I have been honing my customer service skills recently. Here’s an example of how well I’m doing.

—–Original Message—– 
From: “John Balfour” < john7132@btinternet.com> 
To: info@muckrach.com
Date: 03/02/2013 22:59 
Subject: Fw: Dissapointing stay 

We were booked to stay two nights with you, but only stayed one, we left this morning, firstly it was freezing in all areas, we did have a meal last night in the freezing conservatory,the veg and pots were warm the rest was allright but overpriced for what it was, the breakfast this morning was very dissapointing, the bacon and sausages were cold as was the haggis and blackpudding, no one came near us to complain to, when we checked out early the young chap could not have cared less. I think you seriously need to do something about your heating, also the fire in bar, if we had not put coal on ourselves it would have gone out, no one there to tend to it and the smoke was billowing out into the room all in all a very unpleasant stay.

Pam Balfour

 

 

 

Thank you. I note you have already taken the trouble to voice your opinion on Tripadvisor, and I’m delighted you have taken the trouble to email it to me too. Double trouble!  Shame you didn’t say anything at the time, when something could have been done. Perhaps we could have diverted the blizzard that was raging outside, or moved the hotel two thousand miles further south, to negate the effect of that night’s weather on our old building. Maybe we were mistaken to offer you the finest lamb, venison and beef, all local, for your dinner which to you was overpriced, a comment highlighting nothing but your inability to recognise high quality produce when it is put in front of you. You might also like to learn how to spell ‘disappointing’.

Regards

Andy Picheta 

 

From: “John Balfour” <john7132@btinternet.com> 
To: “Info” <info@muckrach.com> 
Date: 04/02/2013 17:18 
Subject: Re: Dissapointing stay 

Well,  you certainly seem to lack any customer care expertise in your flippant response, to our review of your establishment shortcomings, you obviously do not accept your heating system is inadequate, staffing levels leave a lot to be desired,and as for the quality of food in my opinion as a catering expert dealing daily with thousands of meals, I know the correct temperatures food should be served at ,and your temperature control was sadly lacking. Surely you should be adequately equipped for all climate variances. 

     Your establishment was very unwelcoming due to the lack of management presence.No more to be said we certainly would never revisit.

 

Mr Wallflower,

If anything, I lack the patience to deal with ignorant whingers. If that’s a lack of ‘customer care’ then I plead guilty, my catering expert lordship.  My response gave your comments the weight they deserved.  Do you leave your brains in the car when checking in to a small, old, quaint hotel?  If you want dozens of inanely smiling staff, uttering meaningless drivel along the lines of: “Hello and welcome Hotel Perfect, part of the Super-perfect Global Hotel Group, my name is Sharon and I want to share with you that Global Super-Perfect believe in local sustainability and total customer envelopment. How may I assist you?” then go and stay there. Stay away from small, personal family businesses that wouldn’t know how to begin to serve thousands of meals at 47p a head, that don’t own and run a hermetically sealed Premier Inn built yesterday.  The only inadequacy I can see is in the quality of some of the customers Groupon deals attract, and you certainly take the biscuit (hand-made in our own ovens) in that department.  How dare you disparage my staff?  Try and engage any miniscule intelligence that’s not hard wired to moaning mode for a moment and think that perhaps the young man checking you out was concerned, on edge, and didn’t really know how to react to the silent looks of hate you poured his way in the expectation he would, through osmosis, absorb your unhappiness with your stay.  How dare you lie, brazenly, about the lack of service when Nikki our tireless restaurant supervisor went to great lengths to look after you even as she sensed your unhappiness?  And all they could do was sense it, because you certainly didn’t utter any dissatisfaction, never voicing your displeasure, preferring to wait for the checked out safety of Tripadvisor to enunciate the terror of your stay here. Why was that? Are you an abject, sniveling coward?  A closet moaner too frightened to come out in the open?  Are you a sad little snail ready to leave a trail of sticky smear but hide in your shell when it comes down to the why?  As even you can by now probably ascertain there’s nothing wrong with my temperature control but my temper control is very finely tuned.  And yes, you have pissed me off. I believe I am adequately equipped by the way – many women have told me my penis is above average in size, and it works well even in sub-zero temperatures.  My establishment will never welcome moaning, whining, ‘let’s try and get some money off’ blaggers, and the knowledge that you will not be revisiting fills me with joy.

I believe I have answered all of your points fully.

Thank you and goodnight

Torch Song Trilogy

When it was announced the Olympic torch would visit every part of the UK, I paid little attention apart from feeling a vague unease.  The idea of a substantial naked flame passing through Tottenham, or Toxteth or the saltier parts of Torbay might, I thought, invite a repeat of last summer’s conflagrations:  See fire, start fire ‘n’ burn down the ‘hood – again.  Or perhaps the decidedly bling-full and blazing golden horn of fire would be nicked before It even got to the High Street, taken by someone in a slightly shiny tracksuit close enough to the official one for the officials not to notice until it was too late.  A fumbling of maps belatedly confirming that the alleyway on the left, leading to some garages, was not part of the route, and another torch was immediately required.  Back to Olympus?  No need, as the stolen flame would inevitably end up on that High Street anyway, traded at one of the pawn-brokers in exchange for ‘Everything One Pound’ vouchers ready to be used in the shops next door, and next door to that, on screwdrivers with no heads or dolls with no legs.  Please note, language scholars: ‘Everything One Pound’ does not mean the entire contents of the store for a quid, it means ‘each item one pound’ (except special offers, which are inevitably more).

My lukewarmth towards the flame did not take into account my son Rob’s ever building Olympic excitement.  When he discovered that the torch relay would pass the front of the hotel, he insisted The Better and I joined in the festivities to welcome this little spark of London’s glory as it journeyed through the provinces and, like a portrait of a medieval king, reminded everyone of the Capital’s majesty.

With Rob in London after his half term break it fell on me to execute his carefully explained plan of what we were to do.  Analytical viewing of the BBC’s complete coverage of the flame’s progress showed us what we could expect.  We knew that in between stops for unfit track-suited bearers to pant along two hundred yards of perceived glory, the flame travelled by bus.  We knew there was a camera van which showed the road ahead, that police outriders swooped forwards, that there were official escort cars and police cars, and that the whole thing travelled at speed.  We thought we knew enough, even down to the exact time of the convoy’s arrival at Carr-Bridge (12:14) and Grantown on Spey (12:54). So somewhere around 12:38 the Olympic Torch, symbol of athletic excellence, would drive by our front field. 

There’s a layby opposite the end of our front drive, where Rob told us to park our blue 4×4 beast, facing east to Grantown.  We were to wave to the convoy so Rob, watching the BBC live stream, could see us waving (and be sure we were properly executing his plan). Once the flame had passed, we were to follow it into Grantown on Spey and cheer on the lucky locals hand bearing the flame through the town.

Well bugger me, but come the morning of the moment, I began to feel a tinge of excitement, a feeling that something fairly momentous was happening and for a few fleeting seconds I would witness it. The Better too, was getting a little bit too thrilled, which in turn agitated the dogs to the point where the younger one, Snoop, had to chew the sofa.  Damn Rob and his teen enthusiasm!

Dogs on leads, and dog whistle at the ready we headed down to the road.  The Better drove the beast down and parked as instructed.  Then she climbed into the front field and attempted to persuade our two ageing highland cows that this once in a lifetime experience was something even they should be a part of, shooing them down to the fence by the road.  The cows however, thought otherwise and wandered back up the field and under their favourite tree.  Being highlanders, they have a strong antipathy towards anything not Scottish, let alone London.  The lack of Olympic events such as grass digestion (four stomach relay), fencing (neck scratching, plain and barbed wire competition) and young Labrador on horn impaling, at which they quite fancy themselves but are actually crap at, further dis-enthused them to the point where they had absolutely no interest.  They communicated all this to The Better with a long look.

I opened the tailgate, cleaned out the disgusting load space so as not to appear a total car slob to the nation, and positioned dogs and Snoop’s favourite yellow stuffed duck toy so all three had a fine view down the road.  I then found a place where I could get a shot of torch bus and hotel in the same frame and, camera and iPhone in video mode at the ready, stood by.  The Better, having given up on the cows, stood by the car, ready to wave to Rob courtesy of Seb Coe’s multi million pound travelling extravaganza.

A police bike swooped past, very fast.  He slowed to check the back of the car, making sure neither Better, dogs nor duck were equipped with an RPG, then roared on towards Grantown.  The Better waved.  Next, a red something emblazoned with Olympic rings and Coca Cola logos, powered no doubt by the calorie content of their caramelised gassy liquid, zoomed past on their mission to give out branded sustenance to the crowds waiting ahead.  I managed to photograph both these harbingers of the main event, then spotted, in the distance, flashing blue lights, bright headlights and the Olympic flame itself, safe in a flame coloured bus.  As they went by I took some photos, shot some video, blew some whistle and legged it back to the car, to closely follow both Rob’s action plan and the torch convoy.  I jumped in to the driver’s seat and told The Better to stop waving and text Rob.  Had he seen us?

 

Passing through the hamlet of Dulnain Bridge (see Rob’s excellent Wiki page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulnain_Bridge)  we note under a dozen villagers with one Union Jack at the roadside.  We scoff: Had the convoy not passed? Were they waiting for the next Olympic torch? Fools!  We speed on to Grantown, parking on the edge of town and disgorging labs and The Better into the waiting throng.  Next to us are parked half a dozen police vans full of gun cops and an ambulance in case they shoot somebody.  There’s also a fire engine in case a bearer sets light to themselves.  We march up the High Street, past the now parked convoy, and take up a viewing spot half way along.

