Buy me my tea and only two sugars.
Blast one too many. I'll recover it.
Stand back. Hello here to join me in a cup
of tea. What have you seen three lumps
of sugar come this way? No, and I've been here since the
milk. Come on now.
Get out and get back to your desks, both of you, except
Echols and Nick. For no reason at all, folks.
What's the date today? 24th of December, Christmas Eve.
So they both fall on the same neck.
Must be slippery. Well, I don't think we can wait
any longer but anymore laugh from that one back to work
around belt. You're nothing.
Mr. Scrooge's Christmas Eve, the time of goodwill and custard.
So it is Merry Christmas, scratchy.
Merry Christmas. Now get back to your desk or
Albert, you're nothing. Hello and welcome to Goon Pod
and a Merry Christmas and custard to all you listeners.
Yes, we're exactly a week off the big day, and I had hoped to
put this show out on Christmas Day, but scheduling problems
have meant that I've had to bring it forward.
But let's face it, these days Christmas begins around late
September, so a week early is hardly going to upset anyone, I
don't think. Earlier this year I had the
great pleasure of speaking to sort of a mongrel of a man if if
he won't mind me describing him in such indelicate terms
because, well, he's originally. I think I'm right.
He's originally an Englishman. Who embraced Wales and the Welsh
culture and has lived in Australia for the best part of
40 years, that is. Absolutely correct.
A wandering mongrel eye. It's Andy Bell as I live and
breathe. Great to have you back and.
It's lovely. It's lovely to be back and thank
you for directing me towards an episode I was I knew about but
wasn't familiar with, and one which has grown on me and one
which I think carries a lot of subtext through its 20 odd
minutes or so. So Andy, you, I mean, you've
worked in in broadcasting and more recently you've been
dipping your toe in in podcast waters.
You've got your own podcast. So tell me about that.
It is a niche of a niche wrapped in an enigma and then put into
another niche. I do a podcast about
broadcasting, So far so nerdy. But it's a Welsh language
podcast produced in Australia and it's called Tikhaklin
Kumari, which means Welsh program, which was the Welsh
language title of the BBC Welsh Home Service.
And so far I think I've done 20 odd EPS and we've we've gone all
over the place as podcasts do. And if I may put out a request,
do we unnate Kaisi Nuisin Diasi Kamalai Vanhin?
He understood that. And you're a Goon Show fan.
I'd love to hear from you because I'd love to do an
episode and give an eye in Welsh about the Goon Show because
obviously there's the Welsh connection with Secum and indeed
Max Giltrey. Yeah, in the episode we're going
to talk about, but also in the orchestra, Ocean Ellis.
Ocean Ellis on the harp, who was one of the greatest Welsh
harpists of the last century. It's called fraggling comedy.
RHAGLENE. Word Cymru.
Advertisement over. Oh brilliant.
So how do you say Goon Show in Welsh?
You don't, Shoy is. Well, what Shoy?
S I/O. Goon Shoy.
Joy goons. It would because because yes,
it's the other way around. Yeah, yeah.
But OK. And and I think I commented last
time that Sikan's relationship in this program with Wales is a
bit odd. And in this one it's
particularly strong. Indeed.
We hear we hear Mavanui being talked about later in in the
episode and that's where Giltrake comes in.
And I also have only just discovered the mini Welsh
episode of the Goon Show in 1956 which I had no knowledge of
until this week. Pardon me, Captain Nice.
The young, heavily pimple blue bottle.
Yes, Captain, I have a vagus. This didn't speak about your
country. Really.
Yeah. Do you know that there are more
Welsh people in Wales than any other country in the world?
Are there indeed? Yes, go and count them.
All right, 1234 million, Dad, you're right.
Here's a penny. Keep the change and remember the
name Mighty Sikum. Hi.
Are you called? My case taken.
Yes, that's what my captain called me in the Army every
morning before parade. He called from his bed.
Where's my TC? Come.
Where's my TC? Oh, well, thank you.
Thank you, Westchester. We've got some friends tonight.
The goons hit Wales. Yes.
Which does exist in a poor quality version.
Have you heard it? I've heard it and I think poor
quality goes right the way through it like a porcelli #6
sticker rock to be honest. Because it was sort of done as a
fag end at the end of another show.
And I, I have a memory of another radio show being taken
to see round the horn when I was about 9 in the 70s, in the in
the 60s rather. And and they used to do the
inserts for transcription to take the local references out
and they always went down like a lead balloon.
And because the audience had sort of eight and then they did
these, then they did 5 or 10 minutes at the other end to
clean it up for transcription. Because I think at that point
they were trying to flog around the horn even to the United
States because it was very much, you know, London swinging
London, England swings and round the horn.
It was sort of in, I know it was sort of in that Bailey week, but
I always remember that. And this, this particular Goons
hit Wales was done as a little 5 minute insert for a live show
that was done on Saint David's night, which had the inevitable
Allen Williams who presented every single programme about
Wales on the BBC for about 25 years and male voice choirs and
and and harpists. But yeah, it is bad quality.
It's not quite as bad as the early series bad quality.
But this it doesn't sound like much effort had been really put
in to the writing of it, and I don't know if that much effort
was put into the performing of it either.
No, well, they just wanted to get to the pub, I think by that
point. Brandy.
