by Alan Coren
De worl still got a hell of a lot to learn about tee vee, if you asks me.
34
De Whitehall Snub
It happenin’ again dis week, world. Gittin’ another snub on top o’ de infamous occasion o’ de Gowon visit, dis time it de matter o’ Sir Alec Douglas-Home’s birfday party at Number Ten. You no doubt bin readin’ where Edward Heath layin’ on de top-class binge on account o’ de Foreign Seckertery reachin’ seventy an’ still in one piece. Heath openin’ up de back room, I unnerstand, also gittin’ in de draught Worthington an’ layin’ on them sticks wid bits o’ pineapple an’ Cracker Barrel on ’em, not to mention har’ boil eggs where they minces de yolks up wid onions prior to stuffin’ ’em back in de whites, no expense spared. Also openin’ a nummer o’ tins wid anchovies in, altho’ it beatin’ me why people goin’ for marinated worms.
Whole lotta nob guests turnin’ up, also; lotta peers an’ women where you look down de front of de little Paris number, you can see de knees. No doubt he gonna have de Andre Previn Banjo Band an’ his wife Mia Sparrow, de well-known warden of All Souls, plus other famous stars o’ de dipperlomatic circuit, all gonna be doin’ de ole knees-up an’ puttin’ de Boofs Dry Gin away wid both hands until four in de mornin’, Sir Anthony Barber bangin’ on de wall an’ shoutin’ ‘Stop dat bleedin’ row, some people tryin’ to git a bit o’ sleep!’
Only thing they ain’t got is me. Bin sittin’ by de door, jus’ like last week, waitin’ for one o’ dem cards wid Winnie de Pooh on an’ Piggerlet where you open it an’ it say We’re havin’ a party an’ we’d like you to come please, lotta pitchers o’ balloons an’ funny hats an’ stuff an’ all de animals clearly havin’ a damn fine time. Nothin’ comin’, though.
I wun’t mind, only I already bought de present. It a typical piece o’ de native folk art wot bin made up special by de local craftsmen, a combined paperweight an’ table-lamp, lookin’ jolly good on de ole Whitehall desk. Also, it a singularly appropriate present fo’ a Foreign Seckertary, on account of it bin made out o’ my last one.
The truth is, Sir Alec too damn busy wid worl’ affairs to git de guest-list right: pussonally, it gittin’ on my wick where he sendin’ Sir Dennis Greenhill plus two other top Foreign Office torpedoes down to Salisbury fo’ de well-pubberlicised secret talks wid Ian Smith. It beatin’ me where de FO prepared to go pissin’ roun’ de worl’ on ten minutes notice every time Rhodesia feel like havin’ a secret talk wid someone flash. Why de hell ain’t no-one tryin’ to woo me back? Why de hell ain’t I havin’ a bit o’ de secret talkin’ prior to de unfreezin’ o’ Uganda funds in London, includin’ forty-eight-poun’-seven-an’-six I got comin’ from de British Home Stores Chrissermas club, plus interest? Why de hell ain’t no-one lookin’ fo’ a honourable settlement wid me?
I prepared to be as honourable as de nex’ man provided de settlement comin’ in used notes, pref ’bly oncers, an’ anyone can come to my birfday party anytime they likes. I’d like a cowboy suit, if you wonderin’.
35
A Star Gittin’ Born
I damn glad to see where de Fleet Street hacks pickin’ up de worl’ scoop I givin’ ’em considerin’ de Uganda Fillum Industry! De fust thing you got to git when you cobblin’ a fillum epic together is de pubberlicity, doan matter a pig’s burp if you ain’t got de script or de loot or de chrome Brownie wid de zoon lens provided de leadin’ lady havin’ it away wid de leadin’ man an’ Nyerere de Wonder Dog stickin’ de paw in de wet concrete an’ sim’lar.
