"# I'm not sick but I'm not well" "# And I'm so hot" "# Cos I'm in hell. #" "JEREMY:" "I love being me." "Morning, horn." ""Morning, Jeremy."" "I need to go to work." "Mmm..." "Ring in sick." "Tell them..." "Dr Jeremy says you've got to stay in bed with plenty of fluids." "Sexual fluids." "(GIGGLES)" "Hope she doesn't think I'm really a doctor." "First sex with Elena, and it was the best sex I ever had." "Wonder why." "I just did my usual stuff." "Snog, diddle, tongue, diddle, front, behind, cuddle." "The set menu." "Oh, and... could you iron my top for me quickly, Jez?" "Yeah, sure." "Why did I say that?" "I never iron." "I have never ironed." "I don't even know where the batteries go." "Oh, my God, I'm in love." "I'm in love with Elena." "Oh, my giddy arsel" "MARK:" "Oh, God." "The battle of the bulge." "There's a baby in there, about the size of a croissant." "A terrifying, life-altering croissant baby." "So, first, do we want to know in advance whether it's going to be a boy or a girl?" "Not sure." "Let it be a surprise?" "Of course it'll be a boy." "And he'll be just like me." "It'll be like going through it all again." "The PE hell, the stolen packed lunch, having to do a little dance and sing "I'm a gaylord"" "to the tune of Like A Virgin." "Although, obviously, the tune will be different in 11 years' time." "So, given all that, I've decided I want to go private." "Oh, shit." "It'll cost about £6,000." "But I'm unemployedl" "Mum and Dad can contribute half, so we need to find the rest." "Right." "Got you." "£3,000." "Jesus." "More than the boiler and the sofa combined." "I hope he's clever." "I will definitely resent paying three grand for an idiot." "So, how's the job-hunting going?" "Oh, er, you know... good." " Thinking of changing career direction." " Like what?" "Teach English as a foreign language, import Pecorino?" "Something... different - more... fulfilling." "Yeah..." "Of course, obviously, it would be really great if you were happy, but it's not the most pressing thing." "No, no, of course not." "I've heard there are some jobs going at Farrell's, the loss adjusters." "It might be worth a punt." "Er, OK, I'll fire off a CV." "Loss adjustment." "I could do that." "My entire life has been one continual adjustment to loss." "Right, Corrigan." "Need a job." "You're a man with imminent responsibilities." "So, really quick look at Facebook and a tiny bit of You Tube, and then I'll get a CV off to the loss adjusters." "Shit." "Where's the whirr?" "Oh, no." "Oh, my God, why didn't I back up?" "I'm exactly the kind of person who backs upl" "Thank God I abandoned Business Secrets Of The Pharaohs." " JEREMY:" "Hey." " Bloody computer's dead." "Oh, I'm so sorry." "Oh, that's really dreadful for you." "Oh, come here." "MARK:" "Ughl Hugging?" " Poor you." " Are you OK?" "Is this... ecstasy?" "You're not getting into ecstasy again, are you?" "I'm in love, Mark." "With amazing Elena." "I don't want to tempt fate, but I think everything's going to be totally great forever." "I'm pleased for you." "You don't understand, Mark." "I've realised that everything is just a substitute for being in love." "Reading, running in the Olympics, getting a job, being a doctor." "And I don't need those substitutes any more." "Elena is my one true soulmate." "It's remarkable, isn't it, that out of the three billion adult women in the world your one true soulmate happens conveniently to live in the same block of flats as you, rather than, say, in a village in Mozambique?" "Who knows how these things happen?" "There are powers at work beyond our understanding." " No, there aren't." " What was it Shakespeare said?" "He said a lot of things, Jeremy." "He basically said something about how there are more things there than... there are actual things that you can see with your eyes." "That's not the exact quote." "Isn't it(?" ")" "Anyway, I'm going to tell Elena that I love her." "Over dinner, tonight." "Why take the