"# I'm getting tired of the city All the noise and the mess" "# Want a new beginning and a new address" "# Why don't we run away To somewhere where the birds still sing?" "# I want the green green grass And a country house" "# In a place where my face ain't known" "#And in the green green grass It'll come to pass" "# We'll have somewhere to call our own" "# We'll have somewhere to call our home #" "Farmer Boyce, you all right?" "What?" "Yes, fine." "Bad night, sir?" "Yes." "Yes." "For the past couple of weeks, Mrs Boyce has been keeping me awake at night." "Has she now?" "Well, it's the time of year." "What's that mean?" "You've heard of the pheromones?" "No, where do they live?" "They don't live anywhere, sir." "They're in the air." "They're all around us now." "It's the mating season, sir." "And the pheromones is nature's aphrodisiac." "They're entering our bodies with every breath we take." "(SIGHS) It effects everything in the country, man and beast." "They're all out there now, rabbits, foxes, ducks, swans, all going at it like billy-o." "Good God, man, there's nothing like that between me and Mrs Boyce!" "There are no pheromones in our bedroom." "We've got a battery-powered AirWick device." "just had a little difficulty sleeping, that's all." "But if these pheromones affect man and beast, why isn't this useless great article getting in amongst them cows?" "Who, Rocky?" "Yes, Rocky." "He's not interested in anything like that, sir, is he?" "I can't have been thinking straight when I bought him." "I mean, with a name like Rocky," "I should have known things weren't all what they seemed." "BRYAN:" "Well, he looks like every other bull you've ever seen, don't he?" "Arr." "But he ain't." "No, he's different." "The vet could have been wrong, couldn't he?" "No, he's a good vet." "Arr, ain't he just?" "No, Bryan's right." "I'm gonna demand a second opinion." "(CLEARING THROAT) Memo to vet." "How can you be absolutely certain my bull is gay?" "Right, you two better wait in here" "while we speak to the vet." "Arr." "There must be some kind of mistake." "I've never heard anything like it." "I'm afraid Farmer Boyce is gonna have to face the facts." "Arr, there's no point hiding from it." "No." "He's gay, and that's all there is to it." "Arr." "I mean, fair enough, he don't look gay, but then neither did Michael Barrymore." "In my capacity as farm manager," "I explained to Farmer Boyce that once the programme's up and running, we're gonna have to start extracting his bodily fluids." "And then we'll put it in the deepfreeze and put it in the shed." "Yeah." "Morning, ma'am." "Didn't know you were there." "I hope we didn't disturb you, ma'am." "We were just discussing this situation with, er," "Rocky, the bull." "Oh, the bull." "For a moment, I..." "I'm gonna have to sit down again." "I don't feel well." "May I just say, ma'am, you look very well for somebody so sick." "Oh, thank you." "Could you ask Mrs Cakeworthy to make me a strong coffee?" "jed." "Oh, yeah." "Mrs Cakeworthy!" "Yes, m'dear?" "Could you make Mrs Boyce a strong coffee, please?" "Ah, the chawls are yina fiddin like the salves on a fust pepper stuck right up the end of me Hoover." "I'll make you one, shall I?" "The vet's not there, so I've had to leave him a message." "Don't see how he can be certain about anything." "I mean, it's not like Rocky's come out of the closet, is it?" "It's not like he sat down with the vet and he said, "I'm coming out." "I'm a gay bull," ""and I'm proud of it and I want the world to know," is it?" "No." "No." "Bull's can't speak, Bryan." "I know that, ma'am." "I'm the herdsman." "I know bulls can't speak." "Although once..." "No, no, no." "Listen, maybe Rocky don't fancy none of them cows, eh?" "You know what it's like." "You go to a discotheque and it's full of women, and you don't fancy none of them." "Or maybe none of the women fancies you." "Oh, yeah." "So, maybe it ain't Rocky." "Maybe it's the cows." "So, what you're saying is I haven't got a gay bull?" "Arr." "We've just got 300 lesbian cows?" "It's possible, ain't it?" "Anything's possible." "Not that, though." "It can happen." "I mean, how many times you gone into a discotheque and then