The Carry On clip tipped me over the edge. I screwed my eyes tight shut to block it out - I couldn’t do anything about having my ears assaulted by the programmes but I didn’t have to look at them. Oh yes I did, because the moment my eyes closed an electric shock of such intensity it caused my head to snap back coursed through my entire body.
“Oh dear, he liked that even less than he liked the second colostomy bag!” said the Dancing on Ice voice- over.
“Wait until he realises there’s another one on his back,” joked Bruce.
The members of the audience stamped their feet and roared their approval, by now making more noise than a thousand children with attention deficit syndrome who had just had their Calpol confiscated.
Every so often one of the screens changed to another hated programme; re-runs of Big Brother, Celebrity Stars in their Eyes, EastEnders, the onslaught of pap was relentless.
I was absolutely bereft. Was this what it was going to be like forever more? Sat here watching Jonathan bloody Ross and Alan bleeding Carr and Loose fucking Women for all eternity? And it would be for all eternity; there could be no release from it because, as with heaven, I couldn’t die because I was already dead. I consoled myself that at least it couldn’t get worse. Bruce stepped forward.
“And now it’s over to the football.”
The nine sections of the screen merged into one.
“Manchester United versus Liverpool from Old Trafford.” He turned to me. “Do you want to have a stab at guessing the score?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hell isn’t hot. There are no streams of fire, no smell of brimstone. Nor is it anything like any other description I’ve ever seen of hell. No hoofed demons with horns sticking out of their head, no smell of excrement, no raging inferno. What it is, I came to realise about halfway through my initial ordeal in front of the giant television screen, is the other side of the coin to heaven; a place where everyone has their own personal hell.
I had woken some time later in a room much like a prison cell with damp, bare stone walls and a stone-flagged floor. I had no idea how long I’d been there. The room was just about big enough to swing a cat in but only if the cat ducked as it went past the stone wash basin in the corner. The only other items in the room were a WC, a table and three chairs, and, high in a corner, a large loudspeaker. I was wondering why there were three chairs at the table when the cell was obviously for a sole occupant when the answer was suddenly provided for me, quite horribly, when the iron door swung open and Ant and Dec bounded in.
“Hello Norman mate,” said Ant. “Welcome to A Me-al with Ant and Dec.”
They were each carrying two plates covered with silver cloches.
“Grub’s up,” said Dec, as the gruesome twosome made their way to the table and set down the plates.
I buried my head in my hands. I have never been able to look at Ant and Dec without wanting to bang their heads together and now they were apparently to be my dining companions
“Tournedos Rossini, potatoes au gratin, asparagus and baby carrots tossed in bu-ah,” said Dec, removing two of the cloches with a flourish.
“For us,” said Ant.
“And for you....Bushtucker!” said Dec,
“A rat’s arsehole on tow-ast,” said Ant.
“Only joking,” said Dec, before I could begin to contemplate what a rat’s arsehole on toast must taste like, “You’re having a Big Mac.”
On balance I think I would have preferred the rat’s arsehole, whatever it tasted like. My expression must have said as much because Ant said, “And you can pick your chin up off the flow-ah because tomorrow it gets worse.”
“Tomorrow it’s two Big Macs.”
“Then the day after it’s Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
“Then Burger King Whopper.”
“Then Southern Fried Chicken.”
“Then Eastern Fried Chicken - that’s Southern Fried Chicken fried by a Chinaman in case you was wonderin’.”
“Then we start all over again with a Big Mac.”
“Breakfast is the full monty....for Ant and me.”
“And an Egg McMuffin for you.”
They grinned their cheeky chappie grins and sat down at the table. Only hunger persuaded me to join them. I looked down at the Big Mac on its cardboard plate. Normally I wouldn’t even have considered eating it but by now I was starving.
“Now don’t let it go get co-ald, man” said Ant.
I eyed the Big Mac as a rabbi might regard a pork pie. Perhaps it might taste better cold? It couldn’t taste worse than it did hot. I settled for hot if only to get it over with. Gritting my teeth I picked it up, braced myself and bit into it. It tasted even worse than I remembered.
“Hmmm, this Tournedos Rossini is hittin’ the spot,” said Ant, chewing on a big lump of steak, the sauce dribbling down his chin.
I glared at him. “Do you have to make so much noise when you eat?”
“Wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t make a noise when we was eating, Norman.”
“Instructions from Ow-ald Nick himself,” added Dec. “It’s on our list of things you dow-ant like.”
I wondered if their list included eating with their mouths open, because the steak in Dec’s mouth was going round like cement in a cement mixer. I asked him.
“Afraid it is, Norman mate,” he said, renewing his efforts.
“Well actually we’re not afraid, we’re enjoyin’ it,” said Ant.
In case I should remind them of any other nasty eating habits they’d perhaps forgotten to include in their repertoire I set about the Big Mac. When our plates were empty Ant said, “And now we’ve got a surprise for you, Norman.”