risk?" "She might not say it back." "Why do you have to bring worry and doubt into everything?" "You're like some kind of mad evangelist for anxiety." "MARK:" "Lots to go round, old son." "I'm probably a couple of grams lighter now." "Nice office for a charity." "I wonder if the people who give money know it goes on massive luxury chairs." "Hiya, sweetheart." "Ready to go?" "(SIGHS) God, I am so ready to go." "It's just been desperately horrible here today." "Wow." "Normally, listening to someone else bang on about their job, with their e-mails and meetings and Peters, is incredibly tedious." "But I'm actually interested." "Peter sounds like a honking great wanker." "He is!" "(GIGGLES)" "Why am I so nervous?" "I feel like I'm about to take an exam, but... one that actually matters, not some mad university exam." "Mmm!" "This rye bread is good." "Maybe I should text "I love you" to her." "Is that romantic?" "Or is that shit, in the same way that Steve Wright's Sunday Love Songs is so hugely shit?" " Not hungry?" " Mm?" "Oh..." "God, yes!" "OK, I'm doing it now." "Let's roll." "Bread really is excellent, isn't it?" "Nice and... dense." "I love you very much." "Mark actually got some bread recently that was made from spelt flour." "The best spelt-flour bread I've ever had was when I lived down in Hastings, from lmpson's." "OK..." "Interesting response." "Did she hear?" "Maybe it went in anyway." "Like when you slip tablets into your dog's food." "Jeremy, I love... that you love me." "But it's complicated." "I'm a complicated person." "And, um, I just need to..." "Sorry..." "No." "Yes." "That's good." "Great." "Just to be clear..." "you don't love me back?" "It's really complicated." "It's like..." "a Rubik's Cube... or something." "Do you think I'm vain?" "Some people think I'm quite vain." "Or lazy?" "Do I talk too much?" "Am I talking too much now?" "Shall I shut up?" " None of those things." " I'm selfish, aren't I?" "No!" "Well, maybe a little." "Really, though," "I think you're one of the best people I've ever known." "Got it?" "Got it." "I'm a huge selfish bastard." "I knew I should have gone down on her for ten minutes instead of the set-menu five." "À la cartel I should have gone à la cartel" "MARK:" "Pick your feet up, Jeremy." "JEREMY:" "Morning." "Are those the same clothes you had on yesterday?" "Yeah." "I didn't really go to bed." "I just sort of listened to some music and did quite a bit of crying?" "MARK:" "Oh, dear." "He's having an episode." "Should I put my hand on his arm?" "No." "That sets a precedent." " Right." "I'm off to Hastings." " Hastings." "Yeah." "There's a baker's there that does Elena's favourite bread." "Made of spelt flour." "I'm getting her some." "You're going to buy bread from Hastings?" "Yeah." "It's a selfless act." "I mean, Hastings is, like, a really long, long way away." "It's in Kent or somewhere stupid." "MARK:" "Sussex." "I'm trying to do less selfish things..." "MARK:" "Fewer." "...and more altruistic stuff, to prove I'm worthy of Elena's love." "I'm worried you might be going a..." "little bit mad." "You've obviously never been in love, Mark." "Yes, I have!" "How dare you say I've never been in love?" "Yeah, got to go." "See you later." "Just because I've never been to Zimbabwe to buy someone a fucking cake!" "MARK:" "Lovely." "Getting my computer fixed for free and sneaking a look at Dobby's bum." "The dream ticket." "Tea for the worker!" " You done me 12 sugars?" " I done your 12 sugars, love!" "We're banteringl The sign that everything's absolutely fine again." "Afraid your PC's screwed, Mark." "The hard disk's firmware is corrupted." "Arses!" "I need to do a CV for this shit job Sophie wants me to apply for." "Anonymous desk flesh." "Faceless office droid." "(ROBOT VOICE) MarkBot 3000." "Yeah!" "Look, I'd better go, but come down to my history walks place tomorrow, you can borrow Jan's spare laptop." "Thanks." "How... how's that going?" "IT is IT, Mark." "Doesn't