Cats
Nursery Rhymes:
But nursery rhymes are what I'm interested in, yes, 'cause nursery rhymes,remember when you were in the nursery? But it wasn;t really in the nursery,'cause in the nursery, you used to say anything, just blaaaahh, it's really,er, primary school rhymes, and they had social commentary in, a lot of them had social commentry, like ring-a-ring of roses, you know?
Ring-a-ring of roses,
A pocket full of poses,
Atishoo, atishoo,
We've got the plague.
Great last line there! It's actually we all fall down, it's about the plague,and they've got posys, blaaaargh, and we used to sing it as kids, and have a great time over it. Another one,
Mary Mary, quite contrary, how does your
garden grow?
That's about Mary, Queen of Scots. Now, they cut her head off,
right, and I think quite contrary is just a little wierd...
"Mary, we're gonna cut off your head now, how do you feel?"
"Oooh, quite contrary"
Fucking pissed off! That's how she'd feel! Mary Mary fucking pissed off, how does your garden grow? So that's the social comment, how does your garden grow means what is your economic policy towards England at the present time?
Then the second part of the poem is just a bit weird:
How dows your garden grow?
With cockle shells,
And silver bells,
And pretty maids all in a row.
Now that's just drugs, isn't it? That's the poet, he's writing, he got half way, smoked himself crazy, "fucking hell, the Queen's a banana, her advisors are all peas, and that's how me garden grows, missus".
And then there's other ones, you know
"Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?", and you think,
"Oooh, yes, there's social commentry in that, all about racism", and no! It's all about wool! Which is quite funny, it's all about wool, and tax. Someone thought "Hey! I'm gonna write a song about this, wool, and how many bags of wool? Three, and one for this guy, one for this guy, and one for that guy,
Zzzzzzzz (snoring sound)"
Sweet Shops:
Remember in a sweet shop? And they said "what would you like?" That was a stupid question, wasn't it? 'Cause you'd go "Errr... all of it! In a bag! To go!" And they'd go "what can you afford?" And you'd go "gobstopper. One. In a bag."
Pants Cat:
(Talking about virginity as a pair of metaphorical underpants)
And so about a year later I gave them to the cat... go on!... No! I didn't shag the cat! I gave them to the cat because the cat was in fact Pants Cat!
Da na na na na, He wears pants upon his head, his ears go through the leg bits! He is Pants Cat! He is a super hero, he goes into telephone boxes and goes "oooh, I can't reach! I got no thumb anyway, so it doesn't matter.."
School Days:
When we were small, we used to play the dare game, and dare each other to do stupid things. It was never sensible things, like
"I dare you to help this small child across the road", no,
"I dare you to put your tongue on an electric fire"
Yes! And all the kids would go
"No, no I can't do it", and one kid would always do it, the school mad kid. Remember him?
Every school had a mad kid, it was a government system to get mad kids into school. One mad kid in every school, that was the Conservatives pledge, and they did it. They weren't the biggest kids, they weren't the most popular kids, they were just mad. We had a kid called Adams, he was our mad kid. We'd be there in assembly, and Adams would just stand up and shout
"Headmaster! Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off!"
He was just way over the discipline line, in the shot at dawn area, and the teachers would just go "ah, ah...", and the Headmaster came over and say
"Could you sit down, Adams".
As well as the mad kid, every school had the kid who smelt strange! We had the kid who smelt of sandwiches, that was who I had at my school, and he was egg! I would come to school, we'd all have sandwiches in Tupperware boxes, and we'd open them up, and sniff, apple in there, mmm, quite nice, but he was sandwiches! He never brought sandwiches, he was sandwich kid. And the class would go "wow, that's egg".
I don't know what it was, but his clothes, he must have gone home and gone
"Mum! The egg's wearing off! I think it's time for an egg wash", and his mum would go
"Oh, all right, get in the washing machine, three eggs in the top,on a boil wash"
And he'd come out, egg. These kids were chosen by God, I feel, God would say
"Angel Gabriel, go down, and tell the childs mother he shall smell of egg"
"Right, I'll do it, I'll go"
"I shall send down a choir of angels with you!"
"Oh no, not the racket, oh all right"
"Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah"
"Carol singers in the bedroom! Quick!"
"I'm not a fucking carol singer, I'm the Angel Gabriel, awake Mrs Stevens!"
"There's a chicken in the room, quick!"
"I'm not a chicken, I'm the Angel Gabriel! Hello? Look, your son, he has been chosen!"
"Great, will he be called Jesus?"
"Err, not exactly, love, erm, it's more of a sandwich thing really, err, he shall smell of sandwiches! Byeeeee! Egg, preferably!",
and he would leap out the window, and crash land in some dustbins, and he'd go
"Help me Mrs Stevens!", and she'd go
"Don't worry, I'll get Pants Cat!"
"What's happening, Angel Gabriel?"
"I'm stuck! Help me!"
"Use my pants!"
Squirrels:
Note: sort of loses a bit in written form; just imagine it's being said...
