" Hurry up, son. lt's about to leave." " OK." "(Whistle blows)" "(Brakes screech)" "(Man) 'We'd like to apologise to customers for the delay." "'This is due to the track going up some steps.'" "(Armando ) I'm constantly aware of the passing of time." "From the moment I get up, I can feel the day start to slip away" "I want to pack more into it like go-ahead fatally ill people who go on a time management course for the dying. ' ltemise the things you want to do in those last three weeks." "Those of you with two weeks left may wish to make priority lists." "We all have to cope with time passing." "This pearly king thinks he can cope, but he can't." "He is Danny Chivers and he's been sacked because his work can be done by a computer." "Danny went home and screamed into a big tub of buttons." "This puppeteer has changed with the times." "He's Keith MidgeIey." "I'm gonna put out your fire!" "Ha ha ha!" "When his act was dying on its fluffy arse he found he could earn a fortune doing this." "I need to cool down!" "(Cheering)" "(Chanting) Off!" "Off!" "Off!" "(Screaming)" "?" "Spy on me, baby, use satellite" "?" "Infrared to see me... ?" "(Chanting) Strip!" "Strip!" "Strip!" "?" "Aim, gonna fire, shoot me right" "?" "I'm gonna like the way you fight You know what you are" "?" "Sex bomb, sex bomb You're a sex bomb... ?" ""Do you perform scientific experiments on animals for a living?" ""lf not, please disregard this letter bomb."" "Why do I waste time reading all my junk mail?" ""Learn to speak Tarzan." ""Have you ever wanted to speak like the Lord of the Jungle?" ""Now is um heap big chance."" "I do it every morning, even though I know it makes me late." ""Dear Householder, are you a recently housed asylum seeker just moved in?" ""lf so, please accept this turd through your letter box." ""lf not, then our apologies for the turd."" "Right, this is all going in the bin." "Get rid of this." "I now have lost a lot of the day." "I've concluded that the only good thing about seeing time passing is we can watch Margaret Thatcher get closer to death." "(Bang)" "This is gonna take for ever." "There isn't enough time to get everything done, so every night Rupert Murdoch gets in and says, "Shite!" "Didn't ring China!"" "Or Radiohead delay a new album because they want to read Harry Potter." "There isn't time to stop and marvel at things happening right now." "Now some medical notes are being mixed up, a showroom sells a Vectra." "A dog bitch gives birth in Stenhousemuir, groomed men go out on the shag." "Derby County seek a new manager, 'a super teacher feels sick, Denise Van Outen steps on a landmine." "half a teen band take cocaine, a spy leaves his laptop in the pub," "'Rod Stewart wonders if he'II ever catch a bus again." "'Diane Abbott trips on a pen," "michael Schumacher is disappointed by the post." "A man ignores feng shui and buys a Dennis the Menace duvet cover, someone has got the ThunderbaII, alan Sugar opens his mouth to speak." "Buitoni come up with a new shape of pasta, Meat Loaf files into Gatwick..." "'A week ago, my wife's doctor said that she's only got 34 years to live." "'So we've obviously had to think things through." "'l've packed the job in to look after her." "'We're gonna just spend the time we've got left doing the things we want to do." "'So we're going off to live in Disneyland.'" "(Doorbell rings)" " Hello." " Hello. I'm from the Sunday Observer." "I gather you bought today's copy?" "Yes, I take the Observer." "I'm not interested in what you fucking take, love!" "Have you read it?" " Yes, I read it this morning." " Let's have a look then!" "What are you doing?" "What's this?" "Oh, look!" "It's the Business Section, looking distinctly unread!" " l don't read it." " You fucking should!" " What's going on?" " You haven't read any of them!" " l've read most of them." " Let's have a little exam then." "Sit down." "Tell me, what do they say in today's paper is the best region of Italy?" " Tuscany!" "Why?" " l don't know." "Because of the fucking food!" "What does Susannah Clapp say about Simon Russell Beale's "Hamlet"?" "I don't know, but I have seen it." "I don't care if you've seen the arse-wiping play!" "What did Susannah Clapp say about it?" "I don't know." "She says, "Beale makes every line sing" ""and every line his own." What does she say?" "He makes every line sing and every line his own." "Good." "Have you read what Germaine Greer said about the art of delegation?" " No." " You