Yeah, man.
I like Nick's song.
So you know it.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
And welcome.
Welcome to The Man from Arnty.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, this, I'm afraid to tell you,
will be a clean and decent show.
A lot of people say that women are more prone to one-and-a-half children than men.
Now, I don't know if this is the case. I'd certainly like to.
But they call it the maternal instinct.
And I think that's the thing about this show,
is that it's a show that's not just about the mother,
but it's about the mother's instinct.
So they call it the maternal instinct.
Now, if this is true, which it may well be,
I think there is a very good practical reason for it.
And that reason is one word.
Contraception.
Because I don't know who it was that invented the various methods of contraception available,
but I as an a-guess, it was a man.
Because let us look at what is on the market for the two sexes.
Roll up, roll up, roll up, for Ben's comparative guide to contraception.
On the lady's side, we have three basic choices.
You can either have a small pill,
which may give you thrombosis and heart failure.
Lovely, lovely, lovely girls.
Or the lady in question may choose to favour a little rubber pudding basin,
which she spills with spermicidal napalm.
Oh, really gets you in the mood for a bonk that, doesn't it, girls?
You're thinking, blimey, if this kills six million sperms,
I don't know what it's doing to the inside of my fanny, but I don't like it.
Well, you'd have to think about it, wouldn't you?
Seriously, it's not exactly an aphrodisiac, is it, that little rubber pudding basin?
Every woman who ever had a cap always thought, it's not going to affect my sex life.
I'm going to put it in every night, whether we make love or not.
Oh, yeah. By the second night, you're going, oh, God, do we have to, don't we?
I don't want to put me cap in. Oh, all right, if you really want to.
Stay out there, you won't like it, in the bathroom.
11.30 at night, half drunk, one perno, too many, the bathroom spinning round your head.
You're trying to find your cap, you dig out the old pudding basin, there you are.
Trying to focus on it, fill it up with napalm.
Half a tube, you think, oh, God, I better put a whole tube in,
I don't want to get pregnant by him. There you go.
Filling it up, it's all there, sliming around.
Oh, it really turns you on, half drunk, you're trying to focus,
you forgot to take your knickers off, you can see.
You can see three gussets, you don't know which one they're wearing, you're not too sure.
Spinning round, leg up on the side of the bath, trying to steady yourself.
Oh, three minutes ago, you felt like making love now, you just want to be sick,
you think he's gone to sleep, he's gone to sleep in there, I'll bet you,
I'll tell you, I'm going to wake him up and make him do it, even if I have to put it in a splint.
There you go.
You think you've got it in position, one last squeeze of the muscles,
wallop, it's off across the bathroom floor.
There you are, middle of the night, have another faggot, it's gone behind the toilet.
Bang your head on the basin, rinse it out under the tap, fill it up again with napalm.
It's midnight by now, your head's spinning, fill it up.
Oh no, I've filled it with Colgate.
You're trying to work out whether fluoride has the same effect on sperm as it has on plaque.
There you go.
Oh God, why did I just brush my teeth with you?
Not sure, but you try.
There you go, leg up again, wrestling it up.
I've been there, I'm a bit of a new man, I've tried to be involved.
I've caught a few as they shoot across.
Oh yeah, Peter Shilton, me, I mean that's how they ought to train goalkeepers.
I mean, he'd give a whole new medium to the term capped for England, wouldn't he?
So you can either...
Ladies can either choose that, or alternatively their third choice is to have a small bit of barbed wire put up them.
Very nice indeed.
Now, that is what is available for the ladies.
What, as medical science in its magnificence come up with for the men?
All its magnificent subtlety, rubber joneys.
That's it, rubber joneys.
Yes, well that's true. Well what else?
That's it, that's all we've invented.
No question of decades of research into the hormonal balance of a man's body.
No, forget all that rubber joney works, doesn't it?
No question of sticking a small fish hook down the one eye, no?
Forget all that rubber joney.
And still, believe it or not, some men, instead of glorying in their good fortune, actually object.
They say, I don't want to wear a rubber joney.
I don't like them.
I don't like condoms. They ruin my sensitive experience.
I'm sensitive and I don't want to wear one because I love you, darling, and I want us to feel each other properly.
And I don't like rubber joneys because they're false and I'm sensitive.
And I don't want to wear it because it's false and I love you and I'm sensitive and I love you.
So go on, love, stick a bit of barbed wire in.
You meet the reality gap everywhere.
I quite often take the mick out of adverts and I recently watched an award ceremony for the best advert.
And the one that won was surreal.
I couldn't believe it.
The reality gap on film, it was set on a train.
Not the sort of train you and I know, but a train in heaven.
Oh, everyone's relaxed, spreading out, never mind a double seat.
They've all got four seats themselves.
They're playing chess, nodding off one bloke's shoes, turning into a pair of slippers.
And over it all is this lovely bluesy jazz track.
It goes, king of your shoes, singing the blues and get lazy.
I thought, what on earth are they advertising?
Turned out it was British Rail.
I couldn't believe it.
Have these people ever been on a Super Saver?
It's like the black hole of Calcutta with luggage racks.
I mean, if everybody kicked off their shoes on a Super Saver, we'd all suffocate.
Now let's face it, we aren't all stretching out.
No, no, we're not stretching because we're jammed in by that student
who's wedged in the gangway by his backpack.
He can't go forward.
He's like a stranded tortoise, isn't he?
We're not listening to get lazy.
We're listening to some dingbat of a British Rail guard
with a microphone technique of motorhead going,
ladies and gentlemen, don't forget to pick up your personal belongings,
which are those items which belong to you personally on a personal basis
before leaving your train by means of the exit,
which is a door for exiting and is clearly marked as such.
Ladies and gentlemen, I posit a guess that you'll get through the rest of your life
without friendly advice from British Rail.
Trains are actually an interesting part of the reality gap.
We love trains, despite the fact we allow our service to be run down.
We love them.
We've said a lot of adverts on beautiful trains.
There's one for tenants' low alcohol lager.
It's set in the buffet, not the sort of buffet you and I would recognise.
It's the buffet on the lazy train.
I mean, there's no vomit on the floor.
And they've actually got something behind the counter
besides a small square of fruitcake that's been laminated in plastic.
It's a beautiful buffet.
And there's a bloke sitting there.
He's drinking tenants' low alcohol lager.
He's a good-looking bloke.
And he's a yuppie, cos you notice they're upping the image of lager a bit.
They are.
They'll be drinking kestrel out of Cointreau glasses soon.
The Gold Blend couple will be having a sip before they fail to have it off yet again.
God, I wish those two had just do it and get it over with, haven't we?
I've heard a full play, but this is getting perverted.
Knock, knock, knock, eh?
Shall we have it off now?
Let's have another cup of coffee.
Oh, don't be so unimaginative, Mr Elton.
There's a great deal of fun to be had with a screw-top jar and a warm spoon.
Anyway, the bloke sat on the train drinking low alcohol lager.
Opposite him is a beautiful woman, right?
They don't know each other.
You've got the setter.
OK, so up the corridor staggers Farty, right?
Now, you'll recognise Farty cos he's you and me.
Yeah, we're the Farties.
We're not the male models, the beautiful girls.
We're not wearing the Levi 501s or if we were,
they still look like Woolworth jeans on us, eh?
Farties, we're the people who can't get out of a traffic jam
by driving their Vauxhall Nova through a building site.
