"Abbé!" "Abbé!" "Abbé!" "Abbé!" " I don't want this, Freddie." " It's a gift." "Bribe me any way you like, I'm not house-sitting." "Put it on your neck, it gives you Shiatsu massage." "Look." "You put it here." "See?" "Oh, that's..." "Oh, I can feel that." "And that goes right down... I think I may have got a nerve there." "Oh, so that's what it's for." "I can't feel my thighs." "If you do change your mind..." "I won't." "Bye, bye!" "Corkscrew." "Corkscrew." "Manny!" "Manny! Ah!" "Manny, Manny, Manny..." " Will you stop shouting at me?" " Sorry." "Your hair looks amazing." "Where's the corkscrew?" "I don't know where anything is." "It's like Dresden back there." " It isn't that bad." " It is." "For one thing, didn't you have a cat?" "Oh, yeah." "Where'd he go?" " I found him." " Nipsy!" "Brilliant." "No." "You don't want to see him." " Ooh, ow, ow!" " What's up with you?" "I get terrible cramp when I'm stressed." "Why are you stressed?" "I open the fridge, there's shin bandages next to the cheese." " That's just a little..." " There's jam in the bath." " Oh, come on!" " You're a filth wizard." "Friend only to the pig and the rat." "Ugh." "Look." "Pizza." "I was gonna warm and eat it later." "Everybody does that." "That's normal." "You want things to complain about." "And what are these?" "Wasps." "Everything's covered in filth." "Look." "The whole place is a complete mess." "You can't find anything." "Right now, I'm eating scrambled egg with a comb, from a shoe!" "I really must insist you send someone immediately." "All right, later today." "Tomorrow, then." "But first thing." "All right, after lunch." "But just after lunch." "Six o'clock." "Perfect." "You are wearing a dress." "What do you... what do you think?" " Occasion?" " I've got a date." "Ben." "Divorcé, very good-looking." "Nice arse." " A first for me." " You've never had a nice one?" "No." "And I know they exist cos I've seen them on the telly." "You?" "Had one?" "It was when I went with Janine and I don't know if it was nice, but it was... huge." "So there was this tremendous sense of value." "Well, to be honest, if he had three arses I wouldn't care." "I've read this sentence 25 times." "This guy's special, he's not like the others." "He's not another Curt." "The violinist?" "He seemed all right." "No, he was very gum-diseasey." "Or Raymond." "Do you remember Raymond?" "What was his thing?" "Didn't he live with his mother?" "Yeah." "In a car." " Tactics?" " I'm gonna be really good." "I'm not gonna say anything stupid." "I'm not gonna be nervous." "Just nice and responsive and caring." "On no account must he see the real you." "No, no." " Fran." " Yeah?" "It's a very nice dress." "What's that?" "It's my new laugh with a turn?" "The turn's all right." "Lose the laugh." "Dirty." " Who are you?" " Who am I?" "I'll tell you who I am." "I'm the cleaner." "Second degree unspecified soiling, zones B through K." "North ceiling corner." "Cobweb containing a number of deceased arachnids... with beans." "Why did you call this man into my house?" "I love toffee." "Don't know why I don't eat toffee all the time." "Ow!" "My tooth!" " Ow!" " I'm asking you a question!" " Why did you get this freak?" " I had to." "You made me." "Well, I don't trust him." "He has no nasal hair!" "Anyway, why do we need him?" "The place isn't that bad." "This is going to take some time." "Everything's very... dirty." "You have grime under the taps, that's very nasty." "The state of the bathroom is... shameful." "And the dust..." "Oh, the dust." "The place isn't that dusty!" "The worst thing is the cups." "Yes." "You have very, very dusty... cups'" "I want to clean your dusty cups from the inside out." "OK, I'm just gonna go and sit over here." "Anything else about cleaning, you can ask Manny." "Very well." "Do you have anywhere to stay?" "So that I can get to... work?" "We have to leave the house?" "Oh, this is a big job." "You can stay if you want to." "Some people prefer to leave." "Freddie asked us to house-sit." "We're not going anywhere!" "We're not house-sitting." "What are you doing?" "Some ash fell, I'm just wiping it into my trousers." "Filthy..." "Whatever am I going to do with you?" "It's terribly sweet of both of you." "It's