Jus’ fo’ de record, Amin Studios doin’ a bit o’ de fishin’ aroun’ at present, ain’t too certain what we gonna kick off wid: when you got de entire cinematic worl’ at de feet, de only difficulty is choosin’. Pussonally, I goin’ fo’ de giant spectackerler, wid all de colossal an’ stupendous trimmin’s, I gonna be de noo Cecil Hur an’ Dr. W.G. Griffiths rolled into one, wid a touch o’ de famous Alfred Ballcock suspenders. De plot I got in mind fo’ de fust production startin’ off wid de American Civil War in which I takin’ de part o’ Rat de Butler, walkin’ about wid de ten-gallon hat an’ de smile playin’ about de lips an’ droppin’ a nummer o’ de minor characters wid de Colt .45. After that, we goin’ into de famous chariot race bit, where I drivin’ a worl’-famous team includin’ such pop’lar favourites as Mickey de Mouse, Goofy, Yogi Duck an’ de Andrews Sisters; soon as I winnin’ de race, we switchin’ to de Souf Pole where I waitin’ wid de hot Bovril for Captain Scott, played by de famous brudder-in-law Ngaga Mbibi.
Soon after that, it time fo’ de comedy, I comin’ on wid de baggy pants an’ eatin’ a shoe, which takin’ de plot natcherly into de sequence where I suddenly fallin’ down in de High Street at de top o’ de cello-playin’ career on account of I got de Unknown Wastin’ Disease wot bafflin’ wart specialists de worl’ over, an’ not only havin’ to pack up sawin’ de ole cat’s innards but also takin’ to de bed an’ finally snuffin’ it wid a lot o’ de big-name stars weepin’ all over de quilt an’ de full treatment f ’om de Entebbe Pubberlic Hygiene Department Tin Band whackin’ out de Dead March F’om Saul.
’Course, it a well known fac’ dat you can’t have de lead star kickin’ de jam jar after only four hours o’ de film, so we got to do a bit o’ de resurrectin’, which is where we flashin’ across to de super-colossal car’board castle wot goin’ by de name o’ Chez Frankenstein, an’ befo’ we knowin’ it there’s dis great big bolt o’ lightnin’ wot strikin’ a item under a sheet, an’ wow! Who dis but Idi Amin agen, only dis time he got de bolt in de neck an de stitchin’ all over de worl’-famous bonce, lookin’ like nuthin’ so much as a Finance Minister wot bin helpin’ de Uganda Special Branch wid de enquiries, an’ soon as he off de operatin’ table he start walkin’ about an’ knockin’ down de doors etcetera, gonna scare de loyal subberjecks witless, also doin’ ’em a lotta good, seein’ de front door kicked down in de middle o’ de night an’ de famous Pres stompin’ in wid de dander up!
Got a intermission at dis point, an’ after we makin’ a few bob on de lollies, wot we findin’ but de Battle o’ Britain, wid de young golden-haired Wing Commander Idi Amin Esq., DFC an’ nine Bars, zoomin’ about on de two tin feet an’ knockin’ de Messerschmitts out o’ de sky like coconuts on Hammersmif Heath, prior to gittin’ de wings knocked off of de Spit over France an’ windin’ up in de Jap POW camp due to de strong headwins, where I escapin’ by diggin’ a tunnel under de River Kwai an’ swimmin’ to nearby Broadway to change de entire course o’ de fillum musical wid de revolutionary Amin Git Yo’ Gun, LPs on sale in de foyer.
Dat de natcherl end, an’ everyone goin’ out hummin’ an’ dancin’ an’ weepin’, an’ sayin’ (like de whole worl’ sayin’): ‘Wow! Dat Idi Amin gonna be de noo King Kong!’
The Golden Age
1980–1989
CLIVE JAMES
Introduction
Writers of humour often have a bag of tricks, and one day the tricks become recognisable. Eventually even S.J. Perelman could be caught in the act of copying ideas that he had been the first to have. But Alan Coren was so inventive that the new ideas – not just the dazzle on the surface, but the structures underneath – kept on coming, with the seeming ease which invites belittlement from the less blessed. The great Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser’s achievements were often taken for granted by the local press, on the grounds that she was ‘a natural athlete’. In the same way, Coren was naturally funny. Nevertheless even he had his peak period for minting new coin. He was never better than in the 1980s, when the first flush of youth had been tempered by wisdom and learning.
The learning showed up brilliantly in a piece like ‘£10.66 And All That’, which can be taken as the pioneering instance in any medium of a modern humorist exploiting the probability that the yeomen of Olde England, while they waded through the mud, exhibited all the whining venality and warped entrepreneurial ambition that we so admire today. As we join the action, the estate agency William & Bastards is about to be ‘dragged into the 11th Cen
tury’. While we read of how the agency strives to flog a ‘property with relatively scum-free well’, we can see how Coren was unmatched at the conceit of showing up the delusional sales vocabulary of Now by exporting it to the inappropriate context of Then. Almost every humorist has tried it but Coren could actually do it, at a level of ventriloquism which had been equalled, before him, only by Beachcomber.