Dec lifted the cloche off the fourth plate, revealing a thick leather-bound book. Which was indeed a surprise as I’d assumed the plate would have our desserts on it, tiramisu for Ant and Dec, shit with sugar on for me.
“Us lads are going to read to you for an hour,” said Dec.
“Every day,” said Ant.
“Harry Po-ah,”
“And the Philosopher’s Stow-an.”
My head tried to sink back into my body.
Soon after the advent of the publishing phenomenon of the century I had tried reading the first of the Harry Potter books. My mother had bought it after seeing TV presenter Richard Madeley recommending it on the now defunct Richard and Judy show. Apparently he said he’d thoroughly enjoyed reading about the exploits of the boy wizard. Forgetting completely that Richard Madeley is the man who walked out of Tesco’s with half a trolley full of wine without paying for it, claiming he’d forgot, and therefore his opinion was that of a man whose grip on things was so tenuous he’d once overlooked the fact that he’d acquired a shed load of wine between removing it from the shelves and arriving at the checkout, and so was not perhaps the best person to judge the literary merits or otherwise of a book, I started to read it. The experience gave me no reason to read another Harry Potter book and several reasons why not to. After thirty pages I had failed to see what all the fuss was about and after fifty pages had concluded that there wasn’t anything in it to have a fuss about. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why adults were reading it, and with apparent enjoyment, and arrived at the conclusion that it must be for the same reason that some adults ate Big Macs with enjoyment, except that in this case it was their brains rather than their taste buds that weren’t fully developed. I conjectured that they were probably one and the same people, and that perhaps one day J K Rowling would write a book with them in mind, Harry Potter and the Reconstituted Beef Enigma.
“I get Harry Potter every day I presume?” I said, as Dec opened the book, crossed his legs and settled back to read.
“Until we’ve read all seven.”
“And then we start on Jeffrey Archer,” said Ant.
An hour later Dec closed the book and he and Ant bid me goodnight and left “Until tomorrow at the same time”. I let out a sigh of relief, although the experience hadn’t b
een as bad as it might have been as after the first few minutes I’d simply shut down my ears. They were re-opened in no uncertain manner the moment Ant and Dec closed the door behind them when the silence was pierced by a hundred decibels of Whitney Houston bursting out of the loudspeakers.
“And I....ay....ay.... I....Will always love you.... oo....oo....Will always love you....”
I screamed and jammed my hands over my ears. It kept out maybe about ten of the decibels.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Rank Organisation
Presents
CARRY ON CARRYING ON
Starring
Sid James
Kenneth Williams
Hattie Jacques
Charles Hawtrey
Barbara Windsor
Kenneth Connor
Bernard Bresslaw
Joan Sims
Several Other Hams
with
Norman Smith
as
Ivor Big ‘un
LS of a Roman encampment, somewhere in England.
Cut to inside Julius Caesar’s tent. CAESAR (Kenneth Williams) is reclining on a couch. He is being hand-fed grapes by a buxom HANDMAIDEN (Barbara Windsor).
HANDMAIDEN:
(TEMPTINGLY FONDLING THE GRAPES) Could you manage another, Caesar?
CAESAR:
Yes but let’s finish the grapes first.
A CENTURION (Charles Hawtrey) enters with IVOR BIG ‘UN (Norman Smith), a messenger. CAESAR turns to the CENTURION.
CAESAR:
And who have we here?
IVOR BIG ’UN:
Ivor Big ‘un, Caesar.
CAESAR:
Well I’ve nothing to be ashamed of myself.
HANDMAIDEN:
I’ll vouch for that. (GIGGLES)
IVOR BIG ’UN:
Alias Hugh Jampton.
CAESAR:
So, what brings you here Ivor Big ‘un alias Hugh Jampton?
IVOR BIG ’UN:
Alias E Normas Cock.
CAESAR:
I said what brings you here?
IVOR BIG ’UN:
Alias Willy....
CAESAR:
(IMPATIENTLY) Oh get on with it for God’s sake, we’ll be here all day at this rate.
IVOR BIG ’UN:
Whatever you say, Caesar. Do you know The Appian Way?
CAESAR:
No I don’t think I’ve ever tried that.
It was my fourth day in hell and I was being forced to watch the third Carry On film in which I’d appeared. The first had been in the starring role of Limp Sid in Carry on Impotence. In the second I was Thrust Deeply in Carry on Fucking (I believe I’m up for a BAFTA for that one).
My life had settled into a steady routine. Every morning at eight, after my Egg McMuffin, I was marched to the television studio where I spent the next sixteen hours strapped to a chair watching the giant television screen. Then it was back to my cell for my evening meal with Ant and Dec followed by hour of Harry Potter. Then my lonely bed.