Yeah, mind you, it was a Sunday, so the pubs have been open late
on Sunday evening. Probably not.
In Wales they most definitely
weren't because Sunday opening only came in in the 1960s and
then there were referenda to open the pubs on a on a Sunday,
believe it or not, and that went on into the 80s all.
Right. OK.
So last time, Andy, you came on the show to talk about a bona
fide classic Goon Show episode from Series 5, The Last trend.
And this week you're you're back looking at a show from the last
series the Goons ever made. And it's a series which
struggles somewhat to capture or recapture the heights of what we
might call the golden era of the Goon Show.
It's it's series 10's, only 6 episodes and more or less
they're just coasting. I get a feeling it's almost like
they're sampling previous glories.
It's almost like a DJ taking the best bits and sort of throwing
them together. And sometimes it flies and other
times it stops stone cold, dead often because there's no
audience reaction. It's as if the audience is sort
of sitting there, arms folded. Go.
Yeah, we've heard that one before.
You know, another time. But this, this one is, it starts
at a huge pace. And the the term I wrote down
after a while was DMOB happy because I think the cloud at the
end of the, of the whole enterprise hangs over.
Obviously it hangs over the series because there'd been a
very uncertain 1959 for everybody.
The BBC wanted a series, various components of the goons said
they wouldn't do it, or they'd only do it under certain
circumstances. Harry was trying to keep the
pace it got here. And one thing I'd note from the
from from the episode is it's loose.
Even Greenslade giggles and flubs.
Perhaps the Brandy had been passed around liberally.
And there's a sense also of even in a reasonably humorous way,
Milligan seems to be not settling scores but bringing to
the attention that he doesn't like government.
There's references to the audience being taken along so
that they'll be able to follow the show.
And I just wonder whether there's an echo going back to
the early 50s, You know, that infamous meeting where the BBC
officials said, what about this go on show that Milligan was
still smarting about remarks such as, how can people follow
this? There's no beginning, middle and
end and all the rest of it. Yet despite all of that, there
are some glorious moments in this show.
Absolutely glorious. It's just occurred to me now
you've got Sellers and Milligan here in, in December 1959.
So this was recorded 20th of December 1959.
It goes out on Christmas Eve. Both Milligan and Sellers were
in. How do I put this right?
Let's give a bit of background. Spike's marriage had collapsed
in in late September, right? So he's on his way home from
Australia. He's been out in Australia over
over the summer and he gets this letter from his wife June
telling, telling him that she's basically she's leaving him and
she's taking the kids. OK, Spike is on this boat back
home and there's a, there's a, what would you call it, a cry
for help with a barbiturate overdose.
And he has a stomach pumped. He ends up pretty much sleeping
at the offices of associated London strips and his.
It was during this period, actually, that you know Michael
Foot, the former Labour leader. For the name for Ebbw Vale
Indeed and Timothe Argyle supporter.
And and and stranger to a hair brush as well.
A bit like Boris Johnson, famous for the donkey jacket incident,
sadly. But anyway, during that period
that Spike's sleeping rough at, at ALS, that Michael Foot's
stepdaughter Jenny was kind of looking after Spike, you know,
cooking for him and, and what not.
And, and actually they got engaged on a whim, which didn't
last. It fell through.
But but Spike spent that Christmas, Christmas 59 or part
of it at least with his kids at Eric Sykes home in Surrey.
So he spent Christmas with the Sykes.
So he's kind of, I'm sure his state of mind was not great at
this point. OK, Sellers was certainly either
had just completed or was still filming the film Never Let Go at
this point. And we covered Never Let Go
recently on Game Pod. And that character that he
played, which he was a complete bastard or bastard, he took that
character home with him. And so he mentally and and
emotionally he was not in a good place either.
And and those around him felt the fallout from that.
So you've got these two who are, as I say, in a pretty dark
place, I suppose. The whole, my whole outlook to
comedy has been based upon tragedy really tell me that it
never becomes comic until after the tragedy has occurred.
I suppose today, Nelson at the time of at the time of, of the
Battle of Trafalgar or Trafalgar.
If you're reming Lindenning, you'd think, never think twice
about doing a comedy sketch about Nelson's blind eye and his
arm chopped off Lady Hamilton. But if you'd been standing on
the deck at the Battle of Trafalgar, wouldn't have
occurred to you for a second that anything was comic.
Now, since then, I suppose Nelson's become a figure of
ridicule. I mean, so you can't go to any
satire in London without somebody doing a jolly joke
about the Nelsons. The the, the hat of Nelson being
whitened by pigeons. There's a little verse I made-up
about that. What was it?
It is due to pigeons that are light on Nelson's hat makes it
white. Stand with that bit.
Here near the present for you. What I've always wanted a white
spotted bowler. Yeah, the Trafalgar Square
special. Spike's book Silly Verse for
Kids is published in November, and Ken Russell, Did you know
this? Ken Russell made a short
television film for the series Monitor off the Bat.
And I just looked at it and it's a very weird film because it's
two films in one. Yeah.
You have a very, very or almost seems mid, dare I say medicated
spike in a, a, a piece looking straight down the barrel of the
camera sitting on a chair, I think next to the Serpentine or
similar. Yeah.