That's us, the people who aren't opening a small pottery business
with the help of Barclays.
Ladies and gentlemen, that ad is completely beyond me.
I am, as I hope you know, no stranger to taking a mick,
but that ad is unskittable.
Actually, I'm opening my second kiln.
Yes.
I just talked to Barclays and the rest was easy.
Let's all try it, shall we?
There's millions of people watching this programme.
Let's all pop down to our local Barclays tomorrow and say,
hello, we'd all like to start up a small pottery business.
We were assured it would be easy.
They'd say, oh, sorry, you need a hundred grand start-up capital.
Didn't we make that clear?
All these bank heads going on about small businesses,
online vector services, all the rest.
All we want is banks that put on a few extra
staff at lunchtime and have pens on the end of the little chains.
You can usually...
You can normally recognise farty in an ad.
Normally a male farty, certainly, because he's wearing glasses.
O-T-He Flipping He.
It's funny, isn't it, the semiology of glasses
across the media gap, eh?
There's only two reasons for wearing glasses in adverts.
You are either a brilliant accountant or else an utter farty.
32 reasons.
Oh, there is a third reason, which is exclusively for women,
so that they can take them off and go...
LAUGHTER
That's it.
Only two reasons.
Anyway, you and me, farty, we're staggering up the corridor, right?
He's been to the buffet, he's got a couple of those Max Pats,
he's struggling back to his seat, he can't, he's thrown...
The door's going ka-chung, ka-chung in the side of his head,
he's throwing it everywhere.
He's got those two little stirry plastic rods in his mouth
and a couple of those tiny plastic buckets of UHT in his top pocket.
You know, those little buckets of milk, the ones with the foil top,
the one that's been spot welded down, you know?
So you break three fingernails trying to get it off
and when you do, the little spring inside it explodes all the milk
all over your trousers.
Those little cartons, they're great on it, they're called disposable.
Again, the reality gap.
They are not disposable, ladies and gentlemen.
They will come back to haunt you and future generations,
even if we burn them.
They contribute to the greenhouse effect.
And all, all for a thimbleful of stuff that tastes like wee-wee.
Hey, why can't we have a jug of real proper milk on the buffet counter?
A jug, a jug that we have some milk from, you put it back and you move away.
The woman from Barclays could make it on her second kill, couldn't she?
Anyway, so there's Farty, you and me, staggering up the corridor
with your two ecological time bombs in your pocket there,
throwing your coffee all over the place.
So, Farty spills a little bit of coffee on the beautiful woman, right?
You remember the beautiful woman and the tenant's like,
oh no, but I've completely lost the thread now, I don't know what you're talking about.
But the beautiful woman, right, spills her coffee on her,
and oh, faux-pire or what? You know, he's cleaning, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, oh God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Now, what is the reaction of the cool bloke drinking the LA
to this dreadful contra-ton which has just unveiled itself?
I will tell you, he takes off his shirt
and offers it to the woman to replace the stained blouse.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I have been whammed on trains.
I'll admit it, I've staggered up that corridor many a time
and off with 16 cans of McEwen under me arm and a Kit Kat to line me stomach.
It's true. But I have never been so out of my head
that I have felt the need to strip off in the buffet.
This man is drinking low alcohol lager.
I mean, what would he like with a sip of cooking cherry?
The old knob of the outwear, boiled beef and cats.
The woman...
The woman, God knows what she's been drinking,
but she actually, she cooperates, she takes off her blouse
and puts on his shirt.
Ladies and gentlemen, how drunk would you have to be?
I mean, a strange issue.
She doesn't even sniff the armpit.
You really would have to be out of it.
So why are we impressed by these two insane strip artists, right?
Why does the product lodge itself in our minds?
It's because they're good-looking.
They're good-looking, not like Farty, not like us.
No, our own sexuality, that's been twisted.
We're all wishing we were that good-looking, that confident.
I mean, you know, it takes most people all their courage to ask someone out,
but he just tricks his shirt off.
There you go, look at the body, love, do you want any of that, right?
It's true.
So you see, ladies and gentlemen, sex is a part of every advert.
Every advert has a little bit of sex in it.
Even the most innocent products, like chocolate.
I mean, come on, ladies and gentlemen,
what is that woman doing with that flake?
Now, I ask you.
I mean, we've got to be honest.
It's ridiculous not how people eat flakes, is it?
I mean, you don't consume your float, you know,
all sweaty in your negligee,
perched on a windowsill in a chateau in southern France
with an iguana asleep on your telephone.
I mean...
I wish she'd answer that phone, I really do.
Why does she answer the phone?
She's only got to pick it up, look, I'm going down on a flake, call back later.
LAUGHTER
No!
That's not why we eat them.
Image and reality, we eat our flakes on the top of a bus.
And we spend the whole time not enjoying the chocolate
but thinking, oh, my God, am I going to be able to get these flakes of chocolate off without...
Oh, no, I've stained my shirt! Oh, dear!
Always sex.
Sex in chocolate. I've never understood it.
They advertise chocolate phallically.
It's always a beautiful woman to be attained.
I mean, Mars bars, they even put the veins down the side.
Let's face it.
I tell you, there is a serious pervert working at Cadbury's
immortalising his tackling chocolate.
It's strange, isn't it?
Pretty the bloke that designed the curly whirly, eh?
LAUGHTER
I like the one where the lady makes the washing machine jealous
by saying, I'm going out with Tom for a curry.
Yeah, but, like, what's the relationship, right?
I mean, is she supposed to be having a thing with the Zanussi or what?
Oh, I think so.
I can get quite quivery sitting on mine when it's really shuddering.
MUSIC
MUSIC
Now, the first problem you will encounter is the door.
I was quite horrified by the irresponsible use of a door during the programme.
A small child might quite easily imitate Mr Elton, slam his head in it
and in his weakened state contract tuberculosis.
The problem with the door is, basically, you can't open it.
Now, the reason you can't open it is because it's wedged shut
with a big pile of letters, adverts for musical B-days,
hundreds of letters for someone with an obscure name who died in 1973.
What else can we find?
There's a dead cat there somewhere.
And, of course, the Thompsons directory.
But once you finally get in through the door, the first thing to set up,
the first thing you've got to get absolutely right, is, of course, the larder.
Now, always remember there are only two things in a bedside.
Marmite and ketchup.
OK, now let's start with the ketchup.
You'll need two ketchup bottles, OK?
A glass one, the conventional variety, and one of those squeezy ones.
Now, watch carefully. What you do is this.
You take the squeezy one and you just pop a little bit of the ketchup
all around, there you are, and run it down the side.
Very easy. Can't use too much.
Close it up and you've finished with the squeezy one.
Now, the second part of the ketchup operation, rather complex,
a little bit tricky, so do pay attention.
What you've got to do is look around for some hair,
probably left over by the last occupant, and you just very gently just...
Just there we go. There we are. OK.
The ketchup's ready. Now, the marmite is a very, very different thing.
What you'll need is a knife and some butter, OK?
Now, what you do is you take the top off the marmite
and then you just scoop some of the marmite out
and you put that in the butter and then, ironically,
you take a little bit of the butter and you put it in the marmite.
Can you see that? There you go.
Now, you still have to do this because marmite are planning
to put the little bits of butter in at the factory,
but until they do that, you'll just have to do it for yourself.
Now, don't forget that the butter must be rancid
and contain some form of repulsive microscopic life form.