matter where I'm working," "I'm still on my knees with dickwads perving at my arse." " Oh." " It's not perving, it's appreciating." "Actually, though, that's a job you should do." "History walks." "That would be a great job for you." "Talking about history?" "It... it's not possible." "I'd enjoy it." "I'd..." "I'd actually enjoy working." "That's not something that could realistically happen." "You just don't want it to be something that could realistically happen." "You don't want to be happy." "It makes you worried, cos you think it'll end and you'll be more miserable." "Pop psychology, but pretty much on the money." "Look, I'll get us some free tickets, and you can see one of our guys in action, yeah?" "Yeah..." "OK." "Bye, Mark." "Good old Dobby." "The anxious, self-hating man's crumpet." "But probably best if I never, ever say that to her." "I got you your favourite bread." "Impson's bread." "That's lovely." "Thanks." "And I got you some truffle oil to drizzle on it." "Everyone's into truffle oil..." "Jamie, Nigella, those two men who look like burglars on MasterChef." "Wine?" " Sure." " I've been to fucking Hastingsl" "In Kentl" "How was work?" "I'm going to lose my job, and everything has turned to shit." "The IT guy at work has found some... bad stuff that I've been..." "downloading on my hard drive." "Bad stuff?" "Do you mean... porn?" "Horny porno?" " Yeah." " You watch porn at work?" "Now and then." "I didn't tell you, cos I thought it might bother you." "Course it doesn't bother me!" "It's hot!" "Do you... you know... while you're watching?" " Masturbate?" " (SNIGGERS) God, this is great!" "What am I going to do?" "They're going to sack me." "Look, I'll think of a plan to sort this out." "But, first, let's get you some lmpson's bread and odd oil." "That's really sweet that you went to Hastings to get me some bread." "# You watch porno, you watch porno That's the best thing in the worldl #" "So..." "So." "Yes." "Shit." "Is this a good idea?" "When Meat Loaf sang, "I would do anything for love, but I won't do that, "" "maybe this is what he meant." "Um..." "I am quite busy, so..." "Right." "I'm going with the plan." "Come on, plan." "So, as I was saying, er, I came in here to collect Elena, and... you saw me." "Mm-hm." "But then she had to go and make a call." "Elsewhere." "And it was at that point that I then..." "downloaded, and watched, the... inappropriate material that was found on her computer." "You did?" "Yep." "I get bored very quickly." "But Elena had nothing to do with it, and I am... sorrowful." "Payload delivered." " Right." " Good." "So... that's all cleared up." "Great." "Er, not really." "I'm not entirely sure I... believe that happened, Mr Usborne." "Why would you do that, here?" "Shit." "OK." "Time to go nuclear." "Look, Peter... the truth is..." "I'm... a sex addict." "I... wank 10, maybe... 12 times a day." "12 times?" "Yes." "Or more." "It's... a disease." "A... wanking disease." "One more for luck?" "I have a wanking disease." "Look, I like Elena, a lot, and I really don't want to lose her." "So... it would be very convenient if I, say... had doubts about my doubts?" "Right..." "Sorry, no, I'm not with you." "If I say I believe you?" "Brilliant!" "So... she's got away with it?" "Excellent." "OK." "Thanks, dude." "My genius plan has worked." "I'm golden with Elena now." "I took a wank bullet for her." "This day may become special for us." "Our internet wank blame anniversary day." "MAN:" "They mount the ladder, these traitors, these thieves and cutpurses..." "He's good, isn't he" " Michael?" "He's one of our regulars." "He does this one, Georgian Smithfield and a Ripper walk." "Of course he does." "Whitechapel is almost entirely made up of Ripper walks." "It's a shame they weren't all around in 1888 - they'd have probably caught him." "I love that she knows it was 1888." "So few women these days are Ripper-literate." "Quiet." "Can you hear the cracks of their