And then there's a film insert, which is just him being a
performer and doing funny voices.
It's, it's not, it's not. It's a bit unnerving, that film
actually. Well, if you think about what,
where he was in his life, he's, you know, he's obviously in a
bit of what's the word tumult? Who's that?
I've never used that word tumult.
I think, I think he was and and and I'd also say he was in
personal uproar, professional uproar at a time when whatever
seller's behaviour, but seller's star was in the ascendant.
Harry star was in the ascendant. And in a funny kind of way, I
did a really nerdy thing. I looked at the Radio Times of
59 and spikes mentions in the Radio Times.
There are only three things other than the Goon shows in the
Radio Times where he gets a billing, and two of those are
for the Harry Secom story, while Greenslade, Ellington, Seek Him
and Sellers are all doing other stuff.
And I wonder whether he felt the walls of the goon shake closing
around him, or he wanted at times to escape from perhaps the
claustrophobic that thought that Oh my God, I've got to write
another six half hours. Yeah, well, he was looking to
have his own radio series called Milligan in Manchester, but it
never got past the planning stage as far as I know.
So out with Ellington Girl, Dre and Wally Stott, and in with the
Northern Dance Orchestra and probably Roger Moffett.
Right, Harry was busy. Harry had put out a Christmas
single in November called The Holy City, as well as an LP
called Secum Sings, which music arranged by Wally Stott.
Sellers had put out My Old Dutch as a single in November as well,
and Songs for Swinging Sellers came out in December, so same
month that this show goes out. I mean Songs for Swinging
Sellers was huge. It peaked at #3.
Yeah. The Running, Jumping and
staining steel film was released in November, so you know that's
out. Harry's turned up in the film
Jetstorm, which was released a few months before as well.
I don't know if you've ever seen that.
It's a really good film. No, I haven't.
I can't tell me more about it. Low budget thriller with Stanley
Baker as the he. Was in all of them.
Yeah, as the pilot of a plane. And Richard Attenborough is the
villain who's, I think he's from memory, he's got a bomb.
There's a bomb involved on a flight.
And then you've got all these supporting cast who are the
passengers on the plane, including Bernard Braden and his
wife. Barbara Kelly.
Barbara Kelly, you've got Harry who's who's sat next to and I
want to say Sybil Thorndyke, Dame Sybil Thorndyke.
I think that's it's either her or Edith Evans, but I think it's
Sybil Thorndyke and loads of other faces that you'd
recognise. And it's it's quite a neat
little thriller really. Harry doesn't have a huge amount
to do but but anyway, you know, it's all, it's all work for him,
isn't it? And what else was happening?
Spike was actually due to start work around this time on the
film Suspect and he had a small ish role in that.
That was a again, another little sort of low budget British
thriller. Have you ever seen that?
I have to say I I do not. We don't get talking pictures.
Oh yeah, OK, well, it was again, I, I, I do have it on Blu-ray.
I've only watched it the once. I think it's set around a like a
research laboratory and spikes like the caretaker or janitor or
something. It's not a huge role.
And Sellers, as I say, he's filming never let go.
He just literally just completed two way stretch.
Harry's around Christmas time. He starts appearing in Humpty
Dumpty at the London Palladium. So they're all, you know,
they're working, just not non-stop working.
And so they get to mid-december. 1959 and there's pre publicity
for the launch of series 10 and John Browell who's the the
producer wrote in ABBC bulletin that that Spike had agreed to
write 6 new shows and this would be followed by a repeat of seven
old ones. And the BBC Publicity Department
announced that Christmas is expected to get off to a
disastrous start in the Home Service on Christmas Eve.
For at exactly 7:30 PM, announcer Wallace Greenslade
will announce over the Ether. This is the Goon Show.
And for the next 30 minutes, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers
and Harry Seekin will start a hilarious riot throughout
millions of listeners homes. And did you know you mentioned
about the Goons hit Wales the same night that they recorded A
Christmas Carol? They also recorded a a short
insert to be included for the General Overseas Services.
Christmas greetings to the Falkland Islands.
Yes, I did know that, and goodness only knows what that
sounded like. I know, I don't know if.
Is it? It's not available, no.
Perhaps Patrick, whatever his name was, who manned the radio
station during the invasion, has got a reel to reel copy under
his bed in Port Stanley. Because that would be a an
absolute piece of memorabilia and a half.
I hope the sheep you were talking.
Sheep enjoyed it. Well, yeah, well, now, now, talk
about sales and seek him. Even Wallace Greenslade, he was
hosting a show called Tonight at Six.
Yeah. And strangely, summer in Paris
and Ray Ellington was on Desert Island Discs.
Oh, we didn't know. So yes.
All right. I don't.
I didn't stop to look what his choice of gramophone records
was, but you know, nonetheless. And As for John Brown, and this
is the thing with the producer John Brown, who I have
recollections of attending BBC recordings when he was producing
the program, I think it was, I have a horrible feeling it was
Etiquette Line, which was an awful program with Renie Houston
and Anona Win and it was a sort of Beauty and the Beast idea.
But John Brown's Meat and Potatoes was Sing Something
simple, Music for Sweethearts and Saturday Music album What?
And yet he found himself at managing the end of an era.
Because deep down, they must have known.
But it sort of, almost inevitably ended.