Like Michael Frayn in his Guardian ‘Miscellany’ column at the turn of the 1960s, Coren always knew that the only way to keep up with Beachcomber’s ghost was to cock an ear to the new, yet instantly tarnished, linguistic counterfeit of the present. This is the secret of Coren’s extraordinary feat of mimicry in ‘One Is One And All Alone’, the story of what happened when our current queen accidentally found herself at a loose end for a whole day. She kept a diary, in which we find that she played I-Spy with Fusebox Poursuivant. (‘One won.’) At the end of the day (the kind of dud phrase that Coren always hijacked at the very moment of its ponderously sprightly arrival into the language) Her Majesty is in prison, and obviously grateful for the change of scene.
Nowadays, Google makes it easier to write a catalogue piece that sounds as if it has been researched in a library, but the list of phobias in ‘No Bloody Fear’ sounds like the inside job of someone who had done a lot of delving in his own head. With Coren it’s always important to realise that his vast range of particular knowledge almost certainly included a deep insight into himself. He just never let on. Of all the great British comic writers – among whose number, we must surely see now, he stands high – he is the one whose flights of fancy tell you least about the agonies within. Probably, rather than being defensive, he was just too fascinated with the limitless extravagance of the follies in the outside world: to take them personally would have seemed, to him, disproportionate.
His consolation for a world whose cruelties mocked his mockery – Coren’s Idi Amin was a talking doll that spoke from the puppeteer’s sense of pity, not from his frivolity – was that the universal madness would always be there, if only because it had been there throughout history. Hence the enchanted insanity of ‘Tax Brittanica’, my personal candidate for the title of Coren Piece for the Time Capsule. The scene, once again, is ancient Britain, but this time very ancient. The Romans are here. A sniffling tax collector called Glutinus Sinus? Of course. But when I learned that the tax collector’s assistant was called Miscellaneous Onus, I was helpless with admiration as well as laughter, because the name is so exact. Miscellaneous onus equals various jobs, get it? Or, as the skiving Briton in the piece would say, ‘Narmean?’ Coren was first with that, too: transcribing the tormented demotic with phonetic exactitude. Novelists got famous for doing the same. Coren just did it, from week to week, working so far within his abilities that he was the walking, laughing and dancing (he was a wickedly good Lindy Hop dancer) exemplar of a principle: the secret of success in the popular arts is to have power in reserve.
The worst a critic could say of him was that he didn’t seem to be trying. There were critics who said the same of Gene Kelly. But although Coren never had to practise a knee-slide that would finish exactly on the mark that the cameraman’s assistant had put down on the studio floor, he still had to do an awful lot of technical calculation in his head before he got his effects. He did it so quickly that he could go on radio programmes like The News Quiz and unreel impromptu lines which were so neatly compressed they sounded as if they had been written. They had been: written instantly, a nanosecond before he said them. Somebody with that kind of gift is always going to be underrated. Coren didn’t care. He preferred to make the English language the hero. So generous a writer forms a conspiracy with the reader, as they both revel in the splendour of the tongue they speak. For as long as the spell lasts – and Coren could make it last for a thousand words at a time – the reader can almost persuade himself that he, too, knows how it’s done. But it’s a secret. Writers who convince you that you share their sense of humour are pulling a fast one. They are celestial con-men. Alan Coren was one of them, and one of the best.
36
Tax Britannica
Archaeologists have unearthed what they believe to be the first Roman tax collecting depot to be found in Britain, at Claydon Pike in the Upper Thames Valley. The depot was built around 70 AD, and probably remained in use until the Romans finally left Britain in 408.
Observer
Glutinus Sinus, Tax Inspector 126 (Upper Thames Valley Collection), drew the parchment-piled in-tray towards him, removed the curling stack, carefully and neatly squared it off, pared a stylus with the small dagger issued for that exclusive purpose by Inland Revenue Stores (Silchester), straightened his little skirt, and nodded.
‘Send him in,’ he said.
Miscellaneous Onus, his clerk, scuttled sniffing to the fruitwood door, and opened it. An odour of goat and feet and orifice wafted horribly in; through the gap, Glutinus Sinus caught a brief collage of mud-caked beards and hovering flies and khaki teeth, heard, as always, the distinctive colonial undercurrent of scratching, spasmodically punctuated by the plop of targeting spittle. The inspector shuddered. He had been out here too long. They all had.