As we wait two official cyclists cycle past, sporting the grey official torch support kit and with a golf bag type sack on their backs.  These are either spare torches or assault rifles.  Perhaps they are assault rifle torches. Who knows. What is exciting is the number of Union flags (Jacks are just for ships) being waved by these Scots.  Come independence they’ll have to hand them all in, give them back together with all the money the RBS was given to save its sorry ass from going under.

Rob texts to tell us there is a four minute delay on the live feed, put there to deny suicide bidders any chance of internet TV fame.  We text back telling him we are in position in Grantown, as is every citizen in the town.  I’ve never seen the high street this packed, not even for the annual Hogmanay street fight, sorry, party.  Then disaster strikes.  Rob phones to tell us the layby was empty!  What?  No blue four by four, no dogs, no better, no yellow duck?  The scale of our failure sinks in.  The bus I cheered on, The Better waved at and the highland cows ignored, the big yellow bus with the wheels that went round and round, was not THE bus, it was A bus. Maybe it had some peripheral purpose within the convoy, carrying firelighters or something, or maybe it was the 12:38 from Inverness, incidentally making use of a police escort, but it was not the Olympic flame transport.  The blue Samsung truck, leading the convoy with a clear picture of the road ahead, was not the camera vehicle, but some sponsor driven horse box full of what? Olympic Samsung stuff useless to man or beast.  Damn it!

I start to explain to rob that we did everything he said, but we had obviously not rehearsed our roadside activities well enough.  We should have watched more footage.  We should have driven up the road during the weekend to actually, physically, eyeball the convoy.  Then we should not have been caught out.  Then we would not have left the layby before the main event went past.  Idiots!  Rob cuts me off to say we are now to make sure we wave at the camera as the torch goes by on its journey up Grantown High Street.  This we do, photographing the camera truck for good measure.  Four minutes later we get a text.  Rob has seen us wave, and has waved back!  On the way back to the car The Better gets arrested for causing a multi Labrador pile up.

.

VIETNAM DAY 1

After five years, five months and five days The Better and I are actually, finally, getting a hot holiday. We used to do this all the time, but since we bought the hotel we’ve not been able to, until now. Thirteen hours and two curries on a Vietnamese Airways 777 gets us to Ho Chi Minh City, which most of you will know as Saigon. The airport is sparkly, new and virtually empty.  Most of our fellow pasengers are in transit to Bangkok, and the large number of single men in their fifties, sex tourists one and all, will probably move on to Pattaya.  I too am a sex tourist, but unlike them I’ve brought my own from England. Not for me the brashy, trashy Thailand; I’m in ‘Narm, as Oliver Stone calls it, and I’m delighted to be here.

A painless and quick bit of passport and luggage business leaves just some money changing to do and we’ll be off.  I fish out one hundred and fifty quid and receive back 4.7 million Vietnamese Dong.  I can safely say I’ve never had that much Dong in my hand, ever, not even when I produced films of West End musicals. I’ve never actually had 4.7 million of anything before, so I feel quite special.

The city is a mad, buzzing, crazy place. Hordes of scooters and mopeds clog the streets, every one of them tooting at the buses, trucks and cars as they weave around them. The bigger vehicles toot back, creating a cacophony of stridency that washes around me and makes it quite hard to think.  It’s also very warm, in that clammy, tropical way, even at 8 am. We dump our bags at the hotel and head off to find Charlie, because we know from Hollywood movies that he lives here.

A quick spin through the wet market, avoiding the entrieties of fruit sellers, rickshaw drivers, and bottled water mercants, then on to the War Remnants Mueum. Piles of rusting American kit are parked haphazardly in the courtyard.  There I meet Charlie, his arms blown off by a mine, his shoulder bag full of tour guides wrapped in plastic.  I shake his right stump, because it is offered, and he urges me to buy some books from him. A lonely planet phrasebook and someone’s war memoirs are presented (between his two arm stumps if you must know) and $30 is asked for. I point out that is more than these books would cost in Stanfords of Long Acre, but he knows nothing of any of those three things and says he needs the money to send his son to school. So do I mate, I retort, and start to hand the books back. But he’s good, is Charlie, and I end up buying the books for $20, despite not having anything to do with the mines. We move on into the seventies commie designed museum to find photos of corpses next to cabinets of M16s, pictures of victims of Agent Orange, napalm, high explosive and bullets. Call me old fashioned, or cowardly, or deluded, but I prefer displays of weaponry without accompanying highlights of the effects of their use, and we beat a sweaty, flustered retreat. Just like the Amerians did. A street corner and a one dollar beer helps cool us down. I’m pleased the bar has not followed the museum with cause and effect prsentations; There are no pictures of liver cirrhosis or drunken slappers on a Newcastle street.

We survive the traffic chaos and manage to cross several streets without getting a moped in the ribs. We eat barbequed fish and clam noodle, drink ice cold beer at 80c a bottle, and enjoy the sticky eat which we wash off in the rooftop pool of the hotel.

Tomorrow the beach, four hours away on a sitting bus.

A TV kids comedy I wrote a while back…

This did the rounds a few years ago but wasn’t picked up.  Fell between two stools apparently.

CAPTAIN PEDANT PANTS

SCENE 1 Int Garden Shed Night

KEVIN puts the finishing touches to a headline for Very Small Modelling Monthly “1/64th Scale Action Figures – Anachronism or the Future?” In the background a television is on; a late night news report, and KEVIN turns to watch.

On the screen, a pretty female reporter

REPORTER
“And so with only hours to go to tomorrow’s official opening, workmen here are putting the finishing touches to the brand new headquarters of Global Digital”

The news camera pans around. A blue curtain is being erected over the main sign for the new building. The sign reads GLOBAL DIGITAL, One Media for the World. KEVIN roars with anger, slams down his work and grabs the phone.

KEVIN
“Adrian!…I don’t care…switch on your TV…switch it on now…I dunno, Digital News I think…well look at it, look damn you!

SCENE 1a Int Adrian’s Bedroom

Phone to ear, ADRIAN searches out the remote from amongst the bedclothes and sleepily flicks channels until he finds the same report KEVIN is watching. The shot is of the reporter

ADRIAN
“What?”

KEVIN
“Wait. Just wait. They’ll change the shot and then you’ll see”

The TV shot changes to the sign again

ADRIAN
“Oh – my – God!”

KEVIN
“Exactly. Oh my God is right. How can they do that? How can society allow them to get away with it?

SCENE 1 contd Int Garden Shed Night

KEVIN begins to rant. The remainder of his dialogue is over action as he grabs ladders and paint pots and car keys and Wellington boots (all with the phone under his chin) and as ADRIAN stumbles in the dark of his bedroom getting dressed, then leaves to get over to the shed.

KEVIN
“It’s just so typical, isn’t it, of how the rot putrefies everything. There are no safeguards, nothing to protect our children, nor the elderly, nor the vulnerable in our society – No, this huge multi billion pound, multi national, multi global and multi media! – Yes, that’s right, MEDIA! – organisation is just going to corrupt everything and everyone by spreading this kind of poison. It’s disgusting, it’s immoral. It perverts and belittles and corrupts is what it does. I mean how many times, just how many, Adrian, have we written to them, phoned them and visited them in person to ask, ever so politely, kindly and with manners, for them to think a little, just to look at the rules every now and again, just try to use the language as it should be used, not drag it into the gutter, rape and pillage its very soul, extinguish its beauty, dumb it down to the point where it is so dumb it cannot even be recognised for what it once was? Well? How many? And what do they say, eh my dear friend? What is their response? How do they react to our reasonable requests? Why, politely. Why, with a modicum of friendliness.

(Puts on voice) Of course you are right, but please remember we speak to a broad section of society and the odd colloquialism should be seen as familiarity, openness, warmth.

(Back to rant) Well this isn’t familiarity! This is certainly not warmth, and the only thing this is open to is falsehood and betrayal. They lied to us Adrian. They have cheated us. With one hand they promised us change while with their other slimy tentacles they have betrayed us behind our backs! I’m not going to stand for it! I am no longer going to passively plead. I’m going to stand up and be counted. I’m going to act! I’m going to fight this malaise with all my power! Are you with me Adrian? Are you?

(more quietly, uncertainly) Adrian? Hello?

ADRIAN stands at the doorway of the shed, implausibly backlit.

ADRIAN
“Yes Kevin, I am with you. Yes, I am ready. (and in a more studious manner) But I worry about the one hand, many tentacles metaphor. Seems mixed to me. Shouldn’t you have said ‘with one tentacle of many they promise us, but with the remainder they undo those very promises?’

KEVIN (indicates TV)
“I think you should worry more about that!”

On the screen is a shot of the blue curtain dropping down over the headquarters sign.

SCENE 2 Ext Office Block Night

The site is deserted. A few work-lights remain on. The blue covering dominates. In front is a temporary dais, some bleacher seating, celebratory bunting.

KEVIN and ADRIAN are creeping across the grass verge and towards the covered corporate sign. They are struggling with pots of paint and one of those multifunction ladders that can be put up in 47 different ways. Eventually they manage to reach the sign and put the ladder up without alerting the obviously oblivious security guards some distance away.