Not quite with a whimper, but it certainly didn't end in a very
recognisable form, did it? And you know, we've all got our
feelings about the last Goon show of all but it it kept
dragging on through the 60s. I have got recollections after
being introduced to the Goon shows by my uncle of Talk then.
Oh, it might still come back. Oh, really?
And oh right. And and and the fact that it
appeared on television in a couple of forms in the later 60s
Yeah, yeah, that gave the idea it was still current.
Yeah, yeah, it wasn't like it Ma, but I guess it Ma wouldn't
come back because Tommy Hanley died.
But anyway, and all this time the the the fact.
I suppose we could let's flip it.
Isn't it amazing that the sellers seek him and Milligan
stuck together for nine years because their careers were
definitely on different trajectories from about the
middle of the 50s? It is from they clearly love
doing it, but then I guess the love eat it out a bit.
Yeah, I think certainly Sellers wouldn't have stuck with it had
he not enjoyed it and loved doing it.
By 1960, I'm I'm all right, Jack was in the can.
He was to go on to win a BAFTA for that.
His career was really reaching new heights.
So I would say it's more down to the commit pressure of film
commitments that meant, you know, he wouldn't be available
like he was to, you know, to ensure that he was in the
country for his best part of six months to make sure he could
record on a Sunday the Goon Show and and seek him likewise.
But yeah, it ultimately came down to Milligan.
I think Milligan had just had enough and always railed.
Not railed. Moaned about the Goon Show
throughout the rest of his life, didn't he?
It's six. It's amazing, isn't it?
Because I was just thinking as you were talking and setting up
where this series 10 sat and six new scripts and seven repeats to
The Outsider, the BBC were really bending over backwards.
Yet they could do no good for Spike.
But the the BBC was actually a safe home for him.
Yes, he did wander off to commercial from time to time,
but I don't think LWT or Thames would have probably carried on
with the Q series for as long as the BBC did.
There was a lot of warm feeling towards him but and 10 months
between the end of series 9 and the start of Series 10.
That's a very long time, isn't it, when you're a young
performer with the world at your feet, as these were in various
forms, I'm. Just going to have to let the
cat in. Would you believe the cat is at
the door? I just let the cat out here.
Oh, OK, just so. Yeah.
This is live, listeners. Just let, just wait.
Let me go and let the cat in one second.
Come here to those and Tiddles the cat.
Come on then. There's a law against that.
Come on. You come in here or.
Not come on, they won't listen. Here we go.
Now in a minute he'll be scratching to go out again, but
that's right. So this goes out on 24th of
December, Christmas Eve 1959. Interestingly, Well to me
anyway, the day before this was broadcast, 23rd of December 59,
Hitchcock had finished just finished filming the shower
scene from Psycho and it's it had taken 5 days.
Did you know that? And also Lord Halifax died that
day all the. Great appeaser.
Yeah, been quite neat if he died in the shower I suppose.
Wouldn't it? Is that too soon?
If we have offended anybody, we do.
What the hell? He wanted to appease Hitler,
didn't he? Let's face it, yes.
He did that's. True.
That's true. Anyway, yeah, no, I just thought
that was quite interesting because I don't know why and.
It does tell you where culture was and where culture was going
because that's a very neat end of one era.
I mean, that film was a remarkable film by Hitchcock and
very it still has the ability to shock now.
And where do our heroes fit as the meet in a post war sandwich?
And you know, just supposing where would the goons have gone
in an early 60s where where society was was changing pretty
fast And those post war references and and servicemen
and it was men references were began beginning to weaken
because national service at the ended and all that kind of
thing. I mean, what a great alternate
history, right? Ask ask the computer to write
you never mind a Harold Pinter Goon show Tyler how about a 1964
Goon Show post? That was the week that was an
under a labour government and then and the.
Beatles, of course, And, and and The Beatles bond.
OK, so should we talk about the show itself?
Let us do that. And I think it begins in a way,
rightly or wrongly, consciously or subconsciously, that sets the
mood. This is the issue when you look
at an episode and deconstruct it with the benefit of hindsight.
You can read into any line all kinds of meaning, but the wolves
are literally at the door at the beginning of this episode.
I wake up this this I'm recording this on Saturday
morning listeners and I woke up about an hour ago and I'm just
you know, how you sort of you just lying in bed thinking, am I
going to make in the effort to throw your leg out of the bed
and get up? But I was lying there.
I was thinking about recording this episode and I was thinking
about the beginning because of the show where you get that that
plaintiff howl of some sort of animal, which is it a wolf?
Is it a dog? I'm not quite sure.
But I don't know. But it's definitely wild.
But what? Yeah.
What's it's significance? Yeah, that's what I was.
Trying to no significance. It makes no sense.
Neither does Greenslades line. This is the BBC and it's going
bald. And then he says oh, plus it's
come out again. What has come out, It is just a
sequence of oral non sequiturs and who knows?
And also do you hear the word nipple at the end of yes,
nipples definitely there. I'm glad I'm I'm glad I wasn't
having a a moment there. It was definitely there.
You you spotted the nipple. Not bad for a man of my age.
Did you listen to the original as as broadcast show that's on
the Goon Show Compendium or did you listen to the the edited
transcription services version? I listen to the one that's on
BBC Sounds at the moment, therefore I missed 3 attempts to
do woman with a wooden leg gags. Which is quite.
