
So, unless we graze shoulders in the saloon lounge of real life,
-it's a good night from me. -And it's good night from me.
-And it's good night from me.
We're going to leave you with tonight's cocktail recipe.
It's called “A mug of Horlicks.”
For this, you'll need Horlicks, a camping stove,
some milk, a teaspoon and a mug.
Ha! Will I do?
No, Hugh, I meant mug in the sense of drinking vessel.
We'll also need an idiot to hit on the head with your teaspoon.
-Ha! Will I do? -Admirably.
Please, Mr Music, will you play.
-Soupy twist. -Soupy twist.