ADRIAN waits at the bottom of the ladder while KEVIN climbs up with the paint pot and fumbles his way under the blue drape. ADRIAN takes out a bungee and ties himself to the end of the ladder. KEVIN begins to correct the corporate sign. He enthusiastically dips his paintbrush into the pot and sloshes the paint on the sign. Most of this action is seen from outside of the drape, so KEVIN is but a large protuberance under the cloth. Big drips of paint fall from his brush onto ADRIAN’S head.

Suddenly a guard appears. ADRIAN panics runs for cover taking the ladder with him. KEVIN grabs the sign and his face bumps against it. Paint slops around. He is left dangling on the sign while KEVIN, still with ladder attached, jumps into a bush. The guard does not notice KEVIN dangling from the sign, nor the bush with a ladder sticking out of it.

The guard turns around and heads back to the main building. ADRIAN re-appears from the bush but he is unable to negotiate the ladder and bush. He falls over several times while he tries to unhitch himself from the ladder. Eventually ADRIAN manages to put the ladder back up against the sign. KEVIN fumbles to find his footing and begins to climb down. At this moment the Guard appears again. ADRIAN runs away again but this time he manages to keep the ladder upright. KEVIN hangs on for dear life as the top of the ladder careers around. Big splodges of paint fall from the paint pot onto the beautifully cut grass.

ADRIAN once again dives for the bush and the ladder falls forward. KEVIN falls with the ladder into another bush, a long streak of paint slopping down onto the ground. The guard fails to notice anything however.

Once the guard has passed KEVIN and ADRIAN stand up. ADRIAN is covered in paint and has bits of bush sticking from his hair and clothes. KEVIN is covered in leaves and foliage.

SCENE 3 ext Office Building day

A striking woman in a power suit is standing straddling one of the long streaks of red paint on the lawn. She holds a contractor by the ear and speaks with a powerful European accent.

MISS USS
“What iss thiss?”

CONTACTOR
“Dunno. Wasn’t me”

MISS USS
“Where is security?”

CONTACTOR
“He ran away”

MISS USS
“Nottamatter. We have his address. I will not surround with failure. Clinnitupp! Now!”

CONTACTOR
“Yes, Miss Use. Right Away”

MISS USS
“Uss. Not Yoose. Uss, Pliss!”

The contractors quickly and nervously lay red carpet over the splodges of paint. The resulting path zig zags across the lawn. A black limo pulls up. MISS USS seems to physically change from evil boss to servile assistant without drawing breath. Media Mogul VICTOR WINNER steps out and immediately walks towards the dais, accompanied by MISS USS and three young execs.

VICTOR
“I want it all and I want it now. Who or what is going to fail to stand in the way of this today?”

MISS USS
Nothing Victor, Mr Winner, Sir. No-one. Everythink is going to plan. The minister and the guests are ready. The world of press and television, all under your control, I might add, are in position and poised.

They have reached the dais. VICTOR steps up to the microphone

VICTOR
“Tempus fugit. I’m two hours behind and only one hour into my day. No time for speeches. This is the new International headquarters of Global Digital. You’re all here because you want something. My office is now there. (Points) Form a line”.

Turns to TV crews

“Now to the people of the world I say this: I have what you want. Use your remote.”

With his back to the blue awning, he pulls a handle. The awning drops revealing the big, shiny new sign. A little applause quickly dries. There is silence, then titters of laughter. VICTOR’s face is thunder. He turns
The sign has been inexpertly and shoddily altered with red paint. It no longer reads

GLOBAL DIGITAL

One Media for the World

‘Media’ has been changed to ‘Medium’

MISS USS looks with horror at the sign, then worry as she notices a speck of red paint on her otherwise flawless and very expensive blue court shoes. She looks around for the contractor, who is trying to sneak away.

VICTOR
“Dawson!

One of the young execs slides forward

VICTOR
“One head. One plate. One hour. Got it? Now get me MissYuss. I mean Muss Uss. Miss Huss. Dammit! Damned name! MISS USS!!”

MISS USS looks up. As she stands to go to her boss, we see she has stapled the contractors ear to the dias with a nail gun, which she drops after firing two more nails into his safety helmet.

SCENE 4 int shed. Day

This is our first properly lit view of the shed. It is very large and unusually neat for a garden shed. Shelves are neatly stacked, plastic boxes are correctly labelled and notice boards are neatly pinned with letters marked up under signs saying “Letters Written to Newsnight presentation” “Examples of Misspelled Headlines etc”
A classic stove stands in one corner, the TV in another. A large table with zoned areas created by wooden battens dominates one end. On it is KEVIN.

KEVIN shoots awake. He is still covered with the detritus of the night’s adventure and has obviously slept where he has fallen. He looks around for ADRIAN and kicks him awake, grabbing the TV remote as he does so.

ADRIAN gets up and starts to tidy.

ADRIAN
“Just because we have moved to a higher plane of existence does not mean we should ignore the fundamentals”

KEVIN
“Yes, yes. You’re right of course, but let us enjoy the moment. Let the world know we are there to nurture and protect, to guard and guide. The revolution starts here Adrian.

ADRIAN
“We have only pointed out that ‘medium’ is the singular and ‘media’ the plural so ‘single media’ should in fact be ‘single medium’. Hardly a revolution.”

KEVIN
“Ah, but did the French revolution start with the storming of a prison? Did the Russian revolution begin with a runaway pram? No, they too began with small steps, like Hitler learning to paint.”

ADRIAN
“Bad example”

On the TV, an advert is playing.

V/O
“Let your hair come alive with lasting freshness”

KEVIN
“Back to the grindstone. Lasting freshness is an abstract, so it’s unlikely to create or possess life giving properties”

ADRIAN
“It’s also an oxymoron; the whole thing about freshness is that it doesn’t last – that’s what makes it fresh. Hair cannot be independently alive anyway, so the phrase is doubly meaningless”

He reaches for a file marked ‘Toiletries and Cosmetics’

KEVIN
“Careful there friend. How can something be doubly meaningless? Surely the state of meaninglessness…

(ADRIAN raises an eyebrow)

KEVIN (Contd)
“..is a zero state, and anything less than zero is a negative..”

ADRIAN
“which when applied to a negative state of meaning…”

KEVIN
“will join two negatives together!”

ADRIAN
“And in grammar as in mathematics joining two negatives…”

KEVIN
“Will create a positive!”

ADRIAN
“So anything doubly meaningless…”

KEVIN
“Must therefore have some meaning!”

KEVIN and ADRIAN Together
“Yess!!”

They high five

ADRIAN
“Here it comes”

The TV shows the news programme bumper

KEVIN
“Our revolution began at (looks at watch) 07:08AM”

STUDIO NEWSREADER
“And in other news, the new headquarters of Global Digital opened today. There were no problems. Nor any hiccups of any kind at all. A very elegant spokeswoman said that everything went very smoothly, and all iss good. And now the weather”

The TV shows a still picture of a totally different office block

ADRIAN and KEVIN
“What the hell?”

SCENE 5 Int Office Day

In a meeting room, DAWSON and several other execs sit worried around the table. MISS USS enters and slams a video tape in front of them.

MISS USS
“I have stopped this fiasco from getting out. The news iss my news. This is the CCTV footage from last night. I stopped it also on the way to the programme office of CCTV Blunders – One of your projects Dawson, No?”

DAWSON
“I’ll sack the producer of that show immediately”

MISS USS
“Do not worry. It iss done”

SCENE 6 Ext office block day

A middle aged man is thrown onto the lawn, a carton of belongings follows.

PRODUCER
“I’m a member of BAFTA, you know!”

Behind him workmen repair the corporate sign. One of them still has three or four large nails protruding from his safety helmet.

SCENE 5 contd

In black and white on the boardroom TV, KEVIN and ADRIAN are seen struggling with the ladder. MISS USS freezes the tape on a close up and taps the screen

MISS USS
“You have how much remaining of the hour Mr Winner gave you? You have two plates ready? Yess?. One iss for your own head?”

SCENE 7 Int Garden shed Day

KEVIN and ADRIAN are clean from their night-time adventure. KEVIN is sorting through sheets of Letraset. ADRIAN is sat at the table. He has a pile of letters in front of him. Before opening each letter he measures the letter against a letter opener. He has a number of letter openers neatly labelled and laid out on the table in one of the compartments.

KEVIN
“To come back to your phrase ‘doubly meaningless’

ADRIAN
“Yes?”

KEVIN
“It’s not a double negative at all”

ADRIAN puts down a letter and pauses for thought

ADRIAN
“You know, you are right”

KEVIN
“Of course I know I’m right”

ADRIAN
“Doubly meaningless is like meaningless times meaningless – it’s double”

KEVIN
“And zero times zero is?”

ADRIAN
“Zero”

KEVIN
“So ‘doubly meaningless’ is actually…”

ADRIAN
“That scourge of men of letters”

KEVIN
“That lurking literary trap door”

ADRIAN
“Tautology!”

KEVIN
“The unnecessary and usually unintentional use of two words to express one meaning!”

ADRIAN
“How does a trap door lurk exactly?”

ADRIAN marks a scoreboard behind him. This board notes the number of letters written to organisations and the number of responses. We see that the greatest number of letters are to Digital Media, as are the fewest responses.