Remarkable, and also a pretty and an attempt to get in a
fairly dubious joke about Ray Ellington and the West Indies
cricket team. Yes, OK, well, because there are
bits that you won't have heard as you as you've indicated
there. Did you hear the bit right at
the beginning? There's the Around this time in
the Goon Show's run, there's regular digs at Peter Sellers
expense about his motor car obsession.
Oh, yes, that's very much in there.
Yes, yes, yes. But he's, he's, he's happy to
send himself up though, to be fair.
He's a good sport there, actually.
I mean, there are a number of things in that opening couple of
pages and this is what I meant when I said it really flies.
You've got a great reference back to Dick Barton.
You've got a sort of reference to the batter pudding hurler
because Wall gets hit by a second hand Christmas pudding
with the same sound effect. Wall loses his teeth and then
there's a scripting issue with talking about that stop spelt
STOP with a capital gain and that there are a number of
financial and governmental references throughout this
script, and I don't think that's accidental.
There's a couple of nice lines early on, there's a round of
applause over something and I can't remember what it was, but
it was something and and nothing and, and Wol says thank you.
And for the poorer people, TA, yes, great.
Can I talk to you about the audience and applause and
things? Yeah.
And I am not, even though I work in broadcasting and I've done
many an audio edit in my day, I just there.
There seems to be something a bit off with the audience at
times that they're laughing at things after the fine.
I know it's subjective, but. And there are other actual
decent gangs where there is nothing.
Not a sausage, literally. And there are other quite
obvious edits. Unusually obvious edits, if I
may say so. Like this?
Yeah, I don't know. There is a bit that was in the
script that was cut out. Spike had this song called Teeth
of England, which was based on a poem from Silly Verse for Kids,
and it was due to be included in the show.
But as I say, it was, it was cut and I've got the script.
It's quite a lengthy section that's been cut out here.
There's there's a bit of banter between Harry and Greenslade
because Greenslade's talking like his teeth have come out and
he's saying what about my choppers?
And Harry says, good heavens, good heavens, you've got a mouth
like a chickens. Don't worry, we'll do an
impression of teeth. In the background, Milligan sing
a song of teeth spelt T, double ETH, but the T is silent as in
pot. I've just worked that out PO
then, right. Yeah, well done.
And then you've got Spike with George Chisholm on trombone
singing this Teeth of England song, and he's singing it while
there's dialogue going on between Harry and and while I
won't, I won't go through it all, but it goes on for quite a
bit. And then it ends when Harry
says, but hark, what light through Yonder window breaks?
And that's where we. Pick and off and then we're off
to the races. I tell you what, you know, Spike
was pretty good at product placement, wasn't he?
They're always plugging something, whether it's the
latest record. Yeah, yeah.
Or he's poetry, you know. And again, there's a bit of, I
don't know, looking the other way by the BBC authorities
because it was in those days it was pretty strict.
Any commercial references? Those were the days of those
horrible pieces of white sticky tape over any commercial logo on
a a cereal box on a breakfast table during an episode of the
Grove family or the Newcomers or whatever, anyway.
I know that if there was a scene where there was a tin of beans
that always have the Heinz baked bean tin with a distinctive
label but they with a black marker pen that have they'd of.
They had masked the writing, but the very familiar shape of the
trademark, Yes, obvious to everybody.
Absolutely, absolutely and little in jokes here as well.
So we'll request that the cast get on there.
Alfred's to perform the show. Alfred Marx Alfred Marx, friend
of the Goon sellers in particular, whose unfunny
television sketch show which was called Alfred Marx Time Inspired
title had been, had been wincing when I watched a couple of them
a while ago because the sketch has seemed to go on for hours.
Although Ray was a supporting player so that was quite nice to
see Ray. He had a beautiful voice because
he was a trained opera singer and he played second banana to
Frank Muir and Frank Muir goes in too, but he never sort of how
can one put there's this sort of layer of people and Graham Stark
in my mind is in there too, of people who were sort of in in
the universe. But you just wonder, had those
relationships through wartime and and particularly that post
war era where people were thrown together hoping for a better
future in a showbiz career that without that happening they
wouldn't have been with within a bull's roar of of Milligan or
Sellers or seek him anyway, it's just a personal opinion.
Yeah, I never really amounted to much Alfred Marx few sitcoms and
things. But so we've got all the sort of
the the the excitement at the beginning is, is that you know
that they've calmed down and the the show proper begins with
Spike muttering as Crun while while Peter sets the scene.
And at Christmas we see the great venerable offices of
Scrooge and Marley importers and exporters for the great year of
1887. Marley is dead.
Yes, you are.
Now to enter certain things in the all weather LED devil of
ledgers, 1 barrel of blunges, violence stone and ginger purge
one gillibrel leopardile in nukes, 1 box of feathered shirt
lifters. I have to, on behalf of my
tribe, raise a huge red red flag and a rainbow flag about one box
of feathered shirt lifters, which was it's a very long gone,
thankfully thing of of abuse derision about men who have sex
with men. But it didn't get a laugh
either, which is so perhaps that's also another sign of the
times. But yeah, but it sets it up
nicely. There's a there's a this great
energy in the prologue and this and this energy continues.