lily-white necks as they swing from the crossbeam?" "Thanks very much, folks." "(TUTS) He think's he's Dick Turpinl" "He's a highwayman all right, holding up the carriage of history." "MARK:" "That didn't happen." "He's playing fast and loose with the truth there." "The only public executions during this period were at Tyburn and Newgate." "He's zhooshing it right up." "He's Zhoosh Michael." "Making history fun." "Why does everything have to be fun to be worthwhile?" ""Crick and Watson have discovered the double helix."" ""Did they do it on a skateboard?" "No."" ""Well, fuck off, then, I'm not interested."" "Hope you liked it, guys." "I'm..." "I'm not entirely sure you were correct there, about the hangings." "Frankly, if it's a choice between the truth and the myth, I say print the myth." " "Print the legend."" " Exactly!" "It's only history." "Um, I..." "I assume you're an out-of-work actor, like they have at Hampton Court." "An episode of The Bill and then it's nine months as Sir Thomas More in a maze." "No, it's my living." "Two tours a day, the rest of the time's your own." "This morning I went to the National Portrait Gallery, big lunch and a snooze." "Now I'm off for a pint." "OK." "Wow." "Museum, lunch and a snooze." "Museum, lunch and a snooze." "The big three." "Dobby, do you think you could recommend me for a trial walk?" "I do have that power, yes." "I'll have a word with Jan. She'll like you, you've got tidy hair." "Hahl 30 years of ignoring fashion finally pays off." "Horse racing's just a freak show, isn't it?" ""Oh, let's put loads of tiny," ""seven-stone men on horses and make them race each other." It's disgusting." "They don't make them race." "Oh, right, they enjoy it, do they, the tiny men?" "Like the elephant enjoys doing the ballet moves?" "It's exploitation, Mark." "What are you doing?" "Research for my history walk." ""A Mercantile History of the East End."" "I'm excited, Jez." "Genuinely excited that this could be my actual job." "Although... there's the Sophie obstacle." "Mm." "The speed bump." ""Slow down, children ahead."" "Exactly." "She'll want me to take that loss adjuster's job, so I can pay for her to give birth on a trampoline made of marshmallows in a reconstruction of Greenham Common." "Oh, fuck her." "This is your dream, man." "We're both living the dream." "I'm in love with Elena, you're in love with the past-oes." " Past-oes?" " The... people from the past." "The olden-days-ers." "Right, I'm off downstairs." "Got to be in for the Ocado man at Elena's." "Then I'm picking up her dry cleaning." "You're sure she's not..." "exploiting you at all, Jez?" "You're not being treated like a..." "love jockey?" "No, this is all voluntary." "My job is being in love with Elena." "And it's a great job." "And she's almost definitely in love with me now, after I took the wank bullet." "Yeah... didn't you feel at all embarrassed, telling a total stranger that you were some kind of... extremist masturbator?" "I did feel a bit..." "humiliated and awful." "But it's worth it for Elena." "Oh, and I saw the porn she was looking at." "Man, it's hot." "I mean, she's got great taste." "It's the most fantastic porn I've ever seen." "Isn't it the usual... dead-eyed men fucking dead-eyed women in a desperate world of pain?" "No, it's great." "Like everything she's into." "You know, girl on girl... on another girl... with a guy... in a warehouse." "Wow." "Four-way sex on a pallet of dishwasher salt." "You're right, that is about the most erotic thing I can imagine(!" ")" "I've been thinking, Mark, since you phoned." "Having a big old think." "A big old placenta-befuddled think." "Here comes the marshmallow trampoline." "I don't want you to resent our child." "And when our child looks at you, I want them to see a happy, contented role model." "Not some grey-faced, dull-eyed drone who's hated his job and his life for years." "Must ring Dad." "So I think you should... go for it." "The walking tour