Sitcomland

The theme tune to Three Up, Two Down
was waltzing round my head.
Like the cast of Last of the Summer Wine
I'd very likely soon be dead.

What was this?
Delayed punishment for my wasted yute?
For the time I should have spent
vandalising phone boxes
and getting stoned out of my gourd,
instead of watching Wyatt's Watchdogs
and motherfunking You Rang, M'Lord?

Talking of Three Up, Two Down
(or, as I call it, 3U 2D),
there was a character called Giles,*
brought to life by the moustachioed Neil Stacy.
He played an almost identical role
in Yorkshire Television's Duty Free:
the Pearces and the Cochrans
on a Spanish holiday for eternity.

I know WAY too much
about this sort of thing.
It takes up valuable space
in what I laughingly call my brain.

The phone rings.
"Hi-de-Hi!"
"Who is this? What do you want?"
"Jeffrey can't hear you. Hi-de-Hi!"

The ever decreasing circles of my life,
there is no language (Timothy) to describe.
I run screaming into the night.
Metal Mickey rusts in a corner of the garden.
I grab The Fallen Madonna
with the Big Boobies (by van Klomp),
throw her in the back of the Citroën
and drive off like a man possessed.
Possessed by the spirit of sitcom.

There's a dead end up ahead;
the road a worn out laughter track.
I look around in black despair.
I know there ain't no going back.

B.R. 15/09/2016

 

* a bad hat