extinction.
‘Let’s take you to meet the man,’ said Henry.
They went through a labyrinth of corridors until they reached a door marked with an enormous star, with dozens of thin strips of gold fanning out from its centre.
They knocked and entered.
‘Come in! Come in! Care for a blueberry margarita. Heaps of vitamin C. Let me tell you Marty, I do admire your products. Very much.’
‘Have you ever tried any?’ ventured Marty with a certain bitterness. His hackles were up because Johnnie addressed him via the mirror, not deigning to turn around.
‘My researcher brought in a wild leveret thing which tasted pretty divine. You’ve got some good products and I hear Mammon’s looking after you well.’
‘Mammon?
‘The false God.’
‘I know who Mammon is, but what are you trying to imply?’
‘Nothing, chum. Look, don’t get in a tizz. Don’t get my stage persona mixed up with the fifty-two-year-old-bloke who’s been on the roller-coaster. I’ve seen ups and I’ve seen downs and at the moment I’m having a drink to settle my nerves before delivering verbal bad ju-ju to the nation. Why don’t you? People get nervous under the television lights. We had to give one contributor, a taxidermist from Prestatyn, a cup of tea laced with Mogadon before we could get him on the set. Trouble was he’d had a few slugs from a hip flask apparently and we only just managed to stop him attempting fake coitus with a stuffed leopard he’d brought in. On air, mind! In front of all those people.’
‘I’ll have what you’re having.’
‘And if we’re talking about gods,’ said Johnnie, ‘these are their faces.’ He pointed to what seemed like a mini-shrine in the corner, a four foot high block of cork to which were attached a collection of men’s faces.
‘These are the tabloid men, the ones who make and break people like me. Daily Star , Mirror and most pungently, The Sun. And here’s my favourite headline from that august organ. The Institute for Strategic Studies wanted a pacifist, a token pacifist to join their board and they invited Michael Foot because he was just about the most famous one around at the time – even though Bruce Kent was probably the pacifists’ pacifist – and he accepted. The Sun ran it under the headline ‘Foot Heads Arms Body.’ Marty was laughing as he sipped his powerful margarita.
In the technical area the floor manager was saying his mantras, learned from a wise man in a tree house in Kerala.
‘The water lapping the mangrove roots is the sound of a safe place, is the rhythm of home.’
He took a deep breath and walked into studio D to do the warm-up routine, the usual limp-as-lettuce gags followed by the health and safety drill. On air in ten.
The director in the gallery looked at his watch. Almost an hour before he could get to a bar and shaft a lager and maybe, if his luck was in, pull one of the impressionable little vixens who worked in accounts. The production assistant sitting next to him was wondering if the small wager she’d had with Camera 4 would pay off. She’d predicted that tonight was the night Johnnie’s show would drop off the ratings graph. This run had been getting worse and worse and they simply weren’t getting the names. In this celebrity age, that was the kiss of death. And talking to a guy who flipped burgers for a living wasn’t exactly Big Brother in Buck House now was it? Melissa had told her this show might be better than she could imagine. Precocious bitch. All that Oxbridge la-dee-dah!
The audience was a blue rinse brigade from some Women’s Institute up the valleys, who found Johnnie as shocking as the advent of menopause. It was always some Women’s Institute from up the valleys who arrived in buses that had seen better days.. They had to pay them to come, calling it a subsidy for the bus when in reality they were paying a tenner a head to fill the seats. There was also a smattering of younger folk who came of their own volition
‘Let’s take you to meet the man,’ said Henry.
They went through a labyrinth of corridors until they reached a door marked with an enormous star, with dozens of thin strips of gold fanning out from its centre.
They knocked and entered.
‘Come in! Come in! Care for a blueberry margarita. Heaps of vitamin C. Let me tell you Marty, I do admire your products. Very much.’
‘Have you ever tried any?’ ventured Marty with a certain bitterness. His hackles were up because Johnnie addressed him via the mirror, not deigning to turn around.
‘My researcher brought in a wild leveret thing which tasted pretty divine. You’ve got some good products and I hear Mammon’s looking after you well.’
‘Mammon?
‘The false God.’
‘I know who Mammon is, but what are you trying to imply?’
‘Nothing, chum. Look, don’t get in a tizz. Don’t get my stage persona mixed up with the fifty-two-year-old-bloke who’s been on the roller-coaster. I’ve seen ups and I’ve seen downs and at the moment I’m having a drink to settle my nerves before delivering verbal bad ju-ju to the nation. Why don’t you? People get nervous under the television lights. We had to give one contributor, a taxidermist from Prestatyn, a cup of tea laced with Mogadon before we could get him on the set. Trouble was he’d had a few slugs from a hip flask apparently and we only just managed to stop him attempting fake coitus with a stuffed leopard he’d brought in. On air, mind! In front of all those people.’
‘I’ll have what you’re having.’
‘And if we’re talking about gods,’ said Johnnie, ‘these are their faces.’ He pointed to what seemed like a mini-shrine in the corner, a four foot high block of cork to which were attached a collection of men’s faces.
‘These are the tabloid men, the ones who make and break people like me. Daily Star , Mirror and most pungently, The Sun. And here’s my favourite headline from that august organ. The Institute for Strategic Studies wanted a pacifist, a token pacifist to join their board and they invited Michael Foot because he was just about the most famous one around at the time – even though Bruce Kent was probably the pacifists’ pacifist – and he accepted. The Sun ran it under the headline ‘Foot Heads Arms Body.’ Marty was laughing as he sipped his powerful margarita.
In the technical area the floor manager was saying his mantras, learned from a wise man in a tree house in Kerala.
‘The water lapping the mangrove roots is the sound of a safe place, is the rhythm of home.’
He took a deep breath and walked into studio D to do the warm-up routine, the usual limp-as-lettuce gags followed by the health and safety drill. On air in ten.
The director in the gallery looked at his watch. Almost an hour before he could get to a bar and shaft a lager and maybe, if his luck was in, pull one of the impressionable little vixens who worked in accounts. The production assistant sitting next to him was wondering if the small wager she’d had with Camera 4 would pay off. She’d predicted that tonight was the night Johnnie’s show would drop off the ratings graph. This run had been getting worse and worse and they simply weren’t getting the names. In this celebrity age, that was the kiss of death. And talking to a guy who flipped burgers for a living wasn’t exactly Big Brother in Buck House now was it? Melissa had told her this show might be better than she could imagine. Precocious bitch. All that Oxbridge la-dee-dah!
The audience was a blue rinse brigade from some Women’s Institute up the valleys, who found Johnnie as shocking as the advent of menopause. It was always some Women’s Institute from up the valleys who arrived in buses that had seen better days.. They had to pay them to come, calling it a subsidy for the bus when in reality they were paying a tenner a head to fill the seats. There was also a smattering of younger folk who came of their own volition
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