On Friday morning I memorized the first verse of “Velours des vierges” (Velvet Virgins) by Serge Gainsbourg and finished reworking my translation.
I had kettle chips and salsa with yogourt for lunch.
There had been another considerable snowfall overnight and so by afternoon there was too much slush along the sides of the streets for me to take an untroubled bike ride, so I didn’t go. Instead I did my exercises while listening to season four, episode 20 of The Goon Show from April 12, 1954:
Secombe: Only once in a hundred years is there the crime of the century. And what could be the crime of the twentieth century?
Eccles: The Goon Show?
Bloodnok: The Great Bank of England Robbery!
Moriarty: I'm arranging to burgle the Bank of England. My men are all ready. My plans are laid. Your instructions await you in a sealed samovar.
Secombe: The address?
Moriarty: In the street of a thousand dustbins.
Secombe: How do I get there?
Moriarty: Go to a railway station, buy a workman's cheap day return to an unknown destination.
Secombe: Within days I had arrived at the mysterious unknown destination. Grimsby.
The Bournemouth of the Orient.
Here on the dreaded eastern coast of Britain, Secombe groped his way through the fog that swirled across the eerie walls and lapis lazuli fish piers.
Secombe: Yes, by the dim light of an unlit candle, I finally found the street I sought,
Looking 'round, I saw beside me a tall, handsome, attractive cross-eyed man with eczema, a bald moustache, and wearing a mink vase.
Grytpype: You're from Moriarty.
Secombe: How did you know?
Grytpype: I listened to the start of this program.
Secombe: You mean we're being overheard?
Grytpype: Overheard? On the home service? Ha ha ha.
Now here is the first part of the plan. You go to London tomorrow evening. At midnight precisely. There will appear eight men in straw hats, alabaster feet, black faces, and carrying thirty Wurlitzer organs.
Secombe: What part do I play?
Grytpype: Second banjo. Now meanwhile, unobserved, a tram will be lowered from a helicopter through the glass roof of the London School of Economics. Inside will be Major Bloodnok and two accomplices.
Got everything clear in your mind?
Secombe: Yes.
Grytpype: Very well. Shall we dance?
Secombe: Of course!
Max Geldray performs "Hot Toddy"
Bloodnok: Midnight and that blasted Secombe hasn't turned up!
Secombe: It's me, Secombe!
Bloodnok: Where the devil are you?
Secombe: I'm inside the pillar box! It's locked!
Bloodnok: What time's the next collection?
Secombe: Ten minutes ago.
Bloodnok: You mean to tell me you didn't get out when the postman opened the thing?
Secombe: I couldn't see him, I'm in a brown paper parcel.
Bloodnok: But why didn't the postman collect the parcel?
Secombe: I'm insufficiently stamped.
Eccles: I got a key.
Bloodnok: Bravo. Open it up then, get inside and give Secombe a shove-up.
Eccles goes in but locks himself inside.
Secombe: Eccles!
Eccles: Oh, Mr. Secombe.
Secombe: Help, we can't get out!
Bloodnok: Wait a minute, I'm throwing a length of rope through the aperture. Grab on and I'll pull you through. You blasted idiots! Now we're all in it!
Secombe: Listen! It's the postman. As soon as he opens that door everyone make a sound like a registered letter. He'll collect us, and put us in his sack. Then we can cut our way out.
Eccles: Well, didn't work, did it?
Secombe: Of course not! Some idiot was making a sound like an unstamped postcard.
Greenslade: Nine bitter months later.
Bloodnok: We've got to get out of here! We've eaten all the food parcels, and all the brandy's gone.
Eccles: There's one parcel left from a fellow who signs himself "Jack."
Bloodnok: What's in it?
Eccles: A rubber dinghy.
Secombe: A rubber dinghy? We're saved! Now we can sail out of here.
Bloodnok: But we haven't got any water.
Secombe: Eccles, any parcels of water?
Eccles: No, I drunk the last one.
Secombe: Then we'll have to dig for it. They don't call me an idiot for nothing.
Bloodnok: You mean you pay them?
Secombe: Only by cheque.
Secombe: Quick! Hand me that pneumatic drill!
Eccles: I haven't got a new one.
Secombe: Then hand me that old-matic drill.
Announcer: For the benefit of listeners without radio sets, it should be explained that although they are unaware of the fact, Major Bloodnok and his confederates are drilling for water straight through the base of the pillar box, down to the bed of one of London's famous underground rivers, the Wallbrook.