Now, obviously, they're far too small to be picked up by the camera,
so here's a repulsive microscopic life form with slightly enlarged.
Now, a cosy, homey environment is terribly important
with your first place junior farties,
and simple little touches make all the difference, OK?
Really create your world.
Old snotty Kleenexes, for instance, they're terribly important.
They should be scattered around the bed and all around your abode.
They're awfully easy to make and well worth the effort,
so they set a room off beautifully.
What you need is a box of tissues and some flour and water solution, OK?
What you do is this, you take an ordinary Kleenex, any tissue will do,
you crunch it up into a little floret, little floret,
and then you just dribble a little of the solution into the...
and then you pop it on the table and leave it to dry.
You'll need 20 or 30 for a really good display area,
so obviously, here's some which we made earlier.
Just sprinkle them round the bed. There we are, round the bed.
A few round the table, but mainly round the bed.
There you go. Oh, good tip. If you've got a couple left over,
a good tip is to put them in the pockets of any pair of jeans
you're thinking of washing, OK?
Just pop them in there and you'll get a really nice dappled look
to the denim after you've been to the launderette, all right?
So, speaking of the launderette, terribly important for the junior farty,
I always think that a full stash of Kleenex washing is like having sex
with all of the Nolan sisters at once.
A beautiful possibility, but frankly, unlikely.
After all, within five seconds of moving in,
you'll have a steaming sack of steaming rancid socks
and absolute your mother had died.
Now, this basically, it's so...
It forces you to go to the Oxfam shop and buy more clothes.
Now, obviously, I don't have time to go to the Oxfam shop now,
so here's someone who went for us.
Anyway, the bed. The bed is terribly important.
Now, it's awfully important that the sheets are good and gritty, OK?
So, what you need is a couple of cupfuls of grit.
That's it. Just any grit will do.
We've used cat litter here, but any grit will do.
And just... There we are. All the way down.
Rub it round, and that's splendid.
There you are. That'll give you a really authentic, cosy feel.
Any gravel will do.
Now, if you've got... Oh, by the way, little tip.
If you've got any of that flour and water solution left,
well, just flick a little bit.
Just flick it. There we go. Flick a little bit.
That'll crisp up beautifully.
Now, back to the kitchen.
The fridge should contain very little. Very, very little.
Or perhaps just an old sausage, maybe.
Like this one. So green it looks like it's just popped out
of the trousers of the site manager at Sellafield.
Now...
Next to the fridge, you'll find...
Next to the fridge, you'll find the sink.
Now, the sink's very important because this is where you wash.
And this is what you wash with.
Um... Not a bar of soap,
more a label which once had soap behind it.
Now, also, you'll be washing your hair in the sink.
Washing your hair. Now, that's terribly important.
Hair in the plug is even more important than hair when you catch up.
Now, obviously, I don't have time to pull out all my hair
and put it in the plug hole now,
so here's someone who pulled all the hair out of the plug hole
and put it on his head.
Nice to see you. To see you. Nice.
Oh, no, the lights have gone out.
In your bedsit means, of course, another 50p in the meter.
Here we go. And then, shortly after that, another 50p.
And shortly after that, another 50p.
Now, obviously, ladies and gentlemen,
I don't have time to demonstrate a complete electricity rip-off now,
so you'll just have to wait till it's privatised.
So, if you are short of electricity,
you can always charge up just by walking across the nylon car.
Now, if you think living this way sounds a bit unpleasant and expensive,
here's some alternative accommodation where you'd pay the same poll tax.
And that is Bedsit Living.
Next week, housing policy for the 90s.
Motorways were in the news again this week.
They are building new ones, even though they realise
the present ones are entirely useless.
We've known that for years.
I mean, the only thing more useless than motorways
is the stuff they sell in motorway shops.
It's nothing you could possibly want.
I mean, be honest, has it ever happened to you?
You're driving up the motorway as happy as a lark
and suddenly you get this desperate craving
for a presentation tin of all-butter Scottish shortbread
with a picture of where it comes from.
Hurry, darling, hurry. I'm desperate.
I'm desperate.
Up the hard shoulder, screech into the service station,
handbrake on, run into the shop, barge past all the people in the queue.
Please, please, please, we're desperate.
Have you got a Staffordshire China teapot with a jar of plum jam inside it?
Yes, we have.
Thank God for that, you're a lifesaver.
Anyway, the government have announced their plans
to deal with traffic jam Britain.
They are going to alleviate congestion in our motorways
by adding an extra lane.
An extra lane on our congested motorways.
Now, I can say that this is insanity.
Not only that, but I can prove it is insanity.
But first, we need to take a look at wider green issues.
What's all this fashionable hoo-ha about turning green?
It happens to me most mornings.
Oh, come on, this whole environment stuff's just totally outright.
It's like famine, you know, it's just a fashion thing.
I mean, let's face it, hunger went out in 85 with live aid, OK?
We will never save the world until we develop foresight.
We put off till tomorrow what we must do today.
Save the forest tomorrow.
Stop using aerosols tomorrow.
Do the washing up tomorrow.
Exactly.
Why do we put off the washing up?
It's irrational, it's irrational, we know it'll only get worse.
Look, there is an optimum time to wash up a coffee cup.
That time is just after you've finished drinking out of it.
If you wash it then, it's easy.
All you have to do is give it a little rinse,
a tiny rinse and a little agitation with the finger.
Finger the rim and it's done.
Did he just say finger the rim?
He did have gone into police.
Two seconds and it's sparkling.
Lovely clean coffee cup.
Your mum comes round and says, nice clean mugs, Benji, pleased to see it.
Do we do that?
No, we don't just rinse it out when we should do, nah.
We put the mug in the sink next to the baked bean pan
that's been half full of water for three weeks.
Half full, you notice, so that you can clean the bottom half,
but you have to sandblast the rim.
We put the coffee cup next to the breakfast bowl
with the 16 cornflakes that have been spot welded down.
Unbelievable, the adhesive power of a dried cornflake.
I mean, you go through three pairs of marigolds
just trying to prise it off with your thumbnail.
Never mind super glue.
When you've got a really tough job, you need a really tough glue.
I recommend cornflakes.
Just mix them up in a milk solution.
When they're good and soggy, take one of the cornflakes
and place it on top of one of the surfaces waiting to be stuck.
Then push down the second surface and leave to dry.
You see that? Good and stuck.
Cornflakes are pieces. That's sauce it does.
So, when we finally come to wash that coffee mug,
instead of a little bit of fingery-wingery agitation...
Stop it.
You have to fish it out from under a six-inch slime
of congealed fat and post-scrapings.
Why don't I do it at the right time?
It's not just that it would be easier,
but there is also the mental anguish
that a sink full of washing up promotes.
It's always there haunting your life.
The grill pan poking out of the tepid water like a shark's fin.
And every morning I think, shall I bake it for breakfast?
Oh, cobblers, I haven't washed the grill pan.
Shall I wash the grill pan? Nah.
The washing up is always there haunting my soul,
proof of my inability to get my life together.
It sits in the sink like a malignant monster going,
I'm still here, you know, I'm still here.
You haven't done me yet, have you?
I'm still here. It's always there haunting my life.
If you're watching telly or reading the paper, it's there going,
I'm still here, you know.
If you've got the time with your mates, you have a good evening.
See you girls, see you lads, nice evening.
In through the door, ah, oh no, yes, I'm still here.
Nobody did me miraculously while you were out.