found out it's lesbian night, eh?" "No sign outside, but they still takes your money, don't they?" "And the women still lets you pay for drinks for them, don't you?" "And Cuba Libres and cider and peach schnapps!" "I mean, is it any wonder that people write offensive words on the door to the ladies' toilet?" "I mean, it's bound to happen, ain't it?" "All right, Bryan." "Which it don't seem fair to me!" "Take it easy, now." "Come on." "Let's leave these good people in peace and go get back to our work." "Come on, now." "The postman called earlier and delivered this letter." "I thought it was very odd." "Oh, yes, that is strange, isn't it?" "A postman delivering a letter." "I mean, that is straight out of The X-Files." "What I mean is, since the dulerm garpin werry and you moved into this house, you haven't received one single letter." "It's like nobody ever writes to you." "Or maybe nobody knows where you're living." "Oh, yes, that's because we left London rather suddenly." "And we're only just getting around to sending out our change-of-address cards." "Oh." "It's actually addressed to your lad, Tyler." "It's from the local school." "It'll be his GCSE results." "He's been hoping to begin his A-Level studies shortly." "Really?" "Oh, dear." "I hope you don't mind me asking, but why did you have to leave London so suddenly?" "Because a woman moved in next door to us who was extremely nosy." "She was so nosy, I actually offered her a job just so I could sack her." "I hates them sort of people." "I have rules." "Anyone says anything to me, or I sees something, like her in the village with the gonsbabblelite and the chawlser cufflins, it stays inside here." "I don't go round gossiping, not like her." "And she's got nothing to gossip about anyway." "Her old man's two-timed her three times to my knowledge, so that's a nol frash barbie, annit?" "I suppose so." "And she has the brass buddle to accuse me of being nosy." "Me!" "No!" "Hard to believe, I know." "She said it straight to my face." "Well, it wasn't straight to my face." "I read it in her diary." "But it's the same thing." "There you go, a nice strong coffee." "Oh, that's lovely, my dear, just what I needed." "Shall I make you another one, ma'am?" "No, it's 1 0:00." "I'll have a tequila." "Well?" "How many passes do you need to take A-Levels?" "Five." "Yes!" "How many did you get?" "Two." "Two?" "Well, it means I don't have to go to that new school, don't it?" "Well, I don't know, darling." "Look at this, Marlene." "He's got an E for French, an E for Geography and an E for Science." "He's got more E's than a can of cream soda." "That's your fault." "Before we left Peckham, you were the one who insisted I took all me exams in three days." "But there was a contract out on me!" "Oh, it's all self, self, self, innit?" "So I had to sit Art, Science, Music, History," "Geography and French in three days." "That's six exams in three days." "That's... how many exams a day?" "You forgot Maths." "Exactly, seven exams in three days." "What chance did I stand?" "I would love to do those exams again." "Not only to prove to you, but more importantly, to prove to me that I could have done it." "Well, you can." "Look, your new school says you can do retakes." "Oh, crap!" "That reminds me, how's he do at English?" "Boycie." "Boycie, you awake?" "Boycie?" "What in God's name do you think you're doing?" "I thought you might be dead." "Why?" "Because you were very quiet and weren't moving." "Well, that's called sleep!" "I saw a doctor shine a torch into a patient's eye on Holby City." "Well, thank God you didn't see that programme about colonic irrigation." "I been thinking." "Oh, God, no." "We're on the run from the mafia, right?" "So, we ought to change our names." "What do you think?" "I don't know." "You know, I feel as though I've had an accident in a lighthouse." "You're gonna go on and on about that, ain't you?" "Wish I hadn't woke you now." "When I was younger," "I always wished my mum had named me Ursula." "Ursula?" "Are you feeling all right?" "After Ursula Andress." "You remember when she walked out of the sea and started talking to Sean Connery." "Oh, yeah." "No, think of something