SCENE 8 Int MISS USS’S office

Sat at her desk, MISS USS looks to an alarm clock, which then rings. She hits hands free on the desk phone.

MISS USS
“Dawson your time is upp. I will now deal with this matter”

She punches some numbers on the phone

MISS USS
“Find me some detectives. Get them here now”

She rewinds and plays the tape several times, each time freezing on the closest available image of KEVIN and ADRIAN

The scene ends with the freeze full screen

SCENE 9 Int Newspaper office day

The EDITOR of tabloid paper DAILY NEWS sits at his desk. A young enthusiastic reporter, PAM PORTER is being young and enthusiastic

PAM
“They changed the news! Their high profile office opening was sabotaged and they totally lied about it. My friend at Digital told me everything. Someone ruined their sign. Winner nearly peed his pants and that horrible Yuss woman went completely mad. Then they lied about it on the TV news – their TV news of course. Nobody else carried it. We’ve got them boss”

EDITOR
“We got nothing Porter. Talk to your friend again. Find out who did it. You need more than an un-named source. You need hard evidence. Pictures, quotes. A story. ‘Somebody changed their sign’. – not much of a headline, that. Find the evidence, find out WHY. Then, if the answer is interesting enough, then I might run it. Now get on with it. Oh, by the way, I think it’s Youse, not Yuss”

PAM
“I’m on it boss. Pam Porter, Ace reporter is on the case!”

PAM PORTER stabs at her mobile phone

PAM
“Hi it’s me. I need the facts. Who, Why, what. When and..”

EDITOR
“Porter?”

PAM
“When and where. Motive.

EDITOR
“Porter!”

PAM
“I need the story behind the news. Then it’s news you see”

EDITOR (shouting)
“Porter!!”

PAM
“Hang on. Yes?”

EDITOR
“Is there anything in this room indicating it as a place of work for young, keen and stupid reporters?”

PAM (looks around)
“No sir”

EDITOR
“Then get out!”

PAM
“Someone changed media to medium. That’s silly”

EDITOR
“No. Actually it’s quite interesting. Go find out more. Note the ‘Go’ at the start of that sentence. It means do it, but not here”

PAM skips out of the door. The EDITOR groans, picks up a letter and starts reading. He gets quite angry as he reads.

EDITOR
“Damn idiots. Don’t you lecture me. (stabs phone) Letters editor, I’ve got another one from those pedant pen pushers. This time it’s ‘needless antanaclasis’ we are collectively accused of because we wrote ‘Edited Edition’. Print it with this comment: This newspaper follows the highest standards of grammar and syntax. The phrase Edited Edition is in fact a polyptoton. The Editor.”

Scene9a int Newspaper print room

Two SUB EDITORS sit at a compositing screen. One hangs up the phone

SUB EDITOR 1
“OK boss, whatever you want”

SUB EDITOR 2
“What did he want?”

SUB EDITOR 1
“Dunno. Something about an anticlimax and polyprotons”

SUB EDITOR 2
“Sounds like a sports drink”

SUB EDITOR !
“Yeah. One that doesn’t work”

SUB EDITOR 2
“Polyproton – the anticlimax isotonic drink!”

The phone rings again

SUB EDITOR 1
“Sorry boss. Just doing it”

SUB EDITOR 2
“Boss, this headline, is it yobbish or yobby?”

Scene 10 Int Main reception Global Digital Day

Two men march up to the reception desk. They wear ill fitting suits and pork pie hats. STEVIE is bedecked in chunky jewellery, DAVIE has a pencil thin moustache.

STEVIE
“Ello there me old matey! We’re ere t’see a Mrs Yeast”

DAVIE
“On urgent and pressing business”

RECEPTIONIST (into phone)
“There’s two gentlemen to see Miss Yeaz. Sorry, Uss”

RECEPTIONIST (to the men)
“You’re to go to Miss Uses Office”

(to phone)
“Sorry”

(to the men)
“I mean Miss Uss’ss Office”

DAVY
“Pardon?”

STEVIE
“Missussesoffices?

RECEPTIONIST (draws breath)
“Miss – Uss – Es – Off – iss. God, now she’s got me doing it. Sixth floor”

DAVIE
“Missusseoffice – sixth floor”

STEVIE
“Let’s go”

SCENE 11 Int MISS USS’S OFFICE day

Jump cut and sound f/x

MISS USS
“Which is Paul Pink please?”

The men look blank

MISS USS
Paul Pink? Iss you?

STEVIE
“Ah. Nah, nah. It’s Pullink. Pullink Detective Agency. I always say, it’s like Kerchink, but into water. I’m Stevie, and this is my partner Davie. Nice to meet you Mizz er, Miss”

MISS USS
“Kerplink? Chink? You are joking of course.

DAVIE
“Always a smile for a client. Nice to meet you, Mizz Youse”

MISS USS
“Uss. Not Youse or Yoose. Uss, Pliss!”

STEVIE
“Okey dokey, Miss Ussss. What can Kerplink Detective Agency do for you today?”

MISS USS
“Digital International has come under a most serious attack. You are my weapon of choice to strike back. You will find these men and you will report to me”

She plays and replays the tape.

SCENE 12 Int Shed. Morning

KEVIN is seated in the armchair. He has the Daily News open and is flicking to the Letters page. He stops munching his toast and reaches for the phone.

KEVIN
“Adrian. It’s me. Action stations. That berk of an editor has suggested I don’t know the difference between antanaclasis and a polyptoton, except he’s called it a polyproton! Small minded fool. He can’t even spell it!”

ADRIAN appears at the door.

ADRIAN
“Was that over Edited Edition?”

KEVIN puts down the phone and continues

KEVIN
“Yes”

ADRIAN
“We did discuss that and I told you not to send that letter. He’s right (blinks) An example of antanaclasis was Tony Blair’s ‘Education, education education’: The same word repeated over. A polyptoton is when the same word or root appears in different grammatical forms in a sentence, like edited edition – OH MY GOD!!”

KEVIN
“No that’s hyperbole”

ADRIAN
“The front page. It’s us!”

KEVIN folds the paper shut. There is the still from the CCTV showing two figures with a ladder. The headline reads:

HQ PAINT DRAMA

ADRIAN (reading)
“The opening of Global Digital’s – nice to see the apostrophe in the right place there – Global Digital’s headquarters was marred yesterday by a bungling piece of vandalism. – Bungling?”

KEVIN
“It’s us. In the photo. We’re going to be caught”

ADRIAN
“It doesn’t look anything like us. Listen: A source inside Digital International told this reporter that police suspect young school kids of playing some kind of prank. Detective Sargeant McDeelsp cited the shoddiness and amateurishness of the damage as the basis for his theory.

KEVIN
“Shoddiness! Amateurish! How dare they!!”

ADRIAN
“Professor of English Ernst Spindlekampff said that although technically medium is the singular of media, recent common usage had created a singularity from the plurality thus giving validity to the phraseology ‘one media’.

KEVIN dives over to a book-case piled with reference materials

KEVIN
“Spindlekampff. Hmm. I’ve heard of him. Now let’s see..”

ADRIAN (reading)
“The principal spokesperson for Digital international said that although there had been a temporary malfunction in the actual unveiling, everything was now roses in the garden and Mr Winner had personally thanked her for her efforts”

KEVIN
“Here he is. Ernst Maximillian Spindlekampff Professor of English at Oxford University. Chief compiler of Chambers Dictionary. Special Language advisor to Digital International! He’s a plant. Of course he’s going to argue take the old validity through usage line. We must fight them Adrian. We must stand up to them and not be cowed by the serried ranks of so called experts, and the power and money they have at their disposal. Are you sure it doesn’t look like us in the picture?”

ADRIAN
“The police suspect school kids don’t they?”

KEVIN
“Maybe they just wrote that to lull us into a false sense of security”

ADRIAN
“Nobody could tell it’s us from that photo”

KEVIN
“That’s what Clinton said”

ADRIAN
“We can’t stop now. There’s so much we can achieve if we don’t lose our nerve after our very first strike”

KEVIN
“What if we get caught? What if they’re waiting outside for us right now. Armed police. Helicopters. Dogs. Professional psychiatrists and that newsreader fellow ready to consign us, with a quiet smirk, into yet another police footage compilation programme.”

KEVIN nervously looks out of door and windows.

ADRIAN
“We can make a difference you know. Why, last night we were, you were, quite the super hero, up there under that sheet, on the ladder, single-minded, brave. There is so much to be done”

KEVIN
“I won’t achieve anything from inside a prison cell. Getting caught, being identified, is not going to help us help the language, is it Adrian?”

ADRIAN
“But…if you, we, were disguised in some way?”

KEVIN
I could have a disguise, I suppose. Heroic you say?”

ADRIAN
“Well, more Marvel comic book rather than Homeric”

KEVIN
“Well disguised, the danger of recognition would diminish. Features hidden, with say a mask, I could stand forth, proud and secure in the knowledge that I am an icon for our age, Adrian. I could sally forth and change so much. The misquoters and ungrammarians would soon know the power of my wrath. I’ll need a cloak.”

ADRIAN
“We should also address the issue of our equipment levels. We need to carry out our strikes professionally and properly. We must never again be labelled as shoddy, nor amateurish”

ADRIAN grabs a pad and sketches furiously

ADRIAN
“We need a system of correctly identifying the required paint colour, so we can alter the sign without anyone knowing we have done so! We need tools and brushes and binoculars. Gosh, we also need a way of tackling three dimensional, embossed or engraved signage. Kevin, we need to get cracking!”