Why did I never change the world like I dreamt of as a kid?
Well, I had none of washing up, man, you know.
Why did it take them 30 years to storm the Berlin Wall?
Well, there was the dusting like the laundrette.
It was too much stuff to do.
My whole life is a cacophony of stuff to do.
It fills my every waking moment.
I'm in the morning, I'm trying to read my paper.
The whole kitchen is shouting at me, as I say.
The washing up is saying, I'm still here, I'm still here.
Across the kitchen, pinned to the notice board,
is the electricity bill.
It's been there a month.
You'd better pay me, Ben, you'd better pay me, they'll cut you off.
They don't warn you anymore, you'd better pay me, they'll just cut you off.
The noise of the lecky bill wakes up the broken cupboard door.
Fix me, fix me.
I only got one decent hinge.
Actually, that's the way they are actually fitted.
There you go, missus.
Beautifully fitted kitchen, and all the doors will start falling off tomorrow.
LAUGHTER
Fantastic.
Ladies and gentlemen, I must tell you at home,
all those people at home thinking, blimey, those people in the audience
have an half-half a life of a very bad job.
It took ten minutes to fix up that special thing.
It was still rubbish.
It sucked.
Stuff to do.
Stuff to do.
Our lives are full of stuff to do.
The fridge door, the fridge door is covered in stuff to do.
That's the only reason I have a fridge.
There's nothing in it.
Well, obviously there's the Sellafield sausage and all the rotting junk
in the drawer at the bottom, but basically my fridge door is there
as a receptacle for stuff to do.
Who invented those bits of magnetic plastic fruit?
What a bastard, eh?
Shall I pay the gas bill?
No, I'll stick it to the fridge door with a magnetic banana.
It's all there.
Stuff to do.
The letter from Granny.
Oh, it's rustling, the beautiful stuff that'll rustle away.
The letter from Granny, ringing your conscience,
stuck at the door.
It's been there for months.
Every time you see it, you're thinking, she'll die.
She'll die, then?
Before you reply, she'll die, the poor old girl.
It means so much to her, so little effort for you, you heartless git.
You never minded the postal orders when you were a kid, did you?
But can't be bothered to write to her now, can you?
Stuff to do all over the fridge.
Next to the letter from Granny, ringing my conscience,
is the 10B off the biscuits coupon.
I got it out of the back of the local paper three months ago.
I expire tomorrow.
What? Money means nothing to you then, huh?
No matter how great the glory, stuff to do is always lurking in one's mind.
That's one small step for me and one giant leap for me and so.
And when I get back, I'm going to wash the bloody sheets.
Try to imagine for a moment, ladies and gentlemen, human joy.
Not the vague, mundane feelings of all rightness which normally pass for joy,
but real human joy.
What is it in reality?
I posit a guess that it's love.
Right on.
Disgusting! We're not rabbits!
I think it depends.
Are we discussing love-soppy here or love-scratcher?
Surely the greatest joy, the greatest physical joy, must be to make love.
Ah! Love-squelching!
I'm not talking about bonking or a quick knee tremor.
I'm talking about making love.
Very different thing.
That time, ladies and gentlemen, when you were actually making love,
not bonking, oh, it's so good.
It's so good because you love each other.
I worship her.
I never dreamt that she might like me.
And now, this time, we're making love.
It's so good.
Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!
No, no, I don't make that noise when I do it either.
This is television, you know?
We've got a willing suspension of disbelief.
And you are making love.
And it's so good this time.
This time you didn't have to drink 16 cups of Goldblend to get round to it.
No, you knew it was right.
This time your hips are actually working to the same rhythm as your partner's.
It's never happened before.
Normally it's like a stockhouse and concert.
Everybody working to an independent rhythm.
You need a metronome on the pillow.
One, two, one, two.
But this time, this time you are making love.
And that's what matters.
And the window is open.
And the duvet is in a crumbled heap on the floor.
And there's a light summer breeze playing across your naked buttocks.
Not a storm, a breeze.
And it's so good.
It's so good.
And the music is perfect.
And it's on CD auto-reverse so it isn't going to stop after 15 minutes.
It's so good.
And you chose the track yourself and you are swimming with it.
You are dancing.
Oh, man.
TV license.
You're trying to make love.
You're thinking about the TV license.
Get out of my brain.
I love this woman.
Get out of my brain.
No, they'll arrest you.
They'll come and gather you up in a big net.
And they'll put you in prison.
You are looking at a 200-pound fine you haven't filled in before.
Get out of my brain.
Oh, God, it's gone floppy.
You told...
You told your lover that you loved them and you meant it.
You told your lover that their happiness was more important to you than your own.
And you meant it.
You told your lover that their body was beautiful to you.
Even though you understood that to them it was all wrong and stuck out in the wrong places
and fell down in the wrong...
To you, it was beautiful.
And you meant it.
But you can't make love to them because you're thinking about the TV license.
And on relationships of a very different kind, yesterday a man walked completely free,
having murdered his wife and baby because the judge said he'd suffered enough.
Lucky for the poor bloke, he only shot two people.
Blimey, imagine how bad he'd have felt if he'd wiped out the in-laws as well.
This is, of course, only the latest in an endless catalogue of insane judgments
by male judges excusing men who attack women.
It's almost as if these nasty old men were vying with each other
to make the most appalling decision.
So, to give you some idea of the state of the competition in the judiciary,
we thought we'd make a chart.
Welcome now to Top of the Stupid Old Gits!
APPLAUSE
And at the big number five spot in Climbing Fast, we have Mad Malford Stevenson,
who felt a fine was sufficient penalty for a rapist
because his victim had been hitchhiking in a short skirt.
And he said that the girl was...
Asking for it.
Now, Malford should be careful about being sexually assaulted himself,
wearing those long dresses and curly wigs.
Well, it's an open invitation, innit?
OK, moving right along, at the big number four slot,
it's a bloke called Judge Mays, sentencing a man to probation
for beating his four-month-old son to death during a drunken row.
This top star of British justice said...
You are a thoroughly decent young man.
We'd better hear that again.
You are a thoroughly decent young man.
I wouldn't want to meet Judge Mays version of a bastard!
OK, so, at number three, we find Judge Potty Pickles, a real hitmaker,
the stock eight-kin and waterman of the legal profession.
Commenting on his sentence of probation to a man
who indecently assaulted a six-year-old, Potty said...
Each case is different.
The girl has intelligence and knew exactly what the score was.
It's all becoming clear.
This time it was the little girl's fault.
Six years old, blimey! She was probably wearing a short skirt too.
And at number two, it's the late Judge Gibbons who expressed...
Considerable sympathy.
For a man who admitted having sexual intercourse with the seven-year-old daughter of a friend,
Gar-Gar Gibbons said it...
Strikes me as one of the kind of accidents which happens in life.
Do you know, Spaniel?
Of course it does. It's like putting on odd socks, isn't it?
And so, here we are, right now, ready for the big number one judgement.
Yeah, it's magnificent Justice William Miskin, who,
commenting on a man who strangled his wife, cut her into 100 pieces,
roasted parts of her body, scattered other parts across London and dumped her head in the river,
said that apart from that, the murderer was...
A hard-working man of excellent character, simply unable to get on with your wife.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
And after that great...
That great interjection that we felt rather...
rather apt this week, I return to the theme of Stuff To Do.