All the things I’d got rid of in creating my very own heaven were now being employed to create my very own hell. If I hadn’t known it when I’d first been strapped to the chair and subjected to the delights of Strictly Come Dancing and The X-Factor I knew it soon afterwards when Liverpool started banging in goals for fun against Manchester United and beat them thirty-five nil.
On my seventh evening in hell, more in desperation than in hope, I asked Ant and Dec how long the treatment was likely to go on for.
“Well for eterna-ee man, for all eterna-ee, how long did you think?” Ant said.
I’d known the answer before I asked.
Later, in bed, for the second time in twelve months, I wept. The first time had been when I was going through the trauma of chemotherapy and facing death. This was worse. This time I didn’t even have the release of death to look forward to. As in heaven, I was already dead.
After I cried myself out I began to reproach myself. Why oh why couldn’t I have left things alone, settled for things as they were? I hadn’t been enjoying myself on earth, in fact I’d been bloody miserable, but what I had now was purgatory. It was purgatory. And it was all my own fault, all of my own doing. I should have tried harder, not given in as easily; I should have tried to forget all about Kristin, not go looking for her; that had only made things worse. I would have forgotten all about her in time, or if I hadn’t forgotten her altogether I’d have stopped thinking about her as much.
I should have gone back to the Frog and Bucket and given it another go at stand-up. So what if the audience hadn’t laughed? They might have laughed the next time. And once they’d laughed I’d have been up and running, I’d have had a job, making a living doing something I liked doing. And even if they hadn’t laughed, even if they’d never laughed, it would have been a bloody sight better than what I’d ended up with. Anything would be better than hell.
There was that plumbing job. I never gave that a fair crack. All right so I’d got a shitty toilet to unblock now and then but it was nothing like the shit I was now being bombarded with all day every day.
This thought was going through my mind for the hundredth time when the loudspeaker suddenly exploded into life.
Nigga had the fuckin nerve to call me immature
Fuck you think I made odd future for?
Apart from the hour that Ant and Dec read Harry Potter to me music was played every single second I was in my cell, except for the hours between midnight and 6 am. During that time it came on twice, at random times, for a random period, and at an extra twenty decibels.
To wearin’ fuckin’ suits and make good decisions?
Fuck that nigga, Wolf Gang
Who the fuck invited Mr I Don’t Give a Fuck
Who cries about his daddy in a blog because his music sucks
The music was always either Whitney Houston singing I Will Always Love You or Tyler the Creator rapping Sandwitches, which if anything I hate even more than Whitney Houston singing I Will Always Love You, as judging from what I’ve heard from him all that Tyler the Creator creates is verbal diarrhoea.
Well, you fuckin' up, and truthfully I had enough
And fuck Rolling Papers, I’m a rebel, bitch, I’m ashin’ blunts
Full of shit, like I ate that John
Come on kids, fuck that class and hit that bong
The only good thing about it, and the reason why I didn’t hate it more than I already did, was that I could only make out about a quarter of the words; and even then I only knew them because I’d already heard them about a thousand times. But even if I’d been able to decipher ‘ashin’ blunts’ and ‘hit that bong’ I wouldn’t have understood them; I have no idea what a blunt is, much less how to ash one, and God knows what a bong is. But then, all of a sudden, things changed and I could hear every word.
And fuck you too Norman ‘cos yo in Hell
Cos yo been bad and topped yo sel
Taint hot there like they say but who give a fuck
This nigga ain’t there so he don’t give a fuck
Just here on CD to taunt yo ass
With rap shite rap shite all day long
“Christ all fucking mighty!” I beat the pillow with my fists and screamed out in anguish. Now the Devil had Tyler the Creator creating lyrics with me in them! I jammed my hands over my ears and screamed out again, loud and long. The moment I stopped screaming the rapping ended and Ant and Dec bounded in.
“We’ve got a treat for you tonight, Norman,” said Ant.
I didn’t like the grin on his face. Not that that was anything new.
“A hot wor-ah bottle,” said Dec
“What?”
“A hot... wor....ah.... bottle,” said Ant.
He gave a lewd wink as a girl aged in her early twenties stepped into the cell. She was not unattractive, if a bit cheap-looking, and dressed in a short black leather skirt, black leather boots and a low cut top that revealed too much cleavage and that she wasn�
�t wearing a bra. Dec introduced her with a sweep of his arm. “Ria.”
“Rita,” said the girl with a scowl. “It’s Rita.”
“That’s what I said.”
“We’ll leave you and Ria to it then, Norm” said Ant, making for the door.
“Leave me to what?”
Ant made a circle with the finger and thumb of one hand, inserted the index finger of his other hand in it and moved it in and out a few times.
I shook my head. “No thanks.”
Dec smiled. “You will though.”
“Once the Devil has got into you,” said Ant.
They went out, closing the cell door behind them. Rita looked at me with disinterest. After a moment she folded her arms, tapped her foot on the floor impatiently and said, “So how am I supposed to get on the bed while you’re on it?”
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