KEVIN
“We need a DIY superstore”

Flash cut to…

SCENE 13 Int DIY superstore DAY

ADRIAN is having the time of his life filling a shopping trolley with all kinds of tools. KEVIN is down a different aisle furtively altering a sale sign with a magic marker. An OLD WOMAN is also watching, and tutting in an increasingly annoying way. With her is a young boy, about eleven.

OLD WOMAN
“D’ya sell ammers?”

KEVIN
“Oh. No, I don’t actually work here and personally, no I do not sell hammers. Or ‘ammers. But I’m sure you’ll find some here somewhere”

OLD WOMAN
“Watch’er doin’ then?”

KEVIN
“Well, I noticed this sign, which as you can see..”

BOY
“’E’s nickin it!”

KEVIN
“Young man, theft is far from my mind”

OLD WOMAN
“You nickin it?”

KEVIN
“No. No I’m not. I’m merely pointing out that..”

BOY
“You’re graffin it!”

KEVIN
“Graffin?”

OLD WOMAN
“’E means garafeeting, don’tya?”

BOY
“Yeah”

A SECURITY GUARD further up the aisle notices the exchange and takes an interest.

KEVIN
“I am NOT graffiti-ing anything. No. I won’t have that. Graffiti is a noun not a verb. I am not engaging in the act of graffiti. That’s better”

OLD WOMAN
“You’re mad.”

KEVIN (smiling)
“Language is all we have, madam. It’s what separates us from dogs”

ADRIAN turns the corner, pushing a laden trolley

ADRIAN
“Come on Kev, paint section”

They walk off down an aisle, followed by the SECURITY GUARD

ADRIAN
“Actually I’d put our inability to lick our own scrotal sacs quite high on the list as well”

The OLD woman and BOY are left shaking their heads at their odd encounter

BOY
“E’s a nutter, gran. Let’s get yer ammer”

OLD WOMAN
“Yeah. Then we can get ‘ome, do grandad in and get yer tea”

KEVIN and ADRIAN approach the paint section. KEVIN is very impressed with the technology, especially the paint dispenser. ADRIAN collects sample swatches. They stand around for a while, with no one in sight but the lurking SECURITY GUARD. Eventually a sales ASSISTANT appears.

ASSISTANT
“Can I help you?”

KEVIN
“I’m sure you can. You are employed by the store, you have no doubt been thoroughly trained in all aspects of sales procedure, and you are therefore eminently capable of offering us assistance”

ASSISTANT
“Pardon?”

KEVIN
“The issue is not whether you can help us, it is whether you are able to offer us the kind of help we need”

ADRIAN
“Ah, the old can I, may I, mistake. It’s quite simple really – can I go up to the first floor, questions my mobility..”

KEVIN
“Whereas may I go up to the first floor, requests permission to do so

ASSISTANT
“We don’t have a first floor”

KEVIN
“It’s an illustration, a metalepsis”

ADRIAN
“Well hardly a metalepsis. I doubt even if it’s metonymy”

ASSISTANT
“Is that a colour you want then?”

KEVIN
“No, it’s a figure of speech”

ASSISTANT
“So do you want the ‘any colour under the sun’ service or not?”

KEVIN
“I don’t wish to be pendantic, but…”

ADRIAN
“Yes you do. You love being pedantic. Pedantry is a religion to you”

KEVIN
“OK. I’m going to be pedantic here and point out that colouration in sunlight is actually quite limited compared to…”

ADRIAN checks out the paint dispenser

ADRIAN
“Can we buy this?”

ASSISTANT
“No”

KEVIN
“Sunlight is composed of..”

ADRIAN
“Why not?”

ASSISTANT
“Dunno”

KEVIN
“It is obvious you have no interest in understanding the error in nomenclature of your service. Adrian, we have no need of this machine. As editor of Very Small Modelling Monthly I am certain we can design and build our own. It will be more compact, portable and a design classic. I may then sell one to you, young man. Now, do you have any masks?”

ASSISTANT
“Aisle seven”

SCENE14 Ext Public Library DAY

STEVIE and DAVEY are sitting on a bench outside the public library. DAVEY is eating a large ice cream. A copy of THE DAILY NEWS lies on his lap, catching the drips. STEVIE’s mobile rings with a silly tune.

STEVIE
“Hello. This is the Pullink Detective Agency. How may I direct your call?”

STEVIE (pause)
“At the public library”

STEVIE
“It’s a stakeout, Miss Husse. Sorry, Uss”

STEVIE
“Well, we figured that your two guys had to know something about grammar and that, well, they’d find all that kind of stuff here…”

DAVEY(Chipping in)
“At the library”

STEVIE
“So they’re bound to turn up here again, aren’t they?”

MISS USS screeches up in a black BMW sports car

MISS USS
“Imbeciles. Morons. Idiots of the village! Have you not seen this?”

She throws a copy of DAILY NEWS at them. DAVEY looks down guiltily at his ice cream spattered copy.

MISS USS
“Find them now! I’ll find the drip at Global”

DAVEY
“Drip?”

MISS USS
“Drip. Tap. Escapage of water”

STEVIE
“Ah, leak”

MISS USS
“Whattever”

She roars off in the car down the road.

SCENE 15 Int Shed DAY

ADRIAN is working on a design for the paint dispenser. KEVIN appears in the doorway, wearing a pair of heavy duty welding goggles and a dust mask. He has on shorts over pyjama bottoms and a tight fitting purple top onto which the letters IGSPSCB have been printed. His speech is muffled and indistinct

KEVIN
“What do you think?”

ADRIAN
“What’s IGSPSCB?”

KEVIN
“Incorrect Grammar, syntax, punctuation and spelling combat brigade”

ADRIAN
“Sorry?”

KEVIN removes the mask

KEVIN
“Incorrect Grammar, syntax, punctuation and spelling combat brigade”

ADRIAN
“Hardly catchy”

KEVIN
“But accurate”

ADRIAN
“Well it’s not really, is it? Do you combat against the syntax and punctuation or with it? Are you fighting incorrect grammar, or using incorrect grammar as a weapon to fight something else?”

KEVIN
“Well I like it. Where’s your costume?”

ADRIAN
“Mine?”

KEVIN
“Yes”

ADRIAN
“Well I though I might wear a cap”

KEVIN
“Hmm. Well get your cap and let’s go”

SCENE 16 ext night Fire station

ADRIAN pulls his baseball cap down over his eyes. He and KEVIN are across the street from the fire station. A large banner is draped about twenty feet off the ground and it spans the width of the building just above the tops of the two big red roll up doors.

ADRIAN
“Looks pretty straight forward. Got the question mark?”

KEVIN
“Yes. I hope the ladder’s long enough”

Cut to…

KEVIN is at the top of the ladder, but he can’t reach the sign. He does little jumps but they serve no purpose other than to scare him and make ADRIAN’s job at the foot of the ladder more difficult.

ADRIAN
“Keep still”

KEVIN
“How am I supposed to replace punctuation by keeping still?”

A woman in her late twenties passes by.

JULIA
“Hello Adrian. Where’s Kevin?”

ADRIAN looks up

JULIA
“Kevin? What on earth are you doing up there?”

KEVIN sighs and comes down

KEVIN
“So you recognised me then”

JULIA
“Of course I recognised you. Anywhere Adrian is means Kevin’s not far”

ADRIAN
“That’s an exceedingly clumsy sentence”

KEVIN
“Shut up Ade. Nice to see you Julia”

JULIA (playfully)
“Are you training to be a fireman then, Kevin? Building up your muscles?”

ADRIAN
“Well actually were embarking on…”

KEVIN
“Shut up Ade. Something like that, actually”

JULIA
“Well give me a call some time. I might need rescuing”

JULIA walks off. KEVIN sighs again. ADRIAN busies himself with the ladder.

ADRIAN
“Come on. Grab hold of that door”

ADRIAN gets out his mobile and dials 999.

ADRIAN
“Hullo. Fire brigade please”

All the lights come on in the fire station. Bells can be heard, and the swoosh of cloth on slippery pole. Blue lights start flashing inside and the roller door begins to rise up, taking KEVIN with it.

KEVIN reaches the sign and slaps a ready made question mark over the offending exclamation mark at the end of ‘NOT TO’ He turns to look down and give ADRIAN the thumbs up. The fire engine roars out of the station, its ladder just catching KEVIN by the seat of his shorts and dragging him off the door. The ladder extends and dumps KEVIN at ADRIAN’s feet.

KEVIN
“A successful mission I feel”

SCENE 16 Ext industrial estate DAY

A BMW convertible crunches its way over the uneven ground. MISS USS screeches to a halt by a door, carefully steps out and makes her way inside

SCENE 17 Int Disused Factory DAY

MISS USS pulls at a dusty door and it opens. She goes through. On the other side is a clean and high tech meeting room. Twelve chairs are arranged around a very swanky underlit table. All but one are occupied by a variety of men and women. At the head sits a distinguished elder gentleman.

CHAIRMAN
“Ah. Miss Urse. Sorry Uursee”

MISS USS
“Uss”

CHAIRMAN
“Of course. Welcome. Do sit down. As usual there will be no minutes of this meeting. No notes will be taken, and recording devices are obviously forbidden. We shall begin this session of The 1984 Chamber with a report from our representative in the Plain English Society. Go ahead, Mrs Albion.”