Stuff To Do, our lives filled with Stuff To Do,
but perhaps even more pathetic, even more pathetic than the Stuff To Do,
is the stuff that we will do in order to avoid doing the stuff that we have to do.
Because let's face it, nobody wants to do their washing up,
but what are we actually doing while we're worrying about the washing up?
Are we doing anything worthwhile? No!
We're doing stuff that we would never dream of doing unless we had stuff to do.
You've got the hoovering to do? Suddenly, that article in the TV Times about the Queen Mummy's required reading.
Oh, I've got to finish this. No, no.
Because she really has got a lovely smile.
I'll just get... Oh, and I'll just read my stars as well, yeah.
And all other 11 stars as well.
Why are we staring at this trash, worrying about other stuff?
Why don't we just do it? You've got your bills to pay.
You've got to pay your bills. They've been on your mind for weeks.
So one day, you swear you're going to pay your bills.
You've got it all together. You've got your cheques ready.
You've got your chequebook. You've got all the bills. You've got to do it.
You've got the envelopes all sorted out. You're going to pay your bills.
Suddenly, you get this desperate desire to balance your bio on top of your ventral shaft.
It takes ages. Oh, I nearly did it.
And it's out of my mind.
Only when I sit down at my desk do I get this need to turn my ruler into the wings of a spitfire.
So this time, you're really going to do the ironing.
You get up, you're going to do the ironing.
You're heading towards the ironing. You're going to do it.
But something, some alien force drags your hand towards the TV remote control.
And suddenly, even though you're still thinking about the ironing, you're watching That's My Dog.
Actually, it's quite a good thing that you can't do the ironing.
Because let's face it, you'd get asphyxiated, wouldn't you?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, you'd be asphyxiated.
Because apparently, apparently, according to Ariel and Raddion,
your iron brings out the skunk-like stench of your family's armpits.
Ooh, we never realised, did we? We never knew.
All those years our washing has been stinking like a pub toilet and we never realised.
Why are they suddenly telling us now? They never felt the need to point it out before.
All those years they were going on about how their powders got things whiter than white.
Didn't occur to them to mention that we still all whiff like crap.
That woman, her husband, she's ironing her husband's shirt because, well, he's all sweaty.
He's all sweaty, isn't he? Because he's a steel worker.
God knows where they found one, but there you are.
No wonder he's sweaty. I mean, he's got to commute to West Germany every morning.
But whiffy or not, whiffy or not, it's all stuff to do.
Stuff to do. From the cradle to the grave, we are haunted by stuff to do.
Sunday nights, Sunday nights when you were a kid, Sunday nights man sitting on the sofa,
sitting and going, I am numb, I am saying, I am numb, I am saying, you're going to kill me, I am numb, I am saying.
What are you doing? What are you doing while you're wondering about your essay?
Are you fulfilling the springtime of your youth? No! You're watching Songs of Praise.
I swear there has never been a single genuine watcher of Songs of Praise in the entire audience.
It's made up of little junior farties going, oh God, I haven't done my essay.
I gave her word valiantly, she's going to kill me, she's going to kill me against all disaster.
We are all out of our minds. Why do we allow a short time upon this planet to be so despoiled?
Why can't we develop a sense of balance in our lives? Just a little sense of balance of what is worthwhile and what is not.
I reckon I'm so messed up in my mind that I'd probably rather slam my tackle in the door
rather than empty the swing top bin in my kitchen.
Now this is not because I don't want that bin emptied. Oh man, I want it emptied so bad.
Can you imagine the sheer joy of an empty bin in your kitchen?
A new fresh bin liner in the swing top bin. It'd be like a bin in heaven, wouldn't it?
I mean, you've got something to throw away, you'd float across the kitchen.
It'd be choirs of angels, it'd be orgasmic, wouldn't it?
You wouldn't be able to put it in at first, you'd have to tease yourself.
No, no, it's something like a gold blend cup, wouldn't it?
It'd be like four-blend, no, I'm not putting it in. Oh, really? No, not quite. Oh, yes, yes, yes.
And finally, oh, in it goes, and you'll listen to it rustle all the way to the bottom of the bag.
Oh, all the way down it goes, the rustling of... I'd have to take it out and put it in again.
Take it out and put it in again. I'd get an erection with the sheer joy.
Well really, Mr Elton, that was quite a well-observed piece of satire.
And then suddenly you have to bring up your trouser area and really don't see why it's necessary.
The pleasure, the sheer pleasure of an empty bin.
The sheer pleasure. Ever felt it? No!
Because we have to stand on top of the fridge and jump on the bastard!
Swing top bin.
Swing top bin.
Swing, swing top bin.
Swing. Again.
The reality, Gav. When was the last time you swung?
The first day you got it.
Can't swing any more, can it?
Too much crap.
If you want to put some rubbish in it, you've got to take the lid off.
Put it on the floor.
Put the rubbish in the bin.
Put the lid back on.
Why don't I just empty the bin?
I swear it would be easier for me to empty the bin than do what I actually do.
What I actually do every time is search the house. Search the house yet again.
Search the house for yet another empty carrier bag so that I can add to the little colony of Julia beans that surround the mothership.
That bin's not there to swing.
Not at top.
It's not there to swing.
It's there to provide a home for all the little tribbles of tomato sauce that have nowhere else to go.
So finally, finally you decide you're going to empty the bin.
Because it's full.
It's full in like a surreal way.
It's full in ways that only Nigel Lawson's suit fully understands.
There is rubbish down there marked in old money.
Aztec wrappers. Remember them?
Anyway, you've got to get it out. So you take the top off the bin, right?
You think, shall I wash all the tomato sauce off?
Nah.
So you grip the bin between your knees.
Well, there's no way this is going to lift it.
And you start wrestling, you're thinking twist this way, twist that way, you're thinking don't you break, you bastard, don't you break.
And out it comes. The thing is expanding as it leaves the bin.
It's forcing me against the wall like a huge mushroom, forcing me back.
I'm wrestling with it.
The bin is like a TARDIS. It's bigger on the inside.
I swear, I swear trying to get the liner out of my swing top is like trying to drag a zeppelin out of a cat's bum.
So finally, it's still expanding on the floor.
You glance, you glance into the bin.
You think, shall I empty the half inch of putrid water at the bottom?
Nah, I just put a fresh bin liner on top.
Ladies and gentlemen, you got this.
And you've got to take it out to the rubbish.
Can't do it, can you?
You've got to get six new bin liners and start emptying the rubbish out of the full one into the other six so you can take them out of the bag.
Why didn't I do it six months ago?
Ladies and gentlemen, as I said at the beginning of the show, current government thinking on the problem of terminal congestion on our roads is to add another lane.
Now, if I were to make each and every one of you a present as you leave the studio tonight of a new swing top bin to go in your kitchen next to the one you already have, which is full,
what would be the situation a week from now?
They'd both be fooled, wouldn't they?
The only lesson of ecology is like it or not, human junk expands to fill the space provided.
What's the solution?
Better public transport.
The only answer, without it, we will grind to a choking, deathly halt.
I've been talking about words and images that have lost their meaning.
One word which seems to mean exactly what it always meant is reproduction.
Reproduction is a beautiful concept.
It is total beauty.
It is total cosmic loveliness.
Basically, I'm still desperate for a share.
Reproduction means exactly what it says because, let's face it, a great many babies are conceived while the parents are etouched.
You know, wonderful Saturday night, two days later you count your pills.
Oh, no, two weeks after that, I am sure we have it.
Yeah, we love each other.