And another thing that's in this show, we've heard Sellers as the
BBC announcer and we've got a few more.
A lot of the secondary voices get a turn in this show, like
the razor laugh female voice that Sellers does at one point
and also crystal jolly crystal jolly bottom.
That's right. I think we've I think we've had
enough space from saying feathered shirt lifters so we
can say crystal jolly bottom. Sorry, but also Ellington gets
lines and appallingly Max Gilshaft.
So it's almost like, and I'm going to go back to my D mob
idea. It's almost as if they know it's
coming to an end. So let's let's all get in this
together. Yeah, just a theory.
Also, for two shows only, William has rechristened
Superman Sam. So you've got him.
You've got to miss Superman Sam in this and then the following
show, which is Tails of Men shirts.
He's also he also has that Super K and I and I guess it when he
when he announces himself a sewer man Sammy, it gets a a big
laugh from the audience. Yes.
And I didn't get that until I realized that it's a not too
subtle allusion to the is it a body song called Sam the
Lavatory Man? Oh yes, and it and it had
another life in Dan Dan in a carry on.
Carry on screaming. Charles Hawtry.
Yeah, yeah. Charles Hawtry.
That's right. Yeah.
Yeah, Sam the Lavatory Man, which always makes me think of
Sadie the Cleaning Lady, which you being in Australia, you must
know that song. Do you?
I do have a very famous song from John Farnham, who is a
still very much an icon of the Australian popular music
industry. And for those of you who've just
joined us, you must be totally confused.
We've been talking about shirt lifters, Jolly Bottoms, Sam the
Lavatory Man and John Farnham. John Farnham, whose big hit was
Saint Elmo's Fire theme or whatever it was from the 80s, is
that right? And then?
Oh, don't put me on the spot plate, But he's he is an icon.
He's a sort of he was a pop star who became an all round
entertainer and he's much loved and he's not been very well
lately. But Johnny Farnham a little.
He was little Johnny Farnham. Then he was John Farnham and he
is much beloved in Australia, so I won't have a word said against
him because people know where I live.
I love the bit with Crun or Scrooge.
He's proclaiming Molly is dead, Molly is dead, and then you've
got that. No I'm not the gunshot.
Yes, you are. There are some really good gags
in this episode, like good gags, like it's almost I refer to it.
My it is that that American kind of pacing at times.
And then all of a sudden it it stops.
It's anyway let us celebrate that which is good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now Ned, scratch it.
Which is, which is, which is Harry.
Yes, I. Was wondering so much is made of
the name Scratch It. Obviously, you know, they play
play on that. Was this was this was this a new
at the time? Was this a new play on
Cratchit's name from the original story?
Or or perhaps I don't know. I was thinking maybe it Ma back
to it Ma. Maybe it maybe it Ma used it
themselves. You know, if they did A
Christmas Carol parody, maybe they've used scratch it.
I don't know. That leads us up, if I may say
so pour me my tea and and two sugars, says Scrooge.
And you hear 3 splashes, which sets up about 45 seconds.
Of. Absolutely divine Milligan.
It has a it has an oral, an audio setup, a flight of fancy.
And then the gags come along as Eccles is swimming in a cup of
tea. And then there's this What full
line have you seen? Three lumps of sugar come this
way? And Eckel says no, and I've been
here since the milk came. That is such.
That is utter genius. Yeah, earlier on in the show's
run, you'd have had little Jim popping up.
At this point. You.
Know falling in the water. But I think Spike's pretty much
given up on that, dispensed with Little Jim.
And it's a better gag. It's a better gag as a result.
I mean, it's yeah, yeah, yeah. It's come on in the waters.
Lovely. That is just.
It's delicious. It's.
Delicious. There's a bit where well, well
Ned's in the in the cup with echoes.
Ned says a a very lame gag and gets a a small smattering of
titters and and cruns says yes. Well, I don't think we can wait
any longer for any laughs on that one.
And and I thought that was that's a nice ad LED, but I
looked in the script. Nope, it's in there.
So it's a good job the audience didn't erupt until after at.
Harry's line, is it also another, you know, there's a lot
of sort of meta stuff from Milligan in the script about,
you know, on to the next joke and referring back to the
mechanics of the comedy. And again, I wonder whether it's
him somewhat. And I think it's quite benign in
this. There isn't an edge to it for
the most part. I've had nine.
I've had nine years of this. I'm going to just get my own
back. Sorry.
You were saying something. There's the bit.
Later on with Blue Bottle and Eccles where Eccles is diving
under the pavement and and at one point Eccles goes oh, and
Blue Bottle scolds him and says stop ad libbing man.
And again I thought, oh, I checked.
Yeah, that's in the script as well.
But that then there's a line that doesn't get much audience
audience reaction at all, and it leads to Spike muttering that
laid an egg. He's always looking for a fight,
isn't he? Yeah.
But I guess if he hadn't been looking for a fight, you don't
get pearls without any kind of that thing that creates perv
with things come up against each other.
It is an act of creativity. But yeah, for the most part I
think it is benign here. But he's definitely opening the
hood. I'm mixing metaphors here.