MRS ALBION
“Mr Chairman. Fellow members: I am pleased to report a further three utility companies have approached us about simplifying their communications with the public. As we sign up more and more service providers, we hope to get rid of vast swathes of needlessly complicated language. Within twelve months we expect the phrases ‘gaspay’ and ‘phonepay’ to replace the words bill, invoice, statement, remittance and account.

DR SPINDLEKAMPFF
“As chief compiler of Chambers Dictionary I can assure you they will be in the next edition”

CHAIRMAN
“Excellent. Well done Doctor Spindlekampff! We thank you also for your brilliance in your latest edition of the Chambers Scrabble Word List. Putting in pretend words like qis, qi and zuz, whilst ignoring zen, was inspired!

DR SPINDLEKAMPFF
“Thank You”

CHAIRMAN
“Members of the 1984 Chamber. For us the Orwellian concept of Newspeak is not some future horror, but a levelling of the English language to the point that all thoughts are interchangeable. Orwell was so wrong to see Newspeak as a perfidious system to deny freedom. Newspeak IS freedom. The freedom to communicate thoughts and ideas unburdened by rules of grammar and punctuation. Who needs needless adjectives? Who needs words at all in the old fashioned sense? Who cares how it’s spelled if you get what the word is. Hats off to our telecoms members. The new language of texting has advanced our cause immeasurably.”

Two suited exec types nod sagely but sharply, as if in shorthand.

CHAIRMAN
“Congratulations to Miss, er… to our stalwart media member. Her efforts can be seen every Saturday morning, and twenty four seven on Global Digital music channels. Twenty four seven. How much more exciting, modern and meaningful that phrase is compared to all hours of the day and night – including Sunday! That so encapsulates our mission! Loove that ‘so’! Thank you also to our Internet representatives. Mr Gates, thank you not only for the funding…”

BILL GATES gives a little wave

“…but also for reducing language to the point where it doesn’t need to be more than one word at all! Check it out at www-dot-lotsofwordsalljoineduptomakeonelongword-dot-com! Brilliant! Go forth now and keep up the good work.. And remember our task for this month is to encourage numbers instead of words. C-U-l-eight-er Ha Ha!”

The meeting breaks up. MRS ALBION sidles up to MISS USS. As she starts to twitter, the CHAIRMAN approaches.

CHAIRMAN
“Ah, Miss..er..Use. Ha ha! Miss Use – of the language! I looove it!”

Then all serious

CHAIRMAN
“I hear there was some sabotage. At your HQ opening? Mrs Albion; why don’t you assist Miss-Use (Ha ha!) in finding the culprit or culprits. An attack on one is an attack on all. How is Mr Winner. Do give him my regards”

MISS USS
“Your offerr iss kind, but un-needed. It is of no consequence. Vandals with red paint. Unsophisticated. Dealt with.”

SCENE 17 Ext fire Station Day

Hunky firemen do their thing. PAM PORTER is finding it difficult to concentrate, but manages to pull herself together.

FIRE CHIEF
“It was a very foolish thing to do. Dangerous too. Any number of people could have got seriously injured”

PAM PORTER
“So what happened exactly, Chief?”

FIRE CHIEF
“Some idiot made hoax calls last night, and while we were out vandalised the sign”

PAM PORTER looks up at the Fire Alarm sign

PAM PORTER
“How, exactly?”

FIRE CHIEF
“They climbed up onto a fire engine and…”

PAM PORTER
“No, I mean how did they vandalise the sign? In what way?”

FIRE CHIEF looks up at the sign

FIRE CHIEF
“Well, it’s different. It wasn’t like this. I,er, I’m not exactly sure. Rogers! What happened to the sign?

ROGERS
“Question mark, boss. They changed the exclamation mark into a question mark. Looks better, I think”

FIRE CHIEF
Thank you, Rogers. Anyway, they left these”

The FIRE CHIEF whips KEVINS ripped shorts from behind his back.

FIRE CHIEF
“On the fire engine”

PAM PORTER
“Are you telling me someone risked life, limb and possible imprisonment to correct the punctuation on your sign?”

FIRE CHIEF
“It was an act of vandalism”

PAM PORTER
“It was an act of pedantry. You’d have to be really, really pedantic to do that. And he left his pants behind. Pant Pedant. Hmm. It’s got a nice ring to it

ROGERS
“It’s alliteration. When two words start with the same letter.”

FIRE CHIEF
“The police are appealing for witnesses. You may want to write that down, Miss. They especially want to talk to anyone in the vicinity of the fire station between eleven thirty and midnight. Miss?”

PAM PORTER
“Thank you, Chief. What’s your first name, Rogers?”

ROGERS
“Richard”

PAM PORTER writes it down, smiling.

SCENE 18 Int Newspaper Office DAY

PAM PORTER is still smiling as she reads back her notes to the EDITOR

PAM PORTER
“Fireman Richard Rogers indicated that the changes to the sign were an improvement in punctuation. He warned however that such pranks were dangerous, showing me the pedantic perpetrator’s pants – that’s alliteration, Boss. Good headline, too. Pedantic Perpetrator ”

EDITOR
“In the unlikely event you ever gain twenty years experience in journalism, you will then be in the position to write headlines. Until that time, when I will be fortunate and dead, you leave the headlines to me. Now, are these the same fellows who changed Global Digital’s sign the other night?.

PAM PORTER
“Er”

EDITOR
“Er is not an answer. Er is a mistake. Write this. In a recent spate of attacks – there have been two, and in the world of newspapers two is officially a spate – No, not attacks, incidents. In a recent spate of incidents, public signage has been corrected, no, subjected to a level of scrutiny not seen before. Someone is roaming the streets pedantically correcting the language. Last night they risked their lives and tore their pants. Who are these vigilantes?”

The EDITOR picks up his phone

EDITOR
“Subs. Run Porter’s story. New headline. Pedant Pants on Fire”

Scene 19 Int restaurant Day

KEVIN and ADRIAN sit at a table in a large, busy restaurant. KEVIN is hiding behind his menu, whilst at the same time trying to attract the attention of JULIA, who can be seen in the ‘on display’ kitchen busily cooking. ADRIAN studies the menu

KEVIN
“This is stupid. She can’t see us.”

ADRIAN and JULIA manage eye contact.

ADRIAN
“Relax will you. She likes you. It’ll be fine”

KEVIN
“Hrrmph”

SCENE 23 Int MISS USS’s Office

MISS USS is violently marking a TV script with a thick red pen. A young, spiky haired TV presenter stands before her.

MISS USS
“Present tense only. No subjunctives. Keep it simple. Like texting.”

She throws the script back at the boy

TV PRESENTER
“Yo! Thanks big miss boss lady. Music TV rocks!”

He spins out of the office. MISS USS leans back in her chair and smiles, then frowns at the DAILY NEWS on her desk

SCENE 24 INT Restaurant Day

The restaurant is nearly empty. JULIA is sitting with KEVIN and ADRIAN, who is studying the menu

ADRIAN
“What’s a jus?”

JULIA
“It’s a sauce”

ADRIAN
“Then why not write sauce”

JULIA
“Because jus more accurately evokes the process of reduction and straining that is required

ADRIAN
“There are no commas here. Listen. Tournedos of beef cardamom and blackberry jus olive oil blanched courgette creamed crisp polentabase. What’s beef cardamom? How d’you get a polenta to be blackberryjusoliveoilblanched? You really need some commas, Julia”

JULIA
“Aren’t you the comma boy! And as for you Kevin, I saw the paper – pedant pants, huh?”

KEVIN
“Honoured as I am by your interest, I’ve come here to ask you not to mention our little meeting outside the fire station”

JULIA
“Who would I want to mention it to Kevee?”

KEVIN
“Well, the authorities. Police. That sort of thing”

JULIA
“Shall I tell the firemen you were climbing up their pole?”

KEVIN
“Pleeese”

JULIA
“Of course I won’t tell them, Kev. But if you two are going to charge around putting commas and question marks everywhere you’re going to need a lot more organisation. And disguises.

KEVIN
“I told you the hat was a rubbish idea”

ADRIAN
“So’s your mask”

JULIA
“You both need disguises. You two are like tweedle dum and teedle dee – always together and never apart. If you’re going to insist on doing this pedant pant thing…

ADRIAN
“And comma boy”

JULIA
“Yes, well if you’re not going to be dissuaded by the fact you are wanted men, criminals on the run, desperados who will stop at nothing..”

KEVIN
“Someone has to do it Julia. Someone has to stem the tide. I am Canute and I will not let it rain”

ADRIAN and JULIA exchange glances

KEVIN
“I cannot allow ignorance and sloth to undermine the great language of King Canute!”

ADRIAN
“He spoke Norwegian. Do you know how he spelt his name?”

KEVIN
“Never mind that Adrian. You heard the lady. You need a disguise. More than a disguise, you need to make a statement and that statement is a comma! I know what you need. Come with me!”

SCENE 20 Ext Fire Station Day

STEVIE and DAVIE of the Pullink Detective Agency are talking to ROGER and looking up at the sign

Scene 21 Ext Ed’s Amphibian Emporium.

KEVIN and ADRIAN stand outside a small shop. Fish tanks adorn the window.