fucking should, you soppy tart!" "You'll get your arms ripped out if you don't read every section of that Sunday Observer!" "If you don't, babe, I'm gonna be watching you." "I don't care where you go." "You can fuck off to Tibet and I shall have men, nutters from Parkhurst, dressed in yeti suits, up Everest with meat cleavers, ready to chop your tarty fucking legs off!" "You know what I'm saying to you?" "Right..." "There's the Business Section." "There's an interesting article about the NASDAQ." "Read it!" "Hello, Hugh!" "I'm trying to avoid being ravaged by time's withered claw." " ls it the same for you, being old?" " Yeah." "I suppose life was very different in the old days." "It was very different." "We never had sushi." "I mean, we had to improvise." "We'd go to the fish shop and say, "Don't bother frying it."" "Or my mother would make sushi out of corned beef." "Was it exciting when new things came along?" "Well, I certainly remember the first set of "Star Wars" films long before "Phantom Menace"." "And when "Return of the Jedi" came out, there were street parties." "George V came out to see it... and we were all given a silver sixpence with a picture of Queen Victoria on one side and a picture of Jabba the Hutt on the other." "Hugh smells of memories." "He's stopped time by spouting his past." "(Hugh) 'They were great days." "We all had Gillette Contour, ' but not Contour Plus. 'But we knew it was just around the corner.'" "Over here there used to be a Homebase." "Now they've just ruined it." "I've learnt from Hugh to discover the past everywhere." "(Hugh) 'We had blackouts in those days, 'so we used to get to school wearing infrared goggles.'" "God, it's still here!" "As a kid I used to come down here every weekend to be bullied." "Argh!" "I love it when people try and keep the past alive." "This happened recently when the Emperor of Japan visited Britain and the Mall was lined up with British ex-servicemen who had been Japanese prisoners-of-war." "They were demanding an apology for their mistreatment." "They were protesting by turning their back on him as he went past." "It was the world's first Mexican back." "The Emperor said, "We will apologise" ""if you apologise for what the West did to Nagasaki."" "The British said, "We did." ""The next day we called on Nagasaki, but no one was in." ""Apart from one guy who turned his back on us, but it fell off."" "Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the city of Sheffield, I would like to welcome you to this Knife Attack Reunion." "This year we have not only the group travelling home from the theatre who were attacked... (Applause ) ...but also for the first time all four of the gang who set upon them." "(Applause )" "And a special welcome to Alistair and Bobby who have flown over from Australia." "And who some of you may remember took part in the prison gang rape of one of the convicted attackers in the shower in...1 983, was it?" " 1 984 it was." " 1 984, I stand corrected." "Don't forget, as ever, the children's crèche is in the forecourt." "And children, the bouncy castle is made of rubber, so no knives!" "(Man) Darling, this is Harry Watkins, one of the gentlemen who attacked me 20 years ago." " Hello!" "I've heard so much about you!" " No, I didn't attack you." " You didn't attack me?" " No, I stabbed your wife." " Good heavens!" " l had you down on the ground." "Then she came over, pulled me off, then I turned round and said, "You bitch!"" " You remember?" " "l'm gonna cut your face!"" " That was me." " Hang on a minute." " Australia?" " Yeah." "And you were whose, er...rapist?" "Tommy Bannister." "Me and Al." "But in prison, that was." " l see, yes." "Not any more." " No, obviously not now, no." "This gentleman stabbed me..." "This gentleman stabbed you." " Really?" " l slashed your face." "Didn't you then do a History of Art degree?" "No, that was Tommy." "He did the Open University." " You stabbed me in the chest?" " That's right." "The prosecution made so many mistakes." "Absolutely." " Oh!" " No, no!" "Calm down, calm down." " lt's only plastic!" " l'm so sorry." " She still gets funny about it." " There you are." "Hello, Tommy!" "Wa-hey!" "Force of habit again!" "Never mind, Tommy." "Made you jump there, didn't he?" "What happened in the shower?" "(Bobby) We were all in Pentonville." "We caught him in the shower." "What happened?" "I don't... (Bobby) Well, he bent over and we..." "Oh!" "Oh, I see." "I don't like him