else." "Why?" "Well, you're not an Ursula, are you?" "You're more of a sort of a..." "I don't know..." "joyce." "joyce!" "All right, be Ursula then." "I don't care." "What about you?" "I've never even thought of changing my name." "Leave off." "Your name's Aubrey." "You must have thought of changing it." "Don't you tell anyone my name's Aubrey." "I won't have to tell them, will I?" "'Cause you'll have a different name." "Go on, what you gonna call yourself?" "I don't know!" "I mean, it could be anything, couldn't it?" "I mean, who knows?" "Lance." "Lance?" "What's wrong with Lance?" "No, it wouldn't suit you." "Not you." "No." "Anything but Lance." "I mean, Lance Bovary." "Bovary?" "What's that, then?" "It's from that film Madame Bovary." "The minute I saw that film, I wanted to be Ursula Bovary." "How do you spell Bovary?" "Marlene, this is the most ridiculous conversation you have ever started, and that is saying something." "I mean, here we are talking about exchanging identities with two people who can't even spell their own bloody surname." "I mean, it's 4:00 in the morning." "It's all right for you, but I can't sleep." "I'm just laying here with no one to talk to." "It's these nights in the country, they're just so dark." "I mean, out here it's not just night." "It's more like a near-death experience." "You don't know what a near-death experience is until you've been woken up at 4:00 in the morning by some moron shining a laser beam straight into your retina." "You just won't let it go, will you?" "You're like a jack Russell with an old sock." "Good night." "Good night." "I'm all right during the day, it's just the nights." "They've got my body clock right up the wall." "Marlene, we have moved to Shropshire, we haven't crossed any time zones." "It's the silence as well." "It's too loud." "And it's everywhere." "All you can hear is nothing." "Sometimes we hear that owl." "Oh, yeah, that really sends me off in a sound sleep." "Bloody owl, sounds like Dracula's budgie." "Up in London, you used to hear all sorts of sounds in the night." "Planes flying overhead, motorbikes, cars screeching round corners, police and ambulance sirens." "It was comforting." "I didn't need sleeping pills in Peckham." "No, 'cause you were virtually legless from our nights at the Nag's Head." "I meant I used to drop off to the sounds of the city." "It was like my favourite LP." "Course, you could always do that other thing that always made me sleepy." "No, I'm sorry, I've had a good look and you're out of luck." "You finished the last of the Ovaltine on Tuesday." "Marlene, my little iguana." "Tomorrow is Tyler's first day back at school." "We gotta be up in a few hours." "For God's sake, come back to bed and try and get some sleep." "Yeah, all right." "That farm manager of yours was telling me that out here in the country, they have these things called pheromones." "All the animals and the people just sort of get off on them." "They just float about in the air." "Well, you've been out in the air all day long." "So you must have sniffed a few million of them up that nose of yours." "So, I was thinking..." "(CHUCKLING) What you going to do?" "I just remembered, I bought another tin of Ovaltine on Thursday." "Tyler!" "Come on, darling, wake up!" "It's the first day at your new school." "Don't want to be late!" "Yeah, okay, I am up!" "Have you heard about this 21 st century farming exhibition thingamajig?" "Yeah, it's starting in London, then going all round the country, eh?" "Yeah." "Opens in Earls Court, and my brother-in-law has managed to wangle me a free ticket." "And Farmer Boyce very kindly has said I can take a short break out of my holiday entitlement." "I actually said, "You can sling your hook for as long as you like" ""because you are one useless git."" "Yeah, that was it." "Yeah." "So, anyway, tomorrow I'm off to London." "jed, wait a minute." "That means you gotta go all the way down to London." "Yeah." "And pay a train fare." "Arr." "And then pay for hotel or bed and breakfast." "Right." "And then pay another fare and get another train back here." "Right." "Whereas if you wait three weeks, the whole exhibition is coming to Ludlow." "Ten mile up the