Stewart Lee: Carpet Remnant World Page #8

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people all fallen down there.

(LAUGHTER)

Dead from the fall,

but with third-degree burns

because on the way down, they spilled

the hot Bovril on themselves. Yeah?

(LAUGHTER)

Yeah, all the Birmingham people

in the '80s under Thatcher

walking along,

mug of hot Bovril in one hand,

tin pail in the other,

a tin pail full of faggots.

Noddy Holder from Slade

controls the f*ggot supply.

(LAUGHTER)

Walking along in the '80s,

the Birmingham people under Thatcher,

mug of boiling-hot Bovril,

tin pail of faggots.

"I'll just go over this rope bridge.

Ah, there isn't one!

"Ah, I'm falling down.

"Oh, I've spilt all this

Bovril on me, ahhh!"

(LAUGHTER)

Dead in the canyon, yeah?

People up there, they're going, "Oh,

this routine has gone on a bit long.

(LAUGHTER)

"I expect he'll stop doing it

and talk about something else."

No, I won't do that.

(LAUGHTER)

It's picked up, though, hasn't it,

from earlier. Better atmosphere now.

What happens is, at halftime,

people have a little chat

with their friends and they go,

"What do you think?"

"I like it." "I do as well, then."

(LAUGHTER)

They make me sick,

people like that.

I'd rather you just sat there

hating it than have lied. Bare it.

You're all right, aren't you?

Picked up.

The worse crowds are, erm...

London, the week before Christmas.

It's a waste of time.

People just go out at random

to anything.

I normally sell stuff after the show.

I wasn't gonna bother tonight. I might

do now, if it's been all right.

(LAUGHTER)

Well, you don't just wanna sit there

with loads of people filing past

spitting at you.

But it'll be all right.

It'll be all right.

And I was selling stuff in London

afterwards at Christmas

and I heard a young girl, about 20,

and she went,

"I didn't really...

I didn't really get that stuff about

"the jungle canyon rope bridges,

to be honest," she said,

"because I wasn't born in the '80s."

(LAUGHTER)

Ah, it's heartbreaking, innit?

As a young woman, she's thinking,

"if only I'd been born in the '80s."

Do you remember

when there was a funding deficit,

at both national

and regional level,

for the provision of

jungle canyon rope bridges?

(LAUGHTER)

Young people are idiots, aren't they?

I can't...

I hate them.

I can't stand anyone under 40.

(LAUGHTER)

Now if you're young,

why would you come to this,

you know, old man wandering around?

(LAUGHTER)

You got your own things, haven't you,

young people.

Circuses and fairs,

that's what you got.

(LAUGHTER)

Sticks with balloons tied to them.

(LAUGHTER)

Remember the canyons

in the '80s under Thatcher?

Not the rope bridges,

we've done with that now.

Remember the canyons

in the Thatcher days?

Down here, you remember them a bit,

don't you?

Some of you. I'll just talk to you.

(LAUGHTER)

The canyons under Thatcher,

they were...

They were infested, weren't they?

Remember the infestations

in the canyons in the Thatcher days?

In the '80s, they were infested,

weren't they? The canyons.

In the '80s, under Thatcher,

with, er, pirate zombies?

(LAUGHTER)

Remember all the pirate zombies in the

canyons in the Thatcher days? Yeah?

I'll just talk to you.

I won't bother with them.

Remember the canyons,

the pirate zombies,

you'd look down, wouldn't you?

In the canyon, there'd be all

pirate zombies, argh, one arm.

(LAUGHTER)

Yeah.

Why? Why were the...

Why were the canyons

in the '80s under Thatcher

infested with pirate zombies?

(LAUGHTER)

Privatisation.

(LAUGHTER)

Well, it was, wasn't it?

Didn't affect the shareholders,

did it, if the...

If the canyons were infested

with pirate zombies or not.

No.

The shareholders' dividends

were ring fenced

against pirate zombie infestation.

(LAUGHTER)

Remember what Thatcher...

it's the last bit of this routine now.

(LAUGHTER)

Remember what Thatcher said

in the '80s

about the jungle canyon rope bridges?

She didn't care.

Yeah, you remember, don't you?

People are going, "Yeah, we remember."

What a good crowd they are, right?

Because what the people down here are

doing, is they bought into the idea

even though the idea of this routine

is I'm pretending

that in the '80s there was

an issue about

(LAUGHTER)

Jungle canyon rope bridges, a satire

of Thatcher economic social policy.

The people down here, they've decided

to play the part of an audience

from a parallel universe

where that was true.

(LAUGHTER)

And they go, "Yeah, I remember that."

Ugh. You're nowhere near that,

are you?

You're not even approaching there.

They're confident enough,

they got the jokes in the first half,

now they've decided to experiment with

taking on different personalities.

(LAUGHTER)

See if they can still get the jokes

whilst in character.

(LAUGHTER)

They're running rings around you.

I'm telling you.

Remember what Thatcher said

in the '80s

about the jungle canyon rope bridges?

"Yeah, we do. Yeah."

This is what she said.

Thatcher, yeah?

She said, "A mystery investigating

teenager or dog..." Dog?

(LAUGHTER)

They like that. They like "dog"

in a high voice up there.

That's your favourite bit, isn't it?

Me saying "dog" in a high voice.

It's not my favourite bit

of this routine.

You wanna know... My favourite bit

of this routine is the phrase,

"The shareholders' dividends

were ring fenced

"against pirate zombie infestation."

But no one up there

was laughing at that.

(LAUGHTER)

Which confirms to me

the suspicion that

for most of the evening,

we've been talking at cross purposes.

(LAUGHTER)

This is what she said, Thatcher.

She said, "A mystery investigating

teenager or dog..." Dog?

"...Who beyond the age of 26,"

remember this one, "finds himself

"still using

a jungle canyon rope bridge..."

This is what she said, Thatcher.

"...Can count himself a failure

in life." That's what she said.

Thatcher, Thatcher,

Thatcher, Thatcher,

the jungle canyon

rope bridge snatcher.

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

Don't clap that.

(LAUGHTER)

Scooby Doo-Thatcher routine. Jesus.

A waste of time.

(LAUGHTER)

You know what's awful about that.

In 1986,

when I started writing comedy

with Richard Herring, you should know.

Erm...

We made a list of 10 things

that we thought were too cliched

to do jokes about.

In 1986.

And two of the things

on that list of 10 things in 1986

was Scooby Doo and Thatcher.

(LAUGHTER)

We all grow up, don't we,

to become the thing

we despised as teenagers.

No. What can I do? I've got nothing.

I drive around.

I look after kids. I've got nothing.

I have to do whatever comes to hand,

you know. Nothing.

I rang up a lot of the young comics

to ask them what to do.

Yeah, you seen them?

All these young comedians

they have now.

All the Russells.

You've seen them?

They're all called Russell.

All these Russells. Yeah, loads of

them. Loads and loads of Russells.

You strike one down,

another springs up in its path.

(LAUGHTER)

They're like the skeletons

in Jason And The Argonauts.

(LAUGHTER)

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