standing close to me any more." "That hand used to be my soap hand." "You did really well there." "Do you want a sausage?" "(Laughter)" "alec is 42 this morning and therefore has nothing further to contribute to society." "So today's the day AIec goes into a home for middIe-aged men." "(Tranquil music plays)" "Hello." "Hello." "A middle-aged man just pissed himself." " Hello, hello." "And you are?" " Alec Thomson." "Alec, nice to have you with us." "I think we're still..." "Yes, we're preparing a chair for you over there." "That'll be a few hours yet." "Just come this way." "We had a slight accident earlier." " Would you like a small beer?" " Yes, lovely." " And there's videos, newspapers." " OK." "A nun will come by and give you a shave in a few minutes." "In the meantime, would you do something for me?" "Pop in there and examine yourself down your trousers." " What do you mean?" " Look down the front of your trousers." " For what?" " For anything out of the ordinary." " Lumps, distension, anything like that." " OK, right." "Just something I'd like you to get into the habit of doing." "Good." "From now on, more and more of what you do in your life will be a waste of time." "You have reared and now you are spent." "You sit in a sports car, but you look like a worm on a diamond, all right?" "What you have to adjust to is a world in which people no longer fancy you." "As you go through this change, you will divest yourself of the clothing and care products that previously you found beneficial." "That was when you were young, when your imagination was supple and could leap like a bird or a gibbon." "The past is a distant yacht." "What you haven't done now, you will never get done." "All right?" "Possibility is a private party to which you are no longer invited." "There is not now a single man in this room who will ever be an astronaut." "OK?" "Beer!" "Get your beer, boys!" "Come on, hurry up!" "(Man over radio ) 'Roger." "Can I have your next position?" "'" "I've organised a little surprise for tonight." " A concert from the Abba Tribute Band!" " That's great!" "(Tranquil music plays)" "Oh!" "I've pissed myself!" " Oh!" " Never mind, never mind." "(Man over radio ) 'Roger." "Can I have your next position?" "'" "We're always trying to freeze time, stop it in its tracks." "That's why we have so many revivals." "We're going through an '80s revival, so people go clubbing dressed as the old Channel 4 logo and every Wednesday is Kajagoogoo Night at Westminster Abbey." "But time moves on and in 5,000 years, who knows what will be remembered from the last century?" "It may well be Stalin and Islamic fundamentalism, but it might just be the stock cube!" "I have found in Europe most people..." " (Knocking)" " Come in!" " Hi-ya." " Hey!" "When did you get here?" "An hour ago." "Did you come by the Eurostar?" "Yeah." "You must've got the one just before me." "Gary and the acquisitions lot came down earlier to set up." "Good, good." "So this is your room?" "Yeah, Stuart recommended it." "It's all right." " lt's very nice." " Yeah." "You know this place used to be a concentration camp?" "Yeah." "Yeah, of course I did." "I think it's quite nice." "Have you had a look around?" "The bathroom's great." "No." "Do the others know about this place?" "If they're at the bar, they'll have a good idea." "Why don't we meet over at the bar before dinner?" "I don't know." "I feel I need a bit of fresh air." " There are some lovely woodland walks." " Right." " l'll see you at dinner then?" " Yes." "Hugh, what's your earliest vivid memory?" "Me and my brothers got on the charabanc one day and King George was driving it." "We went to Wembley Stadium." "Wembley was new then. lt had just been finished for the Olympics." "Who did we see there?" "Yeah, Rob Newman and David Baddiel." "The only place where time seems to come to a standstill is at my barber's." "Did I tell you I got stabbed the other day?" "I found it quite a relaxing experience." "He's interminable." "A friend of mine done it for a surprise." "Obviously, I lost a lot of blood and all of this." "Eventually I found most of it in a potty cos my friend's very considerate." " Have you ever been stabbed?" " No." " Would you like to be stabbed?" " No." "I know what I want for my next birthday." "Top people have their nipples pierced and their genitalia." "is that any different to a stabbing?" "One day I noticed a boy who looked like me when I was his age." "I remembered when I