He's opening the hood of the show and sort of pointing at the
engine to anyone who's paying attention saying it's this is
how it's done, this is what's going on here, which is sort of
adds to that DMOB happy feeling. I think Sellers through this is
extremely loose at times and some of the voices are a little
bit not as solid as they usually are, but let's put it that way,
no? No, no, I I think that the first
2/3 of this show. In fact I think the bits in
Scrooge's office with Crun, Ned and Eccles are very strong.
I love little just little things like Ned asking if he can finish
work 2 seconds early because it's Christmas Eve and his wife
is getting the children together for a census and custard.
Oh, I'm Custer, a running gag that nobody laughs.
At no, almost at all. And this is must.
This must be such a hoary old musical line where echoes
reveals to Ned that his father's influential he's got a finger in
every pie. What's his name, sweetie?
Todd. Sweetie Todd.
And then yeah, And then Spike. Is that scripted as well?
Did I write that? My father's influential?
And then Eccles said, did I write that?
And it's almost in Spike's voice.
Yeah. No, I think that yeah, that was
just a fluff or flub. And he just.
Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's adding strength
to my case, I believe. There is, There's a, there's a,
There's a. The vague suggestion of a plot.
There's a There's a Mac Guffin giving back to Hitchcock.
There's a Mac Guffin in the in the shape of a of Scrooge has
got a Christmas pudding full of gold thrifty bits worth nearly
50,000 lbs. For some reason, and he
bizarrely, he entrusts it to Eccles Care and tells him to
deposit it in the bank on his way home.
And it, and it does return, but you've got to be really paying
attention to remember that inverted commas plot later on in
the episode because it it sort of disappears.
It's it again. It's a bit going back to the
thought of this is sampling. And perhaps there's 6 minutes of
plot, 14 minutes of other stuff, and 9 minutes of music.
Yeah, yeah, this is the episode. The threatening bit laced
Christmas pudding is the impetus for Grit Pipe and Moriarty to
steal it. I noticed that.
So we've got William turns up a sewer man, Sam later, but he
also turns up as the talking scales.
Get off. Get off.
Stand on these talking scales. Get evolved.
It's a lion custard, I tell you. Look, I'm so thin my slacks have
come down. I'll pull them up.
Cut. You're slacking.
You're fired. FIRED.
Pronounced. And a great gag too, which does
get a good reaction. I don't know, I don't understand
this audience at all. I think it might be a party of
Icelandic tourists. But it is, it's getting close to
Christmas then and and I can now it's a Sunday.
Oh yeah. It's a it's the 20th, 20th of
December. It's a Sunday though, so they
won't have been out carousing presumably, but who knows?
Who knows? Perhaps they were more sober
than usual maybe because I think that although there's a bit of
good stuff out the you can tell when the bands, there's some in
gags going on with the band. Can I also draw attention to one
of the attempts at the desert lady with a wooden leg?
You know how much does a lady with a wooden leg and all the
rest of it half a knicker is? The payoff is the put treacle on
your head and go as a toffee apple.
Says Scrooge, which is referenced I think in the last
Goon show. A1 legged sailor who did toffee
apple impressions for Noël Coward.
Yeah. Which sort of makes sense if you
have got a really warped mind, but anyway.
I mentioned that Little Gem has nowhere to be seen, and that
catch phrase has more or less died of death.
But around this time, Spike's trying to workshop a new catch
phrase, which is it's narrow enough for jazz.
So when when Chron or Scrooge gives, he gives Echols the
Christmas pudding and he he tells gives him his instructions
and he says, do you understand? And then Echols sort of mutters
something and Crown says, oh, it's near enough for jazz.
So. Can I tell you something from
the early part of my career, which was on an independent
local radio station in Cardiff and we had specialist programs
and our jazz program was called Near Enough for Jazz?
No, by a fellow called, if I remember correctly, Dave
Greenslade. No relation.
He was a lovely man and I remember talking to him because
I recognized the title from the Goon Show.
Now hang. On Strange but true.
There was a band called Greenslade in the 70s I think,
like a prog rock band. I want to say.
Was he not lead singer of Greenslade?
The band? Hang on a second.
What? My my my Greenslade.
You're Dave Greenslade. Hang on a moment.
I I did not know that this is a this is a moment.
Because if it is. My whole life will unravel.
Let me see. So Greens, here we go.
So Greenslade. We're an English prog rock band
formed in the autumn of 1972 by keyboard player Dave Greenslade,
bassist Tony Reeves, keyboardist Dave Lawson and drummer Andrew
McCulloch. It's too coincidental.
And I'm just having a look. Dave Greenslade, he's still with
us. He was born in 1943.
He's released a few solo albums and but oh, he's he did the
theme music. So Dave Greenslade composed the
theme music for a for ABBC television series which I have
seen called Gangsters in the 70s and the theme tune to a very
peculiar practice which was. Two very fine series, Those Two
Gangsters was made in Birmingham as I recall.
Yeah, and it had a very early role for the guy that plays Oh
Guy, the black character in Only Fools and Horses.
Paul Barber. Can't think what he's called
now, you know, the the friend of anyway, that's really got off
there. But yeah, surely it can't be a
coincidence there can't be two Dave Greenslades.