Yeah, 'cause you know you wake up in the morning, and your hair is all over the place? Well that's because, in the middle of the night, squirrels break into your room, with combs and moose, and the moose stand guard whilst the squirrels comb your hair into weird shapes, then they all run off, laughing that moose means two things, and can be used in a joke format.
Eddie On The Clive James Show:
(Clive comments on Eddie's leather trousers)
Yeah, actually they're PVC, they've gone beyond leather, yeah, PVC, which apparently gives you cancer. It's like cellophane, remember about five years ago, they said
"Cellophane, gives you cancer" and we went
"But it's been on our sandwiches for years", and they said
"Cancer", and we said
"Ooooh", and then just carried on after a couple of months. Same with PVC, and I don't care.
(Commenting on farmers turning to growing cannabis because of BSE)
Yeah, they're growing cannabis. Well, it's hemp, apparently, which is cannabis, but really low grade, so you have to smoke a whole field to get the same kind of high as from half a lager, but it would be nice to go for it, just roll one joint, which is an entire field, yeah, and it's legal. Also, rape, the crop rape, remember when people started growing rape, and the country started looking amazing, this great yellow. I think we should just grow it for the colour; in fact, I think that's all they do it for, and I think there should be a red crop too, and a blue crop, all the colours. Imagine flying over that, really psychadelic fields, you'd get people landing in aeroplanes going
"Britain is an amazing country....."
(Talking about sheep)
Clive: An unshorn sheep is a dangerous sheep...
Eddie: ...is a big sheep! Imagine a sheep after two or three years, it'd be like a huge snowball going around, just like Day of the Triffids, only different....
Eddie On Have I Got News For You:
(Talking about a piece of film in which red stuff is smoothed around someone's head)
It looked like a red martian being smoothed, for presenting to the Queen or something;
"We must smoothe you, red martian", it did, it looked very much like that, and I've seen it on an episode of "I'm bonkers".
(Talking about Blue Ice, frozen excrement falling to earth from aircraft)
Can I just ask, it happens twelve times a year, poo goes into sky, but why? How can twelve times poo escape from aeroplane? Where? Is there a hole where poo goes "ooooh, we must tunnel"? Make no sense.
(Trying to spot the odd one out from Shakespere, The Queen, a mayfly and King Lot Kappa Iowa Kimian the Fifth of Hawaii)
Eddie: Well, Shakespere liked trains, the Queen's really good at badminton, the mayfly was the ship that first went to America with the founding fathers, and King Lot Tutan Kamun was in charge of the guy who was in charge of Dano in Hawaii Five-o. Errrr, they're all Nazis, except the mayfly, who's an insect, and can't legally join the Nazi party.
Ian Hislop: The ship that went to America was the Mayflower.
Eddie: I know. It's called comedy.
(In the missing words round)
Eddie: You put one blank, we think one word, but you put one blank with three words, and that's just like the Nazis would have done.
Ian: You have an interesting view of that period of history.
Eddie: Oh, no, these are modern Nazis. They're much less together now.
Angus: And they present gameshows, do they?
Eddie: Oh, you tell me!
Eddie at Bridgewater:
Hey, Bridgewater, but no-one here is really from Bridgewater? Okay, okay, we can check this out, we'll check it out by the method I've devised especially for things like this, which isn't the sort of the hands in the air, or the American method where you do applause, which is really weird, 'cos you know, you've seen it on chat shows where they go
"Who likes fish?", and the audience do applause,
"Well done fish, bravo fish, well done to use for liking fish",
in Britain we go
"Oh, that's so stupid", but they don't, they go
"No, we're quite clever". Then, in Britain there's the hands up method, but that draws attention to you, and people hate that, 'cos they think, you know, someone says
"Who likes jam?", and if you put your hand up, someone's going to throw a tiger in your lap...
"It's a fucking tiger!", so I've come up with this method, and it really works well for British people who really don't want to draw attention to themselves, and it's got this built in thing, 'cos someone says
"Who likes jam?", and if you like jam, you go
"Urrrrrrrrrr" (quiet groaning type sound), really non committal, you don't move any of your body, you just go
"Urrrrrr", then because everyone else is making a noise, no-one
can tell who actually likes jam, people can go
"Did you say you like jam?", and you can go
"No, I deny it, I deny it" and you can deny it all the way to court.
Fluff:
Ooooh, look - a bit of fluff. Fluff seems to go "Isaac Newton, fuck you!"; it just goes up doesn't it? Physics teacher there going
"And of course, gravity, everything goes down, and ooooh, there's a bit of fluff - kill the fluff, traitor to Isaac Newton!"
Isaac didn't think of fluff did he? C'uh, he didn't know anything, and he's dead, so that shows he was wrong;
looked at an apple, c'uh, um, yeah, fluff's great, fluff's like the hang glider of the dust world, it just sort of catches the thermals, rides up the sky, but then you get the Icarus thing,
"Oooh, no", sometime you see fluff crashing, "aaaahh, no, help me", have I lost you?
I've lost you already, (sings) I've lost you.