Kids conceive whilst the parents are drunk, which is why they come out unable to walk, desperate for something to eat and throwing up everywhere.
Reproduction is this.
Babies are genie of parties.
They're a subject of the reality gap as the rest of us.
I mean, they're not like they look in the ads and in the movies, just like you and I.
They're not like the ultra cool people in the Levi's hat.
The one where the bloke uses his jeans to tow the car.
Remember that?
Oh, you've probably forgotten. It happens every day. It's lit your mind, wouldn't it?
This bloke gets out of the truck, you know, this male model who happens to be driving a lorry on his day off, drops his trousers.
Blimey, that bloke must have some confidence.
Middle of the desert, how could he boast his confidence about the state of his pants?
I mean, come on.
Could anyone here be absolutely certain what pair they put on this morning?
Could you, eh?
I could be the last one before the laundrette, eh?
That colour that only pants can become.
Thousand wash grey, eh?
Elastic gun riding high up your crevice.
This bloke just drops them. He doesn't care.
The man is ultra confident.
I mean, most of us spend six months trying to get courage to ask someone out.
We're going, oh, I don't know, maybe she'll refuse me. Maybe she won't.
I mean, this bloke just gets out of the truck, drops his kets as well.
That's the lunchbox, take it all evening.
Imagine.
Really, that's confident.
But we're not like that. We're not like in the ad.
And it's the same for babies.
Real babies aren't like the Rambo-like toddlers you see in the Pampers adverts,
stamping round some of the boys they got more tackled down there than the North Sea herringfish.
Real babies aren't like that.
We should be warned.
Young couples are getting a surprise.
They're expecting something off the label of a cow and gate jar.
What they get is a human dribbling machine.
From the cradle to the grave.
We're all trying to live up to images and values that we cannot possibly fulfil.
We should be honest.
Give kids a start in life.
I mean, when you go and see a newborn baby, be honest.
You say, well, look, I mean, it's lovely.
Look, it's beautiful. What can I say?
It looks flipping horrible, but it'll probably be all right.
I mean, seriously.
No one is prepared for the reality of life.
Nobody knows what to expect.
A mate of mine rang me up.
He said, he said, after his first race, he said, it's fantastic.
It's fantastic. It's a boy.
And not that it matters, but it's hung like a blue whale.
Turned out it was a girl.
They just hadn't cut the umbilical. That was it.
Chib diddums.
Ooh, it's a boofers, it called bubba.
This bitch don't stop patronising me. I'm going to unload my lunch.
All so uptight the whole time. So uptight.
You walk along the pavement, you're going, if one more person bumps into me,
if one more person, the whole human race is walking along the same pavement,
going, if one more person, if one more person.
Why?
Always so uptight the whole time.
It's almost as if, it's almost as if our own bodies were conspiring against us.
It's almost as if we were at war with ourselves.
You get a little bit of skin sticking out the end of your finger,
a little tiny flap of skin, right, on the end of your finger.
Every cell in your brain is screaming, don't pull it!
Don't pull it!
So you grab it between your teeth and rip it up to your armpits.
Why?
Every part of the body is at war with the rest of every other part.
Those two little dots under your tongue that salivate while you're chewing.
Well, if salivate isn't a rude word, it jolly well should be.
Well, I suppose it depends on what you're chewing, really.
They're normally alright, those little dots.
They make sure that your mouth is good and moist and assists in the process of mastication.
Now that is a rude word.
Again, it depends on what you're chewing.
Every now and then, those two little dots decide to have a little game, don't they?
For instance, if you happen to be trying to persuade a traffic warden that you were only going to be at a minute,
that's when they decide to pump two pints of spit in his face.
Look, man, I was only going to be a couple of minutes...
I just got in your mush, mate.
Every part of the body is against you.
Your arm. Your arm's normally your friend.
Your arm normally looks after your interest, normally does what you want it to.
But every now and then, decides to have a little game.
While you're asleep, it has a little laugh...
by pretending to be dead.
Oi, wake up. I'm dead.
Ah! My arm is dead!
My arm has... look, you're banging it against the bed-punch you're trying to get to.
My arm has died!
Right.
Every part of the body... your bot.
Your bot's normally your friend.
Your bot looks after your interest, of course it does.
Wants you if there's a little guff coming. It does.
It does. It says, guff's coming.
Guff's coming.
Prepare to clench up and ease and squeeze.
No one need know. You can ease that in five discrete stages.
No one need know.
Any the wiser, gently does it, easy now.
Do we really need to probe into bottom?
I've had a shaded monocle made for mine, right, because the sun shines out of it.
Of course your bot warns you.
It knows how terrible it would be if anyone overheard you farting.
We're a strange lot, really, aren't we, the human race?
We don't mind making a toilet out of our beautiful world,
flushing raw sewage into the North Sea,
but if anyone overheard us guff, we'd have to kill ourselves out of embarrassment.
We'd never be able to face human society again.
That's why it's so important to get an early warning.
See, that's why the spinal column, that's the central nervous system,
runs directly from the backside to the brain.
That's the fart hotline.
Your memory works against you.
They say that your memory plays tricks on you.
Now why? Why? It's my flipping memory.
Why don't you push off and play tricks on someone else?
It's like the ear roll. It's selective in what it tells you.
A woman having her second baby going,
Oh God, oh God, I've forgotten how much these hurt. And memory's going, I am love, I just didn't tell you.
You're at a party. You've been introduced to someone three times.
Now you have to introduce them to someone else.
You go, oh, Jan, this is...
You go, come on, memory, give me the name, give me the name.
Memory's going, no, I'm not giving you the name.
You go, come on, memory, I know you know it.
Yes, I do know it, but I'm not going to tell you.
You can remember every word to the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody, but not this part's name.
Is this really what we pay our license fees for?
I could buy six Emanuel videos for less.
Okay, first prepare the surface that your microwave is going to stand on.
Now, as you know, microwaves, like any other cooker, should have loads and loads of unpleasant kitchen junk and crap and gunk underneath it.
Now, if you bought a really upmarket one, it should come supplied with a sachet of decomposing kitchen junk to put underneath it.
If not, it's very simple to make up your own.
Just take a large mixing bowl, that'll do, a wooden spoon, and just a few breadcrumbs.
There you are, can you see that? There we are.
A few old breadcrumbs and perhaps some grease and oil. That's there we are.
Oh, plenty in, don't worry, doesn't matter how much.
In it goes, there you are. That's a bit of jam. Doesn't matter which flavor. Doesn't matter which flavor.
Just plenty of jam. I think we've got strawberry here, but it doesn't matter. It's not irrelevant.
Give it a good stir. Add a few frozen peas.
Because you know, your peas roll under the microwave and under the toaster.
Well, add a few peas. There we go. A few peas. There we go.
Give the whole thing a good stir. Can you see that? We got that. Can you see that?
And then you choose carefully where your microwave oven is going to go.
And then you just, there we go, you just smear it all over.
Give it a good smear. Doesn't matter how much. You can't use too much of this stuff.
You really can't. Give it a good smear. Then take your new microwave and dump it on top.
There we go. That's the way.
Now, a good tip.
A good tip. Oh no, nearly forgot.
Always add a few foreign coins. And then slide a few foreign coins underneath.
And another idea is Byros. That's very good.
Because a good tip is if you're ever short of a Byros, you'll find one under the toaster or the microwave.
And oh, if you've got any of your gunk left over, don't waste it.