road." "Yeah, but I ain't got a free ticket for that one, have I?" "But he's got you there, hasn't he?" "I didn't think of that, though." "So, where's this come from?" "It was part of the old squire's collection." "He loved his ferrets." "Used to be breed them, then he'd shoot them." "I could never understand what he saw in them." "I mean, what is a ferret?" "It's a posh rat." "If you would be so kind, Mrs Cakeworthy." "My pleasure, sir." "You be careful down south, jed." "People go to London and they change." "Look at Madonna." "She's all yol kapputz and a yom kebab, annit?" "She's right, ain't she, sir?" "There's some funny people down in London." "Yes, most of them were my friends." "I'm only going for one night." "Yeah." "Here, I might have a walk round Soho." "It's an interesting place, so I'm told." "Actually, jed, you might be able to do my wife and me a favour." "Oh, yeah, of course." "What is it?" "Well, as you know," "Mrs Boyce recently has had trouble sleeping at night." "Now, to cut a long story short, there is something she is missing, and unfortunately I can't provide it, but I think you can." "Pardon me, sir, but as farm manager," "I ought to be doing that for Mrs Boyce." "No, this is something only jed can do." "You see, the reason my wife cannot sleep is because she misses the sounds of the city." "That urban symphony that used to waft through our mock-Georgian bedroom window every night." "Those background noises the brain is used to." "Like Bryan with his badger's bark." "Yeah, I can't sleep a wink at night unless I hear that old brock screeching through the night!" "Yes." "Now, what I would like you to do is to capture all the sounds of the city on this tape recorder." "The speeding motorbikes, the low-flying aircraft, the emergency vehicles racing to the scene of some disaster or another." "All the sounds that will reassure Mrs Boyce." "Ah, you leave it to me, sir." "Tyler, this is the last time!" "After we drop you off at school, I'm going shopping, proper shopping!" "So get yourself down here or I'll come up and drag you out!" "I'm up." "I'll be down in a minute." "Well, that seems to have done the trick." "He's up now." "He'll be up all day." "It was cruel, Boycie." "How would you like to wake up with some horrible thing staring back at you?" "I thought the Driscoll brothers had found us." "The Driscoll brothers are South London mafiosi." "Now, what would they be doing putting an itsy-bitsy little ferret on your pillow?" "The Godfather, yeah?" "The horse's head in the bed." "For God's sake, Tyler, you are a 1 6-year-old schoolboy sitting his GCSE retakes." "You're hardly a threat to the Cosa Nostra, are you?" "This is so unfair." "I failed every exam they put in front of me and I still gotta go to school." "So much for human rights." "Come on, Tyler, you're a man now." "If I'm a man, why you sending me to school?" "Because you are gonna get an education whether you like it or not." "I'm not having you growing up like some of my mates, sweeping the streets or fly-pitching in markets." "I'm not gonna know anyone at this school." "You'll soon make friends." "Won't he, Mrs Cakeworthy?" "Yes, you'll have a friend, but he might not be real." "You're just a bit nervous and that's natural." "But you're a sixth-former now." "You don't have to wear a uniform and you're only doing retakes." "I'll never pass any exams." "Now, you've got to believe in yourself, Tyler." "If you believe in yourself, you can be anything you want to be." "Now, you listen to your mother." "Now, you'll have to work at it." "Nobody pays wages for daydreams." "But if you have a dream..." "And you believe in yourself..." "Then you can achieve anything you want." "I want to be Olympic high jump champion." "Don't be bloody stupid!" "Don't dash his dreams like that!" "For God's sake, Marlene, how can he be Olympic high jump champion?" "You've gotta be seven-foot-one and Russian." "When I said you can achieve anything you want, I mean anything within reason." "Well, come on, we don't want to be late, do we?" "I don't mind being late." "You're the one that don't want to be late." "You just want to dump me in some classroom and get off to the shops." "Sod