‘Mr Cooper!’ called Miscellaneous Onus, into the miasma.
A squat and patchily hirsute figure detached itself from a cackling group who had been engaged in a curious contest from which the clerk had been forced to avert his eyes, adjusted his mangy wolfskin, and loped into the tax inspector’s office.
‘Shut the door,’ said Glutinus Sinus.
‘The what?’ said the Briton.
Glutinus Sinus set his jaw, and pointed.
‘Oh,’ said Mr Cooper, ‘it’s even got its own name, has it? I thought it was just a bit of wall that came open, bloody clever, you Romans, I will say that for you. Door,’ he murmured, shutting it with somewhat melodramatic respect, ‘door, door, door, well I never!’
Glutinus Sinus sighed.
‘Don’t butter me up, Mr Cooper,’ he said.
‘Me?’ cried Cooper. ‘Me?’
‘Please sit down.’
‘I built a room, once, up my place,’ said the Briton, dropping to his haunches, ‘only we had to climb over the walls to get in and out.’
‘Mr Cooper, about your tax-return for the current—’
‘We had not cracked the secret of the door,’ said Cooper. ‘It was beyond our wossname. It must be wonderful, civilization.’
‘Mr Cooper, you are a maker of casks and barrels?’
‘Correct. Definitely.’
‘And yet,’ here Glutinus Sinus riffled through the pile of parchment, selected one, flourished it, ‘you have entered a large deduction against last year’s income for the purchase of new industrial plant, to wit millstones, four, nether and upper. Can you explain this?’
‘I have branched out,’ said Cooper. ‘I do a bit of grinding on the side. Mind you, don’t we all, ha-ha, catch my drift, all men of the world, narmean?’
‘Branched out?’ said the tax inspector, icily.
‘Bit slack these days, coopering,’ replied the Briton, ‘due to introduction of the glass bottle and carboy. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying glass is not dead clever, probably miraculous even, it is what comes of having a god for everything, the Roman god of glass has come up with a real winner, I am not denying that for a minute. All I am saying is, it has knocked the bottom out of the cask business, having a container what does not leak on your foot when you are carrying it out over the bedroom wall of a morning. I have therefore diversified into flour.’
‘Then you ought to be called Miller,’ interrupted Miscellaneous Onus irritably. ‘All this is cocking up the ledgers.’
‘How about Cooper-Miller?’ enquired the Briton. ‘Due to following two professions? It’s got a bit of tone, that, my old woman’d fancy being Mrs Cooper-Miller, she would be invited to open the Upper Thames Valley Jumble Fight, she would be asked to judge the Humorous Bum Contest, it could put us right at the top of the social tree.’ He smi
led oleaginously. ‘We could be almost Roman. Uglier, mind.’
‘So,’ said Glutinus Sinus, ‘you are engaged in the manufacture of flour for profit? Why, then, have you made no relevant return for—’
‘Who said anything about profit?’ replied Cooper. ‘Cooper Flour plc is a registered charity, due to where it is distributed to the needy, gratis. It is a good word, gratis, we are all very pleased with it, what a spot-on language Latin is, got a word for everything.’
Glutinus Sinus put his fingertips together.
‘True,’ he murmured. ‘Gratis, however, does not translate as receiving chickens in return for flour.’
‘Ah,’ said Cooper. ‘You heard about that, then?’
‘Mr Fletcher entered them as outgoings,’ said the tax inspector levelly.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Cooper bitterly, ‘he would. You got to watch him, squire. The plain fact is, them chickens are definitely not income. We do not eat them. They are pets. You cannot count a household pet as income.’
‘How many have you got?’ enquired Miscellaneous Onus, licking his nib.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Cooper, ‘I can’t count higher than XLVI. I have not had everyone’s educational advantages, have I?’
‘With all those chickens,’ said the tax inspector, ‘you must be getting hundreds of eggs a week. Surely you eat those?’
The Briton narrowed his already imperceptible brows.
‘Eggs?’ he repeated. ‘What are eggs?’
Glutinus Sinus stared at him for a while. The Briton stared innocently back. Eventually, Glutinus Sinus snatched up his stylus, and drew an egg on the back of a tax-form.