ADRIAN
“No. Absolutely not. This is going too far. I swore I’d never, ever do that again, and you can’t make me.

KEVIN
“The cause is greater than the individual. Come on”

Scene 20 Int Ed’s Amphibian Emporium

ADRIAN stands dressed in a giant, yellow tadpole costume. The name of the shop is emblazoned on the side.

ED
“Twenty quid and it’s yours. But I’ll want it back for next year’s water expo. I have a stall and I sell a lot of frogs”

ADRIAN
“I feel humiliated”

KEVIN
“It suited you then and it suits you now. Suck up your fear. I just need a few things from the gentlemen’s outfitters across the road and then we are ready. Our faces may be hidden but our purpose is clear. The English language is safe in our hands. If the world wants to label us pedantic because we care and pay attention to detail then so be it. We are pedantic. I am pedant pants. Let’s go comma boy. Let’s go and save our mother tongue.”

ED
“D’you want any newts?”

SCENE 21 Ext Gents Outfitters. Day

ADRIAN is standing outside in his tadpole costume. Ed’s Amphibian Emporium has been crudely painted out. KEVIN emerges from the Gents Outfitters. He wears the same goggles, but he now has an odd cape thing on. Combat leggings have replaced the pyjama bottoms and lycra shorts hug his hips. The purple top has the motif “Syntax is Sexy” emblazoned across it in yellow. JULIA steps out of the shop.

JULIA
“There Kevee. That’s better. See you at seven tomorrow”

JULIA trots down the street.

ADRIAN
“Syntax is sexy?”

KEVIN
“Julia’s idea. Which I approved”

ADRIAN
“Seven tomorrow?”

KEVIN
“Julia’s idea. The price of her support. I have to take her to the pictures. Some kind of date. You know women”

ADRIAN
“Am I invited”

KEVIN
“Umm, no. I don’t think so”

ADRIAN
“oh”

KEVIN
“Look at that! Our first ‘in costume’ mission! Let’s go!”

KEVIN leaps over to a language school a couple doors down. There is a poster in the window which reads

Learn English Here
Our courses are good for you for following reasons;

KEVIN whips out a pen and adds ‘the’ between for and following.

KEVIN
“An English school really should know better, Adria…Comma Boy!”

ADRIAN
“Do the colon, Kev”

KEVIN changes the semi colon to a full colon.

KEVIN
“Don’t call me Kev. Not when we’re on duty”

ADRIAN examines the poster.

ADRIAN
“Hmm. Well, It’ll look better when we have the paint dispenser finished. We’ll match the colour exactly. Anyway, I can’t call you Pedant, can I? Or Pants. Panti?”

KEVIN spies an old Captain Sensible poster in a shop window.

KEVIN
“Captain! Captain Pedant Pants! OK?”

ADRIAN (resigned)
“OK”

KEVIN
“Captain Pedant Pants and Comma Boy. Masked avengers. Superheroes. With our new secret identities we are safe to carry out the task we have set ourselves, preventing the abuse of the English language. Let’s go Comma boy!”

CAPTAIN PEDANT PANTS and COMMA BOY head off down the street, oblivious to the strange looks of passers by. COMMA BOY’s tail keeps drooping between his legs.

~ End of Episode 1 ~

A memory of Andrew Miller RIP

My first job with Simon West was as assistant director on a Captain Sensible video, in which the jolly Captain got embroiled in a giant breakfast and ended up swimming in his own cereal.  So delighted with the result was the Captain’s manager, concert promoter Andrew Miller, that he immediately offered Simon a partnership make more of these music video films. Simon’s producer at the time, a blond scatty head called Aleck or something, somehow managed to self-ignite from the stress of not being able to actually organise anything at all, and a month later I was the staff producer, at a salary of zero, of new production hot house West and Miller. Slowly, jobs began to trickle through the door, which looked out onto Musard Road in Fulham and gave the appearance of just another door in a long line of doors in a long line of terraced houses.  It meant we had old lady neighbours who took the milk in and worried about their cats.  Most un-rock’n’roll.

Nearly all Simon’s work came through Andrew Miller’s friendship with Pete Waterman.  Often, Waterman’s new acts needed a video at incredibly short notice.  For most artists the record company held the purse strings, acting in effect like a bank.  A singer or band would sign a deal with a record company for say three albums. They’d receive an advance that had to cover the cost of making the three albums.  Promotional costs, of which the music video was a part, were shared between the band and the record company, with the band usually putting up half the money, either from the advance or to be recouped from future royalties.  Record companies didn’t want to spend music video money on new bands, so they’d release the single without a video, get the act on Top of the Pops and then, if the single went up the charts, they’d commission the video, which was by then needed immediately if it was to build on the previous week’s TOTP success.  One of Pete Waterman’s minions rang on a Tuesday.

“It’s a new artist and he’s gonna be mega.  Totally mega.  He sounds like a fucking soul star.  Make him look good.  We’ve got fifteen grand and we need it delivered on Friday. Ok?”

“No. Not Ok.  Even if we shoot this day after tomorrow, we can’t get it finished much before the following Friday”

“Fuck.  He’s doing Top of the Pops tomorrow and he’s going to be mega.  We need a treatment.  Keep it simple.  This guy’s a god”

“If you want Simon to write a treatment I need a tape of the song.  And if you want this done yesterday I need you to wire me fifty per cent of the budget, and we don’t know what that is because there isn’t a treatment, so why don’t you send me half the fifteen grand for now, and when you like the treatment you can send me the rest”

“I’ll get back to you”

It’s not often one gets the chance to work with a mega fucking soul star who’s also a god.  Simon and I waited with anticipation for the bike courier to arrive.  I’d neglected to ask the name of the artist, much to Simon’s annoyance.  Obviously not knowing the name of this mega-god was delaying his meteoric rise to becoming a majorHollywoodauteur.  I could hear Rupert and Andrew sniggering upstairs in Andrew’s office.  I went to see what they found so funny.  Rupert was opening a bottle of wine and he threw the cork away. “We’ll not be needing that again” he said “Drink?”  I wasn’t sure whether the last was a question or command but as it was ten thirty in the morning and the wine on offer was a particularly mighty claret I declined politely.  Rupert shrugged and filled a coffee mug with wine.

In a small ante-room stood a massive, battleship grey, telex machine.  It had a phone dial, a keyboard, a rolled paper feed system and god knows what else inside its enamelled steel sides.  Once I had used it to send a three page treatment to the French music agent of Princess Stephanie ofMonaco. It took three hours of typing and about four attempts before the machine whisked it down the wires.  Obviously my typing was less than satisfactory as never got the gig.  Mind you, she never got a music career either.  Now, a cover had been thrown over the telex monster and all, slightly squiffy, eyes were on a small machine standing in the centre of the room.

“What’s that?” I asked

Andrew announced rather proudly “It’s a fax machine”

Rupert sniggered again “It’s a fucks machine” he hiccupped “And Andrew’s the first person to have one, so now he has to wait before he can use it until someone else gets a fucks machine too”

“Willie Robertson’s getting one next week, and it’s fax, not fucks – It’s short for fascile-mile or something” replied Andrew, somewhat churlishly I thought for a man who’s on the cutting edge of communications technology.  Before I could think of a worthy contribution to the conversation the front doorbell rang.

“More work, hopefully” I said and trotted downstairs to find Simon pulling at a large envelope.  In his eagerness to get the thing open he’d neglected to sign for the package and the biker stood there in the doorway not quite knowing whether to snatch the envelope back or at least delay the opening until ownership had properly and formally passed from his hands.  I saved him the anguish and signed where indicated on his clipboard.

We trooped back upstairs to where the hi-fi lived and put the cassette into the machine.  Simon handed me a headshot photo of the singer and I stared at the likeness of a very pleasant looking shoe shop manager.  He may sound like a soul superstar but he certainly didn’t look like one.  The music came on, Andrew and Rupert started to nod but not to any rhythm I could hear, and the vocal started;

“Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna turn around and de-sert you”  What a load of crap, I thought.  What a non-pop star looking bloke I thought.  …And Rick Astley, what a daft name.

And off we went.  We hired a dancer who could backflip, found a location with a big window, some blonde tottie who could just about walk and chew gum at the same time and started shooting the video.  Simon’s three strokes of genius were to shoot the master performance against a white wall (I can do white, me) allow Rick to wear a massive and ridiculous pair of Raybans and, worst of all, do his own dance routine.  Pete Waterman had the video a week later.

SOUP ON A HILL

A storm came to our corner of Scotland.  And this time it wasn’t about devolution, or a wind farm, or the lack of plan to dual the A9, or about the state of the land after logging.  The BBC news had been warning of the big blow for days. The Met Office proudly issued a red warning, telling us that, like exam boards with A stars, they rarely give these out. Red means a very high certainty of very high winds, they told us, and limited the red patch on the map to the Central Belt, as the Glasgow, Stirling, Edinburgh bit of Scotland is called. Up in the Cairngorms, the warning was amber. It was not made clear however, whether amber meant a lower expectation or lower wind speeds or both. None of them told us, just waved a hand to the north, “and here it’s amber” –  all of them too excited about the red zone where nearly everyone lives, too excited about their certainty, to bother about the rest of the country.  All the male weathermen dressed up too, on the Tuesday and Wednesday. Shiny suits and shiny smiles replaced the laid back jumpers and sang froid delivery. There was a storm coming, and they were sure of it.