thing." "Forget the loss adjusters, just..." "live the dream and just bloody do it." "Shit, there's nothing stopping me nowl But can I go through with it?" "Maybe it's better off staying as a nice idea, like the private finance initiative." "MARK:" "This really has to be good now." "I'm..." "I'm about to live the dream, but I'm scared it'll be that dream where I'm naked on a toilet outside Carpetright." "It'll work, don't worry." "This is it, though, isn't it?" "My big chance." "I can start again and do something interesting after years of horrific dullness." "Like Sister Wendy." "You need a bit of zhoosh, though." "Not sell out, just maybe a costume or something?" "What about doing it as Sherlock Holmes?" "Well, Holmes is certainly the guv'nor." "But..." "I don't think I really want a costume." "You could say "elementary" a lot." "Yeah, he... he never really said that." "Yes, he did." "Everyone knows that." " It's elementary." " Shut up." "You could just have the pipe." "Yes..." "Should of course be a black clay pipe rather than the mythical Meerschaum." "Yeah, but you'd look wrong without a proper Sherlock Holmes pipe." "An incorrect Sherlock Holmes pipe." "Mark, are you actually Sherlock Holmes?" "No." "Look, I'll..." "I'll think about the pipe." "But I just don't want to dilute the content too much." "You need a USP, and that's mine." "No frills, no wigs, no spin - just telling it like it was." "Right, I'm off." "Need to take this." "Shit." "Have I...?" "I don't think I've cleared off the... thing I was watching." "Actually, Dobby, would... would it be all right if I... hung onto that for a bit?" "Sorry, Mark." "Jan wants me to install some extra memory." "See you at the walk tomorrow, Captain History!" "Shit." "If she finds it, I could always say I look at porn in an ironic way, to look at the moustaches and wallpaper." "That's the usual get-out, isn't it?" "Jez, mate." "Big problem." " Balls again?" " No, not my balls." "Dobby's taken back her boss's laptop, and..." "I don't think I cleaned off the... that porn you recommended." "I didn't recommend it." "I'm not Time Out." " Yes, you did." "You gave it five stars." " And you didn't wipe it?" "I don't remember." "I might have." "Always wipe, Mark. "Discharge your pipe, then have a wipe." That's the rhyme." "Anyway, I..." "I was wondering if..." "if you could say, if Dobby does find it, that it was... you who was looking at the porn?" "No." "Oh... come on, Jez." "It's going really well again with Dobby." "I..." "I don't need this." "And, Christ, if Jan finds out I'm dead, tidy hair or no tidy hair." "I just want you to... take a wank bullet for me." "I don't want to take another wank bullet." "What am I, some kind of wank shield?" "Oh, right." "I see." "So you'll take a wank bullet for Elena, but you won't for me." "Ten minutes with her is worth more than ten years with me." "Well..." "I think we can count our friendship pretty much over from now on." "Oh, don't be a cock." "I'm not a cock." "But the cock has certainly crowed." "Thrice." "When?" "What are you talking about?" "It means you've betrayed..." "It's... it's the New Testament." "You cock." "There." "I got you this." "Emergency pipe." "In case you need to zhoosh it up." "Thanks." "I..." "I think it is pretty zhooshy, though." "Dobby, er... about Jan's laptop that... that you lent me." "Do you mean the "jazz movies" that were on there?" "Oh, you... you've found those." "Yeah, well, you didn't delete them from Temporary Internet Files." "They didn't have to be, like, the Holmes of porn." "Don't worry, I've got rid of them." "You should have told me, Mark." "I know." "I'm..." "I'm really sorry." "Look, you're a man." "Men like to look at troubling images of heroin addicts showing their genitals for money." "That's hard-wired, like spatial awareness." "I mean, it is disgusting and shameful, but, you know, so's the textile industry." "Right." "Thanks." "God, you're great." "I would definitely