Tyler, show me the shoes." "How can you say that about me, your own mother?" "If you knew the suffering I went through to have you." "I was at the hospital." "I could hear her." "Oh, yeah!" "And then there was the labour!" "God, the pain." "I'm going outside." "There are times when a woman has to cry alone." "You the new boy?" "Yeah." "From London?" "Yeah." "Thought so." "Are you any good?" "All right." "You?" "No." "Oh, thank heavens." "I thought you might be the headmaster." "No, it's just me." "Sorry, I'm new here." "Oh, you must be Tyrone, is it?" "Tyler." "Oh, yeah." "Heard you were starting today." "I'm Rhian." "Nice to meet you." "I'm new here as well." "Started last week." "We're sort of brother and sister in arms." "Are we?" "Do you know your timetable yet?" "Yeah, they sent it to me." "My first class is English." "Me, too." "See you there." "Sorry, that seat's reserved." "Reserved?" "It's a classroom, not an Indian restaurant." "I know it's a classroom, but that seat is still reserved, all right?" "Rhian." "Rhian, I've got you a seat." "Okay, quiet!" "Good morning everyone." "ALL:" "Morning, miss." "As you can see, a new student has joined our ranks, Tyler Boyce, who I'm sure you'll all get to know during the course of the day." "But more importantly, we're continuing with Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd." "So, if you take your books out, please." "We finished chapter 1 8, so if you turn to page 1 03 and continue reading chapter 1 9." "And remember, we're looking at the relationship between Gabriel Oak and Bathsheba." "Their differing aspirations, their outlooks and needs, spiritually, socially and sexually." "So, turn to page 1 03 and continue reading." "Tyler, you've joined us late in the term, so unfortunately you're playing catch-up." "So, I was wondering if you'd like to stay behind after school, and you and I could get together on a kind of one-to-one basis?" "Yeah." "Yeah, I mean, yeah." "That sounds good, yeah." "We'll have a long session." "Yeah?" "Great." "Eh, the skateboard?" "Shall I take it?" "No." "No." "Okay, keep it for now, but it's against school rules." "And if you don't mind me saying so, it's a teensy bit childish for a big lad like you." "It's not actually mine." "I'm just looking after it for someone." "I'll give it back to him later." "Good." "Well, jed seemed to enjoy London." "He's been talking about it all day." "Made me feel quite homesick." "I don't know if he even went to that farming exhibition." "He seems to have spent most of his time in Soho." "Oh, that reminds me." "I asked him to get something while he was up there." "Well, actually, it's for you, 'cause you'll get the pleasure out of it." "I just hope he hasn't run the batteries down." "That's a funny one, innit?" "Well, it's my pocket recorder." "While jed was in London, I asked him to record some sounds of the city." "I thought it might help you get a good night's sleep." "Oh, Boycie, that's really thoughtful of you." "Yes, well, I'll just put this on the stereo." "Have you noticed the change in Tyler since he's gone to this new school?" "He threw his skateboard on the bonfire, and he seems to be really into this new high-jump lark he was talking about." "He practises nearly every evening in his bedroom." "Every time I pass his door, his bedsprings are twanging like a trampoline." "Well, good, a boy of his age needs a hobby." "Yeah, love him." "Right, heads down, lights out and curtain up." "jed ON TAPE:" "Hello, Farmer Boyce." "(CHUCKLING) Farmer Boyce." "Shh!" "Well, here I am in my hotel in London, and about to record some city sounds for Mrs Boyce." "All right, here it goes." "First, a motorbike." "And now a train." "Followed by a police car." "And an ambulance." "And then a fire engine." "Oh, I have to stop now." "Somebody's banging on the wall." "Over and out." "# I'm getting tired of the city All the noise and the mess" "# Why don't we run away To somewhere where the birds still sing?" "# I want the green green grass And a country house" "# In a place where my face ain't known" "#And in the green green grass It'll come to pass" "# We'll have somewhere to call our own" "# We'll have somewhere to call our home #"