The winds started to pick up mid-morning, and very quickly it was blowing hard.  The ground around the big lime tree by the north wall started to pulse with the gusts, and it became clear that this tree, all 150 feet or it, was going over if the wind got any stronger.  Past noon and the on the windward side it looked like the earth was breathing, the roots raising the soil, then relaxing, then raising it again. Tons of stone and ground were being shifted as the wind, fiercer now, tried to drag the tree over.  It became hard to stand, let alone hold an iphone steady to take a video. I suggested to Rebecca that she should go under the tree and check on the redcurrant bushes by the wall, to see if they were OK in the wind, but she was having none of it. We went back in, blizzard lashed by the force of the gale.

Just after two the tree went over with a crash, giant boughs snapping as the wall broke their fall, wooden fencing sections ripped and crushed against the root system as it rose out of the ground. We’d missed it of course, doing something else, but we went out to look at the damage.  The redcurrant bushes were crushed.  Rebecca was not. I cheered at the amount of free firewood that had just been delivered.  Then we lost power.

Given the parlous state of finances, and the tardy way we pay our supplier, I always wonder whether the power has gone by accident or design.  Whether the accountants at Scottish Electric have finally had enough, whether bought ledger has spoken to credit control who have telexed the customer dissatisfaction department  who have told some sparky in Perth to throw the switch on Muckrach for good.  So it’s with a sense of relief that on this occasion of being plunged into darkness I see the village below is dark as well; it’s three streetlights and the lighting display (a floodlamp) illuminating the antique farm implement standing museum (an old harrow dumped at the roadside by a grumpy farmer in 1978 and graffiti covered by the local primary thugs ten years later) are definitely not casting their sodium glow onto the snow.

Power outages are a fact of life in the Scottish Highlands.  Like most of America, there’s never been much cash around for infrastructure. The A9 is a good example; the only highway in or out, and it’s two lane blacktop for most of the way. Tractors with feed in the winter, caravans with tourists in the summer, palletised loads of luxury goods going north, and tartan and whisky heading south – get behind any one, and it’s a four hour grind to or from Edinburgh. The electricity grid is in a similarly basic state.  The choice with a cable is to bury it or not. Burying it requires bulldozers, deals with landowners and those men with little telescopes on tripods looking at other men at some distance holding marked sticks. It requires surveys and surveyors. It’s all a bit construction, a bit capital and labour intensive, a bit city.  Chuck the wire up on a pole on the other hand, and it’s job done before teatime. So every time a tree comes down, the power goes out.  Every time there’s a lot of wet snowfall, the power goes out. Every time it rains heavily and another bit of highland heads lowland in a landslip, the power goes out.

On Thursday the wind blew and the trees toppled and the power went out.  All over the Highlands.  In a moment we were returned to a time before heat and light and instant communication ever existed. A time of horses and tallow wicks and roaring open fires and illegally distilled whisky.  Yes, here in the Highlands, when the lights went out, we went back to 1974.  But at least we made the national news. 70,000 customers without power, and each reacted in their own way.  Some fired up the generators they had standing by for just such a situation.  Not us.  Some stoked their open fires and got the blankets out. Not us. Some retreated to luxury (in the highlands – ha!) hotels that still had juice. Not us. We did what any sensible, responsible adult should do in times of deprivation – we found a bottle of vodka and drank it.

With half a pint of Poland’s finest inside me, I didn’t really mind the lack of light. Candles are romantic, and even Rebecca looked half way towards a shaggable bird with the dimness and the booze.  Cooking on gas is a little tricky when you can’t see what you’re doing – steam fogs up the torch beam when you shine into a pot. By far the worst was the cold.  Numbing, damp, miserable coolness that was anything but cool.  The fire kicked out heat that the draughty old building sucked away.  My front was hot, my back was cold.  The reverse was true when standing with my back to the fire. This is how people lived, for fuck’s sake, for most of mankind’s existence. Lugging firewood kept me warm.  Trudging to the woodpile through the snow, loading up and trudging back, chucking a the best part of a tree on the flames that never warmed the bar enough for us not to see our breath.  We were in the bar because it had three things going for it as a refuge. It had a large open fire. It had comfy chairs.  And it was a bar. Wine followed vodka followed rum followed whisky. Making tea was too much hard work, so we retired, pleasantly sizzled and slept under three duvets.

The morning brought a grey, monochrome dawn with fresh snowfall. Everything was still, white and the sounds cotton numbed. Rebecca had survived the various alcoholic concoctions with which I fed her allergies, and joined me on day two of our enforced return to the sixteenth century. I managed to suck some charge into my iphone out of a laptop that still worked, but with all the mobile phone masts out of power there was no point. Hourly calls to the Scottish Hydro emergency line produced no information, so I got in the car (very short on diesel) and headed off to find the nearest work crew.

Just half a mile down the road there were two vans with doors open, and five men in hi-vis jackets staring across a field at a forest dumped on a power line. “Whaddaya reckon?” I asked, trying to sound hopeful but feeling the hope die before the sentence was even formed. “Weeell, therrs another three like this that we’ve found, so it won’t be any time soon” Ah. We have a dinner party of 14 booked for the evening, and, surprise of surprises in this dreadful economic climate, two rooms on as well. They could see my concern. I told them about the guests and the hotel and the dinner party and the damp and the vodka (not the vodka, kept that back.  And trying to get Rebecca under the falling tree.  Didn’t mention that either) and they said – tonight we reckon.  Unless we find more damage.

Three thirty and night came and by now everything was damp. Clothes, both on and hanging in wardrobes, towels, bedsheets, sofas. Every cloth and soft furnishing had sponged up the moisture because there was no heat to dry it away.  It must have been like this blockading the French fleet off Brest in 1800. Pervading, stultifying damp. The freezers started to warm up (how? It was fucking plus one outside) Ice cream melted, meat got dangerous. The warmest place in the hotel was the walk in fridge. I plugged a phone into the fax line and rang the insurers, who told me I was covered. I rang the dinner party and bless ‘em they re-booked to the following day. I didn’t ring the guests on their way because their contact details were safely stored, Data Protection Compliant, in the computers we couldn’t switch on.

I could see floodlights above the hotel in the treeline. About a kilometre away.  At least someone was working on restoring power. I thought of those men, cold, miserable and frustrated by the damage the storm had caused. I decided to take them some soup. We knocked it up by torchlight – not sure what went in it, it was dark. Three different tins of Baxters (don’t scoff – they make really good soup), some fresh beef stock and a big glop of Tabasco. Yum.  I set off by car but, even tho’ it’s 4×4, I baulked at heading into marshy fields, especially when I couldn’t see the tracks of the electric company vehicles because new snow had covered them.  So I came back and Rebecca and I decided to walk it. At least the dogs had a great time.  We blundered and staggered up the hill, the soup in it’s flask getting heavier and the snow getting deeper, until, puffed and exhilarated from the effort, we made it to their work area.  Just as the last  Landrover  was leaving.  I ran the last 100 yards, waving torch and soup.  STOP!! You can’t leave – I have soup, but still no power! They wound down their window, roll-ups drooping in their mist heaving mouths. “Would you like some soup?” I enquired. “And by the way, any chance of some lecchie?”

They gratefully took the polystyrene cups I filled for them.  They told me there were eight on the team, so I gave them the rest of the cups and the flask. They said they’d do their best, and they were pretty sure they’d get it back on tonight. They said their gaffer would return the flask.  Then they drove off across the field.  We set off back down the hill, through a shades of grey world of light landscape and black Labradors, enjoying the effort and marveling at the beauty of our surroundings. As we walked I congratulated myself on my perspicacity with the soup. Part wish to say thank you for their efforts, but timed to improve the odds on some power that night. It’s cold, miserable and frustrating, hanging atop a pole in the dark. I knew that when the frustration really took hold, when the fingers were totally numb, the kindness of the soup would keep them going, just a little longer, restoring just one more circuit before packing it in for the night. He brought us soup. He cares and so should we. I kept on in this vein until told to shut up.

Whilst helping Rebecca cross the second stream in our way (Yes darling, I’m sure this is the shallowest part, and you can step safely here) I discovered my brand new Muckboots were not at all waterproof.

We got back and prepared for another night of cold damp, and in my case wet feet.  We lit a dozen candles, started to cook pasta, because you can tell it’s ready by feel, and I went off in search of walnut oil to help Rebecca with her nut allergy. At half past nine all the lights came on.  Well done soup! As we checked the hotel for electrical stuff that shouldn’t be on, a grizzled sparky came to the door with our flask, empty of liquid.  He told us he’d been married here, fifteen years before.  He told us that as a youngster he’d worked in the gardens here. I offered him a chainsaw and pointed at the fallen tree, but he said his life had moved on, that he had a much bigger chainsaw, and men to do the chainsaw thing as they cut trees away from wires. And he was very grateful for the soup, although not as grateful as I was for the power.

I switched on all the lights. I plugged in all the fires and got the multifuel going (it needs electricity to drive the pump, because it has a back boiler) I revelled in my 21^st century bright world with warmth coming from the walls. I was glad to be back, out of the damp.

A short note on links

Some of you have pointed out some bizarre ‘recommendations’ that appear at the end of my blogs: religious nutjobs, child spankers and the like. I don’t choose these, I have nothing to do with their appearance and I don’t know how to get rid of them. Now if I could just find a blog about spanking religious nutjobs…