"(Rapid percussion on marching drum)" "Here you see the spine " "Your attention please" "The spine, stretching from the base of the skull" "To this tail or tail-like extremity" "The spine is made up of separate parts vertebrae we call the parts vertebrae" "They're made of bone, the vertebrae bone bone" "They move in relation to each other" "When you bend your back, they move together" "They're kept apart so they don't rub or grate" "By a cartilage" "What's that then?" "Gristle" "Listen and you'll know" "Cartilage is like" "Cotton strands of cotton, on the outside" "Hard but on the inside it's not it's soft" "It's gelatinous gluey it's all soft" "Now, most people seem to think that the back" "That the spine can bear any weight at all" "It can't" "They bend over to pick up " "Ouch!" "The spine just wasn't designed to do that" "How's that then?" "What do you mean, designed?" "Yes?" "You're all here because you asked for too much" "You all asked your backs to bear too much weight" "Well, I'm eighty" "It's a good age" "It's not" "It's a bloody awful age" "That's enough" "When you put a lot of strain on your back" "Then you may move a cartilage or disc" "You've all heard of a slipped disc haven't you?" "You see, the spine was never designed to" "Bend over like this..." "Faulty construction!" "The muscles are too weak" "What?" "They only" "Connect short pieces of bone together" "The correct way to pick something up is" "To bend the knees and make use of these" "Long and very strong muscles in your legs" "What I want to know is how is it that" "Since we can obviously do these things" "But our backs can't do them properly?" "Yes?" "The fact remains that the spine is just not" "Designed to" "Who designed it, then?" "Why not?" "Yes, why make it like that?" "'I don't know why'" "Yes, why?" "Doctors can't answer why questions" "Any more than the vicars can" "No" "Why?" "But who designed it like this then?" "God!" "Yes!" "It's God's fault!" "Another cock-up!" "But whose" "Fault is it if you don't believe in God?" "Yours" "Your fault" "My fault?" "Yes, your fault, mate, yours!" "(Light music on radio)" "Bompf!" "Bompf!" "Bompf!" "Tiresome histrionics" "Haakon, do you have to in the staffroom?" "Three shots from a double-barrelled shotgun?" "Pedant" "And I thought your back was injured?" "Yes, how are you?" "Better." "Or perhaps worse" "Depends how you look at it" "I'm nearer" "Yes, nearer at any rate" "I'm nearer" "'From the Midlands we present the Archers" "'An everyday story of count...'" "Yes, quite" "Just listen to this:" "at the hospital" "They gave us a little lecture about" "The spine" "We'd like to talk about that too" "The spine - or rather about spinelessness ls what we hear about you true, Haakon" "That you were in some bank on Saturday" "When a gunman attempted to rob it?" "He didn't attempt it- he succeeded" "And you stood there and did nothing at all?" "What was I sposed to do - get myself killed?" "Only a few months ago there was this" "Hero who picked up this adding machine" "And threw it at a bandit and you know?" "The next thing the nearest little girl clerk" "Had half her face blown off by a shotgun" "Well, in my day we called that cowardice" "Well, today we call it stupidity" "And look, whose money was it anyway?" "You just don't think about things hard enough" "Do you know that the banks made a survey" "And decided that safety precautions" "Installing alarms and traps and so on" "Would cost too much and robberies were cheaper?" "The amount they lost through theft was far less?" "Did you know that?" "That's not the point!" "It is!" "It's exactly the bloody point, you see" "You just don't think about things hard enough" "No, let me tell you about this morning" "There were all these old men with back trouble" "And the hospital wasn't any use" "They just blamed it on to God as usual" "But" "Of course they didn't." "That's just silly" "Just you shut your little mouth, Miss Hammond" "I'm trying to say something important" "Just silly" "I know your sort, Miss Hammond" "Your sort draw the line at actual entry" "Haakon!" "Are you not feeling well?" "As well" "As anyone - that's what I want to say" "We're all rotting away slowly rotting" "And for some it's not even slow, either" "We just rot corrode decay putrefy" "And there's nothing we can do about it!" "That's childish rot, Haakon, just damned childish!" "Because you first realized it as a child" "Doesn't make it childish equals useless" "We rot and there's nothing that can stop it" "Can't you feel the shaking horror of that?" "You just can't ignore these things you just can't!" "(Bell rings...) (Silence)" "You just can't ignore these things" "You just can't" "Oh, a girl in 4B called Helen Hunt" "Told me she found a purse in the playground" "So if anyone's lost a leather purse" "Will they please go to Helen Hunt for it" "(indistinct chatter)" "(Chattering continues...)" "What lesson are we sposed to be doing?" "Anyway, there's something more important" "(Silence)" "I'm not myself today" "Who are you then?" "But why can't we have Civics as usual?" "You'd rather have the usual, Eckersley?" "The usual useless information?" "Yes" "Right then" "How many halfpennies in a mile?" "Secret is to know the diameter" "One inch" "More" "More useless information" "Do you know how to recognize your cows?" "Now your Ayrshire is a brown and white cow" "Don't confuse with the black and white Friesian" "And here's one you haven't heard of before" "The Red Poll which as its name might suggest" "ls a deep chestnut brown not red at all" "And from the Channel" "Sixty-three thousand" "Three hundred and sixty" "What?" "WHAT?" "(All) Halfpennies!" "Capon, I shall work you one in the spud!" "Now, Guernseys are sort of soft brown and white" "And Jerseys are much the same colours but" "They have funny faces" "Which reminds me" "Did you hear about the old bull who said" ""I'd like a nice tight jersey for Christmas"?" "(Laughter)" "What's up with him today?" "He's not himself" "Who am I then?" "(Shouting out suggestions)" "Don't answer that." "Quiet!" "(Silence)" "You ought to be able to take that now" "We make you too many allowances" "Too many for your presumed innocence" "Too many for your snotty-nosedness" "We wrongly emphasize slight differences" "To the cost of common humanity" "For - and let's be very sure about this " "You are human just like the rest of them" "You are human" "Just like the rest of them" "And your one certainty is that you'll die " "Our dying is the only certainty" "(Giggles)" "Shut up you little bastard, just shut up!" "I'm trying to teach you something real real!" "Something that I've learnt for myself this time" "Something that has to do with all of you" "You're all going to die but before then" "You're going to decay rot for years rot" "Slowly your bodies are going to rot" "Slowly, mind just slowly for years slowly" "And painfully your bodies just give up" "They just stop working function by function" "I saw old men this morning with their skin" "Cross-wrinkled like the neck of a tortoise" "Skin lined and loose like a flaccid penis" "Then after pain comes death" "you are cutoff" "Like a city street-end by the railway" "Only one cheer for dear old God" "(Capon) Hooray!" "He's off his squiff" "Mad, mad" "Straight round the twist" "Already you cover up like adults" "Know you can live only by illusion" "You must choose to believe that I am mad" "A parable, children a true one true" "There were these lizards at the zoo, lizards" "In a sort of glass-fronted cage prison" "And they fed these lizards with big locusts" "The lizards were about twelve inches long" "And the locusts were about two inches" "The locusts couldn't get away, of course" "They had no defence against being killed" "The only thing a locust could do was" "To make itself an awkward thing to eat" "By sticking out its arms and legs and wings" "To make itself an awkward thing to kill" "To make itself an awkward thing to kill" "So shall I:" "I have to die, but by God" "I'm not going to pretend I like it" "I shall make myself so bloody awkward!" "(Kettledrum slowly crescendos)" "(Military flourish on percussion instruments)"