Ironing:
Oh, quick question, right, you know... oh never mind, um; you don't know what I was going to say do you? That's really annoying, isn't it, like someone comes up to and goes
"I've got this great secret, ah no, I can't tell you", and you go
"Ah, come on!" You didn't care before, anything this person could have told you, you wouldn't have cared, but suddenly they say
"It's a big secret... oh I can't tell you", and you go
"Come on!" So they go
"Well, people... no, I can't" and you pound them into the ground with your fist until they tell you the secret, and then there's a court case, so, yeah, right, this question, you know irons, and this is true, this isn't stand up, it's not funny, it's just that I was ironing my shirt, 'cos it's very glamorous backstage, you think "oooh, yes", but I'm ironing me own fucking shirt, right, quite a nice shirt, but I'm still ironing it, and you it's got on the labels, it's got this thing, one dot, two dot or three dot, but if you want to use the steam thing it's got to be on three, but the shirt only says two dot.... how do you do that? Does anyone know? Can you turn it up to steam and it doesn't matter? Yeah? You can do that, so you put it on steam, and it doesn't matter, even if it says one dot? Even though it's got three dots on the steam bit, it'll be fine? Yeah? Can I sue you on that it it's not? So what's the point of the dot system? It's totally fucking redundant! I think people should write letters to the United Nations! No, I think you're going
"No", making a mental note, "don't do that".
Dog:
"Are you happy with your wash?"
"I'm a dog.... I don't understand happy... or wash.... or are you..... with... your.... that whole sentence was basically meaningless to me"
"Piss off"
"I don't understand off... or piss, piss off, no, I'm going to bite your leg now, grrrrrrrr"
Line 'Em Up:
They're all bastard, that's what I say, they should be lined up against a wall... and made to build it higher.
Gossip:
Yeah, because human beings, in general, and this is a poor generalisation, but I think we can say we want to feel good about ourselves, and there are two ways we can do this. One way is to expend energy, achieve something, make something out of clay perhaps, you've seen them do it, with the big pumpy thing that goes round and round, lump of clay, one finger, zzzwwwwop, vase, fifty quid, it's so easy!
But you get to a certain age and realise it can't be that easy, some things look easy, but they're not, and you realise you should never use the "I can make things out of clay" statement when you're trying to chat someone up, never try and do that if you've never done it before, you know,
"Watch this, I bet I can do this! Ha ha, clay, round and round, it goes, never done this before, here we go, wait for it, and pwerrrrrp, errr... it's a cat factory, in fourteenth century Burundi..... fancy a shag?"
Yeah, so that's one way, expend energy, achieve something, but the other way we make ourselves feel good is by putting other people down, lowering their status, so raising yours by default;
we say
"Oooh, they smell", therefore, you don't smell. But you always get negative gossip, it's always
"Ooh, have you heard about so and so? Everyone hates them, yes, and they've lost all their money, and live in a ditch", that's what we want to hear, you never get positive gossip, you never hear
"Ooooh, have you heard about so and so? They're doing really well for themselves; everybody wants to shag them, and they've just been made King of everywhere"... you just fuck off! You and your tales of glad tidings...
Cats:
Cats have a scam going - you buy them the food, they eat it, and they go away, unless it's raining, or if they want to; you can't say
"Cat! Be in by six! I don't want you back later! Don't you stay out... oh, god.... and don't take the car!"
Vrrooom.... cat's looking out the front window... on cushions... with a Richard Nixon mask on so it looks like a human... could
happen!
So, yeah, cats have a cat door, dogs do not have a dog door, it's a big inequality, and we just think it's fine; and they have this new improved thing, with cat and dog food, new improved, and who knows? Who checks? You have to give it to your dog, and say
"Is it new improved?" And the dog goes
"I don't know, I'm a dog". They eat anything dogs, bit of sofa,
some broken biscuits, dog goes
"Mmmm, lovely, a bit of sofa".
Cats are much more choosy, they look at their food,
"Okay, hmmm, so this is? Right. New improved? Really. Err.. I'm going out", and they go out the cat door, and you're there going
"Come back! come back! And don't take the car! And don't take the motorbike either!" Vrrrrooommm "Don't take the stilts! Don't take the kangeroo!" How far will Bridgewater go?
"Don't take my pogo stick!" I'm losing them... But they do, they always walk out the cat door, and before they go out, they just stop, and go "keys", and they're gone.
But dogs, they go
"Can I go out?" and you go,
"I'm busy", and the dog says
"Cat went out", and you go
"Yeah, he's got a cat door" and the dog goes
"Is that how he does it? I always thought he just melted through the wall!" But the cats, they always go out through the door. And you know sometimes the cats in the kitchen, going
"Purrrrrrrrr".... he's drilling another cat door; the handycat's come round to drill another one in. If you see a cat going out the front door, with one of those belts with all the tool things, that's the handycat, and you go
"Hey! Hey! Who are you?" and the cat goes
"Byeee" Fucking handycat's come round!
"Don't take the car!" vrroooommm "He's nicked my car!" 'cos you've got about four cars,
"Not again, not the Mercedes."