marvellous you can look after the place." "Pleasure." " Sorry." " Sorry." "Sorry." "We may have been drinking before." "No, no, I'm sorry." "It was clearly a very silly place to put it." "We have another one, although..." "I would ask you to be careful of that because it is the only one left in the world... now." "Erm, heating." "Ah, I see you're an aficionado of, er... paintings." "Oh, yes, yes." "It's a cow." "Mm." "Yes." " You like art?" " Oh, yes." "Especially late... art." "Yes." "I mean, the way he's captured the..." "look, the cow's looking over there, we can't see what the cow's seeing." "Maybe the art is saying cows know something we don't." "Yes." "It's French, apparently, from the Dutch school." " Yes." "Brown." " I don't know what his name is." "The timer, the thermostat, the thingy, control." " It's in the cellar." "Follow me." " OK." "Manny, I have to go and wee-wee." "Now, this is very important." "...poured it all over the canapé." " That's an unusual laugh." " Is it?" "Sorry." "What's wrong with your wine?" "Nothing." "I just drink slowly." "I get undressed slowly." "I think I can manage that." "That's on, that's off." "No, no." "That's on, that's off." "Oh, and, ah... please feel free to enjoy the wine but this is very important." "Anything here is fine, you can drink as many bottles as you want." "But these ten here, now, please, don't touch them." "Don't even move them." " These are very special." " Right." "I'm presenting one to the Pope at the end of the month." "Really?" "Wow." "What for?" "Oh, I have a cousin who's a Cardinal, Roy." "And these trumped up charges, some nonsense about him punching Sophia Loren in a nightclub." "And the Pope, who really is a lovely, lovely man, he made the whole thing... go away." "There are some books on wine upstairs as well." "Sometimes it's jolly to know what one's drinking." "Ah, Bernard, Manny will fill you in." "I must just say goodbye to the dogs." " Right, what's the thing?" " Very simple." " Very simple, very simple." " OK, so what is it?" "What?" "We can only drink these ten bottles here." " Just these?" " Yeah." "These... completely out of bounds - can't touch." " Just these ones, then?" " These, just these ones." "OK." "Thank God you were here, I'd have said the other way around." "Old wine is good wine." "Yes." "But... expensive wine is good wine also." "Yes." "But the older the wine is, the gooder it is." "Ah." "But by the same token, the more expensive the wine, then the gooder it is also." " Look at the colours." " Yeah." "All... all the colours." "Well, yellow." "This is like..." "a farmyard of... of wine." "It's like looking into the eye of a duck." "And sucking all the fluid from its beak." "...touché." "And because you win, you get to go to the cellar." "Hey!" "Music's a bit boring, isn't it?" "I wonder if they'd let me put my tape on?" "All my favourite songs on here." "I'm a giant ear... waiting for your songs of niceness." "Will you just look at these... breasts?" "Wait until you hear this." "Ah!" "Wine!" "No, no, no!" "Drink me!" "Drink me!" "Drink me!" "Boys, boys, boys." "You!" ""Le Vin du Rosier."" "That'll do." "Got one!" "Aha, more fuel." "Hand over, thank you." "Mind your leg... It was a crazy, crazy time for me." "A short spell in the navy." "Climb aboard, Cap..." "Captain." "And now I'm in antiques." "Unbelievable." "Wow." "Quite the renaissance man." "About then my divorce came through and I've never been able to settle on one woman since." "It's like I'm..." "Oh, I don't know, cruising. #... and California and I've sipped champagne from a shoe # Look." "Bernard." "Bernard." "Look." "Bernard." "Bernard." "Look." "Bernard." "Bernard." "Bernard." "Bernard." "Bernard." "Look, Bernard." "Bernard." "Bernard!" "Bernard, look." "Bernard." "Bernard." "Bernard." "Bernard, look." "Look." "Look, Bernard." "Bernard." "Bernard, look." "Look." "Bernard." "Bernard." " Bernard!" " What?" "!" "Look." "I'm a prostitute robot from the future." "Yes." "Listen to the rubbish in this book." ""Don't drink burgundy in a boat."" "What does that mean?" "Wine is just for enjoyment." "You speak the truth, my friend." "Look at this." "I looked this up." "It says it's worth £7,000!" "Nonsense." "That's the