go to Hastings to get bread for you." "Fuck, I'd even pop over to Ostend for waffles." "MARK:" "I've lost three already." "Three have wandered off." "I don't think they went for the Huguenots at all." "And there's Jan, noting down my failures and mistakes and idiocy for posterity, like an evil Boswell to my shit Dr Johnson." "Right." "So... how's it all going?" "Of course it's not going well." "I've got an audience of six, and three of them look like sex tourists." "Right, well, this former Huguenot chapel was actually converted into a synagogue in 1870 for Jewish people of Dutch descent." "Does anyone know what the trades were that the Dutch Jews were mainly involved in?" "Where did Jack the Ripper kill his first victim?" "Oh, God, a hecklerl" "No-one?" "Well, actually it was the cigar and diamond-cutting industries, leading a contemporary joker to..." "Was... was it near here that he killed them?" "This is primarily Mercantile History, I'm afraid, sir." "So he didn't kill anyone near here?" "Yes." "Yes... he did." "You're right, he did." "Just over there, just outside Jessops, the camera shop." "You'd have thought they'd have got a picture." "Sorry, have you even paid?" "!" "Public highway, I'll stand where I like." "Right, well, you're... stealing a walk." "Everybody else here realises you're stealing this walk." "Not worth paying for anyway." "You're shit." "This is a disaster." "This is a massive pedestrian car crash." "Sorry, historical rigour." "Sorry, past-oes." "Right..." "Well, even though our friend there was, in many ways, a thief, he has brought me on to the next stage of the tour." "Because, yes, ladies and gentlemen... the game's afoot!" "Saucy Jack is on the loose!" "His victims lie strewn all over Whitechapel." "We must track this villain." "But how?" "Well, that's... elementary!" "(CHUCKLING)" "I've sold out." "A little bit of me has died." "But you know what?" "A lot of me doesn't give a shit." "So..." "Mark." "Obviously, a little dry at the start." "Wee bit Dusty Bin?" "I don't like you, Jan." "But you really pulled it off towards the end." "For a first-timer, you really impressed me." " Wow." "Thank you." " Good old lovely Jan." "So, I'll... be in touch about organising some more tours." "That would be marvellous." "Oh... there was a file you left on the computer that you borrowed from us." " Shit." " Was there?" "Yes." "I had a look at it." "I'm sorry, but it was an application from you for a full-time job with a loss adjusters?" "I just wanted to make sure that you would actually be available to work for us." "Yes, I'd..." "I'd absolutely be available, Jan." "The loss adjusters application was just insurance." "If you'll pardon the pun." "It was actually quite a good pun." "Is it over?" "How did he do?" "Shit, then shitter, but then good." "Great." "I was feeling a bit guilty about not coming." "I think I've been taking Mark a bit for granted since I started seeing Elena." "You know, it's been, "Elena this, Elena that," all the time." "Elena, Elena, Elena." "And that's wrong." "Anyway, Elena said I should come and make it up with him, so... here I am." "Right." "Well, he's just talking to Jan at the moment." "So I can... delete that file on the laptop, then?" "Yes, please." "File?" "Ah..." "That wasn't actually Mark's fault, that file." "No, Jeremy." "You... you don't need to do this." "Really." "The porn on your computer, Jan, the hardcore pornographic sex film on your laptop..." "That was me." "I'm fundamentally a sex addict." "I wank... 10, maybe 12 times a day." "It's a disease." "A wanking disease." "I done the downloading and then I done a wank." "I..." "I'm so sorry, Jan. This won't be a problem, will it?" "Um, I..." "I'll, er... give you a ring, Mark." "MARK:" "Superb." "That's the single nicest thing Jeremy has ever done for me, and it's completely ruined my life." "You lovely... shithead." "# I'm not sick but I'm not well" "# And I'm so hot" "# Cos I'm in hell. #"