was a boy at the barber's surrounded by big, hairy men." "I remember thinking as you got older, you became mostly hair." "Above all, the big men had mad, living eyebrows of frozen fire." "And these monsters would occasionally haunt me in my dreams." "I remember thinking," ""Thank Christ I don't have big, hairy eyebrows that need cutting!"" "On life's roller coaster I was still at the start." "I'd already ridden through the first new thrills, past the first time I was stung by a wasp, past my first Genesis CD, past the first time I mended a door, the first time I'm mugged." "I go past the age at which I couId be conscripted during a war." "Then I start to see the end in sight and I get ready to be cranked up for the big drop into oblivion." "And doing the cranking are the big, hairy men, and then this happened." "I've been on this new diet lately and I lost loads and loads of weight." " The other day, I farted two stone." " Right." " These eyebrows could do with a..." " Oh no!" "I had run out of future." "My eyebrows were uncontrollable." "I was no Ionger young." "Never again would people call me a whippersnapper, a young offender." "Down I went, past my first haemorrhoid, past the point where "Smash Hits" seemed to be in another language." "I wouldn't live long enough to see household robots." "I was slipping down a box in application forms." "I was past the age where I would be called up if a war was going badly." "I was now old enough to present the medals at the olympics." "But I can't be an adult." "I'm only 37." "I wanted to tell people to get off the roller coaster, especially children." "Why did children want to grow old quicker, and smoke and be sarcastic?" "I've decided that if kids want to be more and more like adults, I've got to stop them in an amusing way." "Say hello to Armando, the Great Adult." "Give him a clap!" "Ooh la!" "Ooh la!" "What's that?" "It's a key for bleeding a radiator." "It opens the air lock." "It is something each and every one of you is going to have to do at some point in your life, or get someone in for you." "Ah la-la!" "(Applause )" "What about this?" "We all know what this is." "Fire!" "Now, they all say there's no smoke without fire, but neither is there any fire without one of these." "A damages claim form!" "Zoo-za-za!" "With a damages claim form, be prepared for insurance companies to be sticky about what you can and cannot claim." "People can advise you on this." "Ma-ba-ba!" "This is a perfectly ordinary tin of tomatoes." "And this is a perfectly ordinary any vegetable." "And put the two together and you get..." "Va-voo-va!" "Va-a-a!" "Vo-o-o!" "An acceptable pasta sauce!" "I'm going to show you how to pack a suitcase for a two-day business trip to Europe." "You've all seen "Doctor Who"." "The Tardis was bigger on the inside than the outside." "That doesn't actually happen." "Things are actually smaller on the inside than they are on the outside." "You've got to realise that." "As you get older, you may read these, though in time, you'll find this one more annoying." "This is what you say at Christmas time." ""A thing for resealing wine!" "That'll come in very handy." ""Thank you." Zoo-za!" "I'm telling you all these things is because a lot of responsibility goes with adulthood." "It's not just a big laugh." "It can be hell." "So it's far better to enjoy your youth while you've got it." "It's great, it's a laugh being young - sitting around in shopping malls, sending text messages to each other, just hoping that one of your friends has got a brother who owns a car." "And daring each other to go into off-licences to buy something, then one of you does and comes out with a big bag of Red Bull because they thought it was alcoholic!" "All right?" "So enjoy it!" "Ba-za-za!" "So, that's why I think that Stonehenge is a very sophisticated anthill." "Right." "I mean, like the ants, they're very clever." "People say that animals are stupid and don't know nothing, but I think animals know a lot." "The mayfly insect only lives for 24 hours?" "Scientists have helped a mayfly to live for 7 years." "It turns out that the mayfly is cleverer than people think." "It only lives 24 hours so it never learns nothing." "If it lives for 7 years, it'll learn quite a lot and become good at conversational French, so it could order wine and cheese quite accurately." "But it's only got a little voice cos it's a mayfly, so they had to build a little amplifier to amplify its voice."