normal, everyday... normal everyday drinking wine Freddie gave us, not the really expensive out-of-bounds stuff." "That's from the cheap and dusty wine on the... on the right." "Not the clean, expensive wine on the left." "Not the, not the..." "that's the cheap and dusty." "Not the clean, expensive..." "Now that I think of it, there's stickers from Londis on them." "There isn't any chance, is there, that you somehow managed to direct us to drink not the cheap wine but the unbelievably rare and expensive wine? How much did you say the wine cost?" "!" "Seven... thousand pounds." "Well, I've got £3.50 on me." "What have you got?" "Don't panic." "Is that what you're doing?" "Yes." "I'm sort of dancing in a panicky way." "Well, stop." "We'll think about this and figure a way out." "Here's a thought." "Don't say no immediately cos it could sound crazy." "Could we... burn down the house?" "No, that's absurd." "Think, Bernard, think!" " What about a gift?" " Oh!" "A gift." " But it'd have to be perfect." " Yes." "A really nice box of pencils?" " No." " I mean... a REALLY nice box." "No." "If you're gonna give the guy pencils for drinking his wine, you're talking about, you know, magic pencils." "You draw a cow, the cow comes to life!" "Yeah." "Sorry, yeah." "We'll make some more!" "We'll use the cheap stuff, nobody'll know." "But this cost £7,000." "He's presenting this to the Pope!" " He won't know." " He's used to the finer things." "It's all waffle!" "Nobody will admit wine doesn't have a taste." "But you can't taste anything." "You smoke eight bajillion cigarettes a day!" " What's that?" " What?" " What are you eating?" " A delicious biscuit." "It's a coaster." "Is it?" "Are there more?" "Anyway..." " Do they describe the wine?" " Yes, I think so." "What?" "Cramp." "I'm very stressed, very stressed." "Use the Shiatsu machine." "Oh, yeah... So, Ben." "Who's the real Ben, Ben?" "What can I tell you?" "Didn't have a good time at school." "Didn't feel comfortable?" " So I sort of..." " Retreated?" " Into a private fantasy world?" " Yeah." " I always..." " Got on well with women?" " And..." " They helped you feel normal." " But..." " Something was wrong." "Something that occasionally stops you sleeping." "How could you possibly know all this?" "Just a hunch." "Tell me, Ben." "How many times a day do you talk to your mother?" "Eh?" "God, I don't know." "I mean, the normal amount - four, five times a day?" "Yes." "Ben, I've got something to tell you." "And it might come as a bit of a shock, but you are..." "No." "Question." "What do the following people have in common?" "Elton John, lan McKellan, Jean-Paul Gaultier." "Well, they're all fabulous." "What are you doing?" "I'm chewing the cork to get it back in the bottle." "What?" "My tooth!" "It's come loose." "It hurts!" "A trace of vanilla." "Do we have any vanilla?" " Ice cream?" " Yes!" "Yes!" "I'll check the freezer." "They'd all laugh at me if they knew what I was trying to do." "To create a new superwine with a fraction of nature's resources and a FOOL for an assistant." ""Bernard Black, he's mad!" They'd say. "He's dangerous."" "I'll show them!" "I'll show them all!" "I have returned!" " Nutmeg!" "We need nutmeg!" " Nutmeg!" "It's my destiny!" "My legacy to the world!" "Anything else?" "With the limp, I'm getting tired." " Just get the nutmeg!" " Nutmeg!" " Oh, it's just here." " Ah." ""An oaky finish." Oak!" "Oak!" "To the front garden! What is this?" "This isn't oak!" "Why did you get so much? Manny, get back in!" "Get back in!" "Here it is!" "Yes!" "Now, dust, dust." "He'll never know." "He'll never know!" "It's all so clear." "I've been fighting this all my life." "Why am I fighting it?" "Thank you, Fran." "You've saved my life, you have saved my life!" "I'm really..." "very, very happy for you." "Happy." "I'm happy." "Really." "I'm so happy." "# Jam-jam-jam, jam-jam-jam # Bleugh." "Sorry." "Oh, hello." "That is a very, very nice dress." "Paper?" " Another date?" " Yep." "This time I might be onto something." "He's a very interesting young man." " You know him, actually." " Really?" "Who?" "Bye, Bernard." " Dirty." " Oh, you flirt." "Dirty!" " Oh, my God." " What?" " Oh, my God!" " What?" "What?" "It's the 19th." "It's my birthday!"