Ray Ellington performs "Such a Night"
Announcer: Bloodnok and his men soon found themselves on the upper reaches of the underground river and directly beneath the Bank of England.
Bloodnok: Now we must proceed up this secret tunnel. It leads straight to the vaults, but remember, for the next fifty yards, not a sound.
FX: Long silence
Eccles: Looks like the end of the tunnel!
Secombe: I've got Moriarty's instructions on me.
Bloodnok: Gad, strike a light.
Secombe: I can't, we've lost all our matches.
Bloodnok: So have Arsenal.
Secombe: Moriarty cunningly foresaw this exact situation. He's made a two-sided, short playing gramophone record of the entire plan.
Eccles, prepare the hand-wound phonograph.
Record: Polynesian Bells, played by London Regimental Band.
Bloodnok: You fool, you put on the wrong record.
Secombe: It must be on the other side.
Bloodnok: But it's an old cylindrical record.
Secombe: Then we must play it inside out. I have here a reversible, unilateral, bamboo, high-fidelity, boot-pointed needle made especially for this purpose.
Moriarty: Here are your instructions. Have you reached the end of the tunnel?
Secombe: Yes!
Moriarty: Good! Now, I've got some notes written here, so strike a match.
Secombe: We haven't got any.
Moriarty: Never mind, I'll nip out and get some.
GRAMS: End of record skips
Secombe: We've come to the end of the record and he's gone! How can we get him back again?
Bloodnok: Play it backwards!
Secombe: How do you play the inside of a cylindrical record backwards?
Bloodnok: Put it on in the opposite direction, going away from you, but only the other way.
Secombe: The swine was speaking backwards! Ahh, how can we get in touch with him now?
FX: Phone rings
Secombe: Hello?
Moriarty: You fools!
Secombe: Moriarty, where are you?
Moriarty: In hospital, badly scratched. You were using a blunt needle!
Secombe: The next step is to dynamite our way through the ceiling into the gold vault. Now, where's my trusted man? (calls) Bluebottle!
Bluebottle: It is I, Bert Show-us-ya-weasel Bluebottle. What do you want my lovely capitan? As if I did not know...
Secombe: Plug these sticks of dynamite into the chandelier, and I'll detonate them merely by turning on the switch.
Bluebottle: You will not switch on while I'm there, will you?
Secombe: Of course not.
Bluebottle: I will do it. Strips to waist, as done by young starlet in search of free publicity. Exits up ladder. I'm up here my capitan, and I'm plugging in the dreaded dynamite piece by piece. It's not easy work for one so fragile. It's jolly dark up here...
Secombe: Dark? Oh, then I'll switch on the lights.
Bluebottle: No, don't!
GRAMS: Loud explosion.
FX: Phone ringing
Secombe: Hello?
Bluebottle: You rotten swine, you have deaded me. Picks up badly singed earholes, three teeth, bent legs, and weasel. Reverses phone charge, and exits left to YMC restroom.
Secombe: Look, it's blown a hole, round, narrow hole in the ceiling!
Eccles: Quick, up the ladder! Watch your head, up we go again. Ooo, it's dark up here! Ooo, what's this?
Bloodnok: Take your filthy hands off me, you oaf!
Secombe: Bloodnok, what are you doing here?
Bloodnok: I'm waiting for the next collection, we're all back in the blasted pillar box again!
I re-read another eighty pages of On Beauty by Zadie Smith, taking me to the halfway point.
I had two boiled potatoes with gravy for dinner while watching Andy Griffith.
In this story there is a new actor playing the same county nurse, Mary Simpson who appeared just a few episodes before. Andy is clearly trying to spend some time alone with Mary and it’s fairly certain that she feels the same way about him. But Barney is not picking up on that and thinks that if Andy’s going over to Mary's place they should turn it into a get together with either him and Thelma Lou or just him added on. Finally Andy tries to break it to Barney that he wants to just be with Mary so he can say some things to her. Barney misinterprets this as Andy planning to propose to Mary and he begins to tell everyone that Andy and Mary are getting married. He plans a big surprise party for them and crash the moment when they are about to kiss under the moonlight. A party takes place around them while they kiss, oblivious to everyone thinking they are engaged.
Mary is played this time by Sue Ane Langdon, who put on a pretty authentic sounding southern US accent for someone from New Jersey. After college she started her performance career as a singer at Radio City Music Hall and then performed on Broadway. She was the third actor to play Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners. She won a Golden Globe for her co-starring role on the sitcom Arnie. She briefly had her own sitcom called “When the Whistle Blows”.
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