No, don't waste it. Because there's plenty of places you can put it.
I like to stick it down between the fridge and the work surface.
Just get it smeared right down there as you do. There we go.
Get it right the way down so there's no chance of you ever being able to get at it to clean it.
So it'll still be there when you come to move house.
Okay, so there we are. The microwave's in position and you have to learn to use it.
Now, obviously the instruction manual is far too intimidating to read at first.
So for a while you just mindlessly prod at the controls and kind of sadly twitch it and prod it in the sort of hope that a three-course meal will just leap out spontaneously.
It doesn't, of course, so eventually you just give up and pop down a local fried chicken.
Now, obviously I haven't got time to pop down a local fried chicken now.
So here's a couple of hundred people who had one earlier.
Anyway, the microwave sits there completely ignored and intimidating for a whole week.
You can't face it. A whole week you ignore it.
Now, obviously we haven't got time to ignore it for a week now.
So there we go. And here's a microwave that we ignored for a week already.
In the end, of course, you're having to give in and read the instructions.
This is an appalling prospect, but you have to go through with it.
Otherwise you'll have paid about 200 quid for a large television-shaped clock that always thinks the time is 88 minutes past 88.
Now, the instructions...
The instructions are, of course, written in German and Arabic and Japanese.
And, of course, a dialect which looks like English, but turns out to be an obscure language known as unintelligible bollards.
Now, you notice I said bollards, you see, since Dave Allen we have to be very, very careful.
But I'm talking about the type of bollards that a gentleman keeps in his underwear.
Anyway, so unintelligible bollards.
Anyway, reading the instructions, it's so depressing that in order to persevere you have to get drunk.
Now, obviously I don't have time to go off and get drunk now.
So here's someone who got drunk for us.
Eventually you'll become so obsessed with trying to decipher the unintelligible bollards and work the oven that your home life falls apart and you end up getting a divorce.
Now, obviously I don't have time to have a divorce right now.
I'd have to go off and get married and all that. It'd take far too long.
So here's a couple who've agreed to have a divorce for us.
Eventually, lost and alone, your life ruined by technology, you master the on and off switch
and are ready to sling your menu mistress bird of freedom lean meal chemically saturated crap meal for one in the oven.
Now, of course, the ads would have us believe that the type of people who eat these frozen chemical cocktails are beautifully dressed models in white,
living in huge ultra white designer attics who only stop exercising in order to have another romantic candle lit frozen lasagna for two.
The reality, of course, is some sad old farty like me sat in their underwear watching Wogan.
But that's OK. We all have to eat. So there you go. And in it goes.
Now, don't forget, microwave safety is all about using your machine properly.
So you have to take it out again after a minute, give it a bit of a stir, put it back in again in a different part of the oven,
close the oven, open it up again, take it out, give it another stir, put it back in, different part of the oven, don't forget, open the oven, take it out again, give it another stir, put it back in, move it across the oven into a different part of the oven.
Now, if you want to be really, really safe, the safest thing is to take it all the way out of the oven altogether, across the kitchen and bung it in your conventional cooker.
Now, when cooking time is completed, you must, of course, leave the food to stand for ten minutes because standing time is very important.
Now, obviously, we can't hang around for ten minutes, which is the time prescribed on the label.
We can't hang around. So here's one we let stand ten minutes ago and which the cat, while I was out of the room thinking warm lasagna, a vast improvement on gravel, has crapped it.
Now, it was warm lasagna, warm lasagna on top, but as with all microwaves, cooked from the middle, so, ahhhhhh!
Hotter than Geoffrey Archer's pants inside. One injudicious bite and you lose six layers of skin in agony.
Of course, incinerating your mouth might be the least of your problems because if you're unlucky, the microwave won't have cooked it properly and you will get food poisoning.
Now, obviously, I haven't got time to make myself sick now, so here's something that made me sick earlier.
And that's how to cook with a microwave.
Looking at this business of references to supposedly taboo subjects on the box, if you do a routine concerning the difficulties of fitting a Dutch cap or the embarrassment we all feel at the mere idea that somebody might hear us go plop in a public loo,
suddenly, you're being told you're trying to shock after one has got over the puerile shock value of mentioning flatulence and saying willy on television.
Excuse me, but you have to lead a pretty sheltered life if you're going to be shocked by the word willy, eh?
Nightmare on Elm Street, part 10. Freddie says willy.
Jaws is back and this time he's gonna fart.
Oh, a sophisticated comedy, I don't think. I mean, you'd probably think people falling off their chairs was funny.
Mind you, once you start debating what words are shocking and those which are acceptable, you do uncover some shocking attitudes.
For instance, that routine about Dutch caps or rubber pudding basins, as I called them.
Now, the routine was about something I found shocking, about how men are quite happy to see women fill their bodies with all sorts of horrendous chemicals in the name of contraception,
but often object to wearing a condom. OK.
Now, I'm sure you'll agree that it's a bit tough to do a routine about Dutch caps without mentioning where you're supposed to put them.
You get the cap and you stick it up your... severe case of sentence-interruptors.
Unfortunately, the word funny is deemed by the BBC to be a shocking word.
Oh, I can see they were right, yes.
Oh, I can see that many of you are a bit shocked by that. You're close to fainting, aren't you? Yes.
You won't be able to sleep tonight, will you? In the middle of the night, you'll wake up, cold sweat, staring eyes, but just at this awful nightmare where Ben said funny on the telephone.
All right. As you can imagine, word-wise, I was a bit stuck.
Vagina was out, the bee thought it was even ruder and I thought it was a touch clinical for a full-tilt comedy throwdown.
You know, for you to get the gag rhythm, you know.
Now, at this point in this monstrously fatuous debate, something emerged that shocked me.
Oh, that sounds a bit rude, bit of a do-ble.
I pointed out to the BBC that I'm allowed to say todger and knob.
Oh, yes, they said. Todgers and knobs are not nearly so shocking.
You can say that after 9.30, practically compulsory after 9.30.
Unfortunately, this did not help the routine because it's a bit difficult to shove a Dutch cap up a todger.
It was becoming clear that there was a greater set of taboos surrounding female biology than male.
It seems that while male tackle references are acceptable...
Oh, yes, very boysy, locker room, pat on the back.
Female tackle references are too rude and shocking,
just as it is still considered too upsetting to advertise tampons on main channel ITV.
Now, if men menstruated, it would be a topic for after-dinner conversation, wouldn't it?
Cos men talk about all their bodily functions, don't they?
Oh, curry last night, Gandhi's revenge, eh?
Nobody walked behind me.
We'd be chatting about our periods, wouldn't we, eh?
It was a marvellous sunny day.
I'd just strolled out of the pavilion to bat, and would you believe it, my period started.
Oh, yes.
The lads would be boasting about it.
They'd be boasting about how heavy their flow was. Blimey!
I was bleeding last night. What?
Neat and faky. That's nothing. I had to have a blood transfusion right now.
You should see the size of my pads. It's like sitting on a breeze block.
Pads on the TV, macho man pads for a man-sized period.
Yes!
And so the debate began to find a euphemism for fanny.
Me, you're the guys from the BBC, a few beers, spending licence-payers' money,
trying to think of a user-friendly term for the female front bottom,
so that the British public might be spared the shock.
Do you know what we came up with?
Toot-toot.
It's true. Sitting around, toot-toot.
That would not shock, we agreed, and we were right, because no-one would have had the faintest idea
what a toot-toot was supposed to be.
I'd be going on about shoving a cup up your toot-toot,
and there'd be millions of women sat at home saying,
he's got that completely wrong, he's supposed to stick it up your fanny, I'm sure I should tell you.
APPLAUSE
There are two types of sex in the world.
There is media sex, which takes place in the movers, the books, the magazines, the erotic poetry.
In this world, there are no problems, no embarrassment, and it all goes on for nine and a half weeks.
That's media sex.
And then, back across the cosmic, cosmic reality gap, there is real sex, which is what we do,
which is not a bit like media sex at all, because it's a bit squelchy and a bit grunty,
and there's dampness and areas of crispness, and it's all embarrassing.
Except it's nice for all that, especially if you love your partner.
Sadly, our kind of sex, fartist sex, is constantly belittled and demeaned by media sex.
A Bond movie. Roger Moore, honestly, right?
He's popped his Zimmer frame behind the door, he's removed his surgical truss, he's staggered across the room.
And he's got his arm round his current Bond girl.
Now, what happens next? Does his arm start to ache, but he can't wrestle it out from under her without breaking the moment,
and anyway, his skin's now stuck to her, so if he moves an inch, he'll flay them both alive.
No, whatever happens in the movies, reality, embarrassment, humility, humanity, it's never allowed to intrude.
The pubic hair is a central factor of human existence.
They serve no other purpose except to embarrass the hell out of us.
But not in the movies. No. In the movies, they're all glued down.
The rest of us, you drop your knickers, bing, bing, bing, they're off.
Free at last, free at last. Out of that gusset, at last.
They're all over the house.
One of them jumps in the butter dish five minutes before your mum comes round.
Another hides in the soap dish. Where's the soap, mum?
Under the pile of pubes, where it always is.
But not in the movies. No.
The movies are endless images of perfection that we can never be, to make us feel small and inadequate.
In the movies, toot toots, never blow raspberries.
You never heard it. It never happened.
Never the tiniest little embarrassing noise to intrude on the po-faced, humorless sanity of the movie media porn sex.
Tim Basinger was doing it for nine and a half weeks.
Why doesn't she have to work in the morning?
For most of us, nine and a half minutes is a major erotic excursion.
This woman did it on the kitchen table, she did it in the attic, she took it there, she took it there.
Most women don't know whether the G-spot actually exists.
She's got them all over her body.
You've only got a tapper on the shoulder, she has 15 multiple orgasms.
Never.
Never once did any embarrassing squelches shatter the stillness.
Not once did her toot toot toot wash them out.
Not once did she salute the 15th multiple orgasm with a great, joyous, life enhancing, gusset shattering raspberry
that sent her lover's willy dragging like a Jew's heart.
You never saw Kim's sheets flapping like a sail in a transatlantic race, did you?
No.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm aware that this is a bit of a rude routine, but...
No wonder.
We all feel inadequate.
I mean, we think we're the only ones who have problems,
because real sex is something that we deal with alone with our partners.
The myth of sex we share with the rest of the world.
We all got to see the same films, but when reality intrudes, we have to survive alone.
And it's difficult, let's face it, the first time a toot toot toots, it's a shock.
Of course it is.
Nobody's warned you.
Not your mum, not the movies, not sex education.
I mean, everything's nice, it's going nice, and then...
What was that?
What was that? I don't know.
Well, it wasn't me. Well, it wasn't me.
I'm telling you, it wasn't me.
Ah, there's a burglar in the room!
The media...
The media sex conspiracy makes us believe that superhuman sexual powers are the norm.
And we, personally, are the only little parties who can't do it that well.
In the movies, the male party of the first part's first part has 20-20 vision.
It knows where it's going.
It never misses. First attempt, boing, 180.
You never heard Kim Basinger shout,
not there, not there, up above!
Now then, Val Dudekan never found that sort of thing necessary.
No, because we have constructed images for men and women that we can never live up to.
Why can't we be honest about ourselves?
If you make love, it's going to come out at some point, right?
Never happens in the movies, never happens to Tom Cruise.
I'll tell you why.
Because Tom Cruise's knob's got Velcro on the end.
We've all played the game, the old damp patch shovel,
who's going to sleep in the damp patch?
We've all played it. Everyone's got their tricks.
Lads, they've got their tricks. That marvellous final hug.
Oh, darling, I really love you!
Girls have got their tricks as well.
Then get us a glass of water. Oh, all right.
Vroom! Out of there!
Two seconds later, here's your water.
Fast asleep. Strange coincidence.
It's all a media myth to make us feel small and inadequate.
It's not just the movies, it's everywhere.
Magazines, Cosmos, Sex Quiz.
You know the Cosmos, Sex Quiz, you know all these things.
You're going to do the ironing stuff to do, now I'll fill in the Cosmos, Sex Quiz.
Right, so, here you go.
How many positions do you and your partner assume?
You go, I don't know, I'm worried, it's only two, but I'll put three.
I don't want to get a farty score, you know.
You lot think you'd blind me, Ben, too.
That sounds a bit adventurous.
Well, sure, I don't want to, go on, tell us, tell us.
This whole business of erotic positions is another media myth.
I mean, all of us thinking that we're boring
because we don't do it swinging from the chandelier.
The Kalamazoo Trap, it's a myth.
86 positions, I'm telling you, the last 80 are all the same
except with earmuffs on and your fingers crossed.
Good station about love.
Not about what positions you can assume.
I mean, you learn that as you get older.
I remember when I was a student, you want to experiment.
Like all other students, me and my girlfriend, we bought The Joy of Sex.
That bloody book!
What a con! Full of these pictures, drawings, you know,
of this bearded hippie with his girlfriend and a spine made of rubber.
Those positions can need to be Olga Kovach.
You try that, you get spinal break, I'm telling you.
I think the book was written by a conspiracy of osteopaths.
Oh, I'll put it back out.
Joy of Sex, yet, doctor, can you get it back in position?
I'll tell you why the missionary position is the most popular heterosexual position.
It's not because we're all boring and dull and unimaginative.
It's because it's the only one anyone can flippin' do, that's why.
If they want to give advice about sex, they should advise us on things we need to know.
I mean, there's this obsession with spurious virility, you know.
Why should men always be pretending they're Rambo? Why should they?
Oh, the embarrassment if it doesn't stay up the full course.
I mean, in no other part of the body do you put such emotional investment.
If you're picking things up and your arms go a bit tired and floppy,
you don't consider you no longer have the right to call yourself a man, do you?
Never mind about the times when it won't stay up.
What about the time, though, a bit of real advice,
the one bit of advice you need, the time it won't go down again?
Are you supposed to deal with that situation?
I'll show you how. Here's a little tip from Ben's Farty Sex Guide.
How to have a hit wee when you are unfortunately upstanding.
Here we go.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
What an idiot I am, eh?
I wrote that whole routine so I could show you I can walk on my hands.
Well, no doubt there will be objections to that routine,
but I believe with the seas rising and the ozone layer disappearing,
the more we stop playing God and remind ourselves how small and inadequate we are,
the less damage we're likely to do.
Nothing like justifying a load of good knobgage with a bit of politics, eh?
I'd like to thank everybody that's worked with me on this series.
They've been absolutely incredible.
I'd like to thank the BBC for giving me the work.
My name's Ben Elton. Thank you and... Good night.
APPLAUSE
MUSIC
MUSIC