I don't think so. And he he was a very nice man
And yeah, The thing is with a catch phrase, just try and get
us back towards this Gooch show perhaps is you can't you can't
create a catch phrase. That's the annoying thing about
them for creatives is because they usually come out of
something that the creators have either tossed off and don't care
about or actually actively don't like, but they see it as a
necessary thing. But anyway.
I also I love the bit where it's all my favorite bits are all
bound up in the first act more or less or the.
There's You're not wrong. You're not wrong.
You've got the bit where Ned is going to walk home from the
office. Come on, Ned, I'll walk home.
With you, right? Come on.
Wasn't far was it? You remember the way too.
I'll look at the door of my old fashioned HP home #9 Downing St.
You've never had it so good. Good night.
Wrong home, wrong 5 minister. What?
What is it, Sailor? Hello my darling.
Merry Christmas in custard. Well, who are you then?
I'm Ned, your husband. You can come in, your dinner's
in the oven. And like you say, you've got
this, you've got he reaches his proper house and you've got
Sellers doing a sort of crystal jolly bottom grotesque ray as
Ned's golden haired daughter, Stroke's son.
And then Moriarty and Thin arrive, and that bit where this
is, it's all very confusing. Moriarty.
Is Moriarty one of twins or something?
Or is he Ned? Mori no good type of thing is
they are twins. But I think the subtext is but
two different mothers at the same time.
It's it's very confusing, but it is delightful.
And again, it's carrying through what what passes for a plot and
it's it's setting up something which never quite gets delivered
basically after the harmonica is picked up.
And then it's sort of yeah. And, and, and particularly
having Ray as a gold head daughter, which is sort of a bad
taste joke, but reasonably clever.
I I'd I'd, I'd say no more mixed bathing for you.
I never had a first child. I started with the second as
well. That was that was good.
And there's there's there's a line that I have used down the
years where Grip Hut says Merry Christmas, Mariotti.
Mariotti says you said that last year, which.
That's a It's a great line, but again, not a titter.
No, not a titter. There was none.
Why? Yet there are other good gags
that get big laughs. And there are.
We're coming up to another big question mark I have, which I
will bore you with involving Blue Bottle.
But that is a good gag and it's all part of that quick fire
humour that's going on here. I mean, this is ripping along in
in the episode and but we've only got a couple more pages in.
The wheels start falling off. There's a great bit with because
obviously Cron is tied up playing Scrooge, so as a result
Minnie's not got anything to do in the show really has she?
Apart from turn up twice for 2 little cameos.
First, she's addressed as men of Balham and she's in a pram
because she thinks it makes her look younger, which is great.
That's the wonderful line and. There's a reference to Lolita as
well. Oh yes, which had just been
published a bit in 5th. I mean, we covered the film
recently on Game Pod. It is around that time, but
yeah, I mean, again, another great gag.
And you're right, the the displacement of the coupling of
Henry and Minnie actually opens up some possibilities.
And later on when she gets under the mistletoe with Dennis
somewhat reflecting in a product placement of indirect means.
Blood knocks Rock'n'roll. Let there be always some cash
for me. Right, the blue bottle bit.
How do you feel about it? Well, it's a large piece of
text. It could fit in any Goon show
ever written. It is by the numbers.
Yet it gets not only big laughs but a round of applause.
And I've written here why. I don't quite understand why and
whether or not something was going on that we don't hear or
was cut out. But I mean, what's so hilarious
about I'm breaking the world's record for oily rat clutching?
It's amusing, but it's not a laugh out loud moment.
It's part of a a tapestry of humour that was often used.
I was underneath that car cleaning it.
What a. Twin it got lying on my back in
the middle of the road, one arm held up, clutching a piece of
body break. Supposing a policeman had asked
me what I was doing, I would say cantable.
I cannot tell a lie. I'm breaking the world's record
for oily rag clutching. Hello, everybody.
I didn't see you there. Merry Christmas and custard to
you all. Are you getting those things in
your stockings? I'm getting legs in mine.
Every that junior spaceman Christmas put it at me.
Merry Christmas, bottle. Echoes you twist.
What you doing? Swimming at the pavement.
Nothing like a dip in the morning.
Flash. You dive onto the pavement.
You. Might be mad.
Can't argue with facts, folks. His man says nice caretaker.
How about stupidity? Interesting musical note if I'm
correct, Ray refers to that's nice Damien during the song.
So that would seem to suggest it was Damien Robinson on the
piano, not Dicky Katz. Oh, I I mean, I've done a bit of
research on that. I haven't I can't prove anything
but it. There's a lot of circumstantial
evidence. But again, more meta, man, these
introductions get worse all the time.
Yes, of course the goons was deconstructing the medium, but
there's an awful lot of hey, you know, this is how we do it.
Do you realize what we're doing here?
Kind of stuff going on here, whether deliberate or going on.
Oh, and by the way, the giggling.
It gets Begins to get a little bit out of control, even from
Wally's Greenslade in the last act of this episode.
Indeed. So anyway.
Now we're coming up to your specialist subject.
Yes, what? The deck ends.
Which gets a big response from the audience, which, yeah,
pretty lousy play on words. Max, Max, like, say Max plays
his. So we've got this man called
what? He's a Welsh expert on Dickens,
and Max plays methane with his wife and his abysmal.
Well, imagine in one line we get a Welsh reference back, then we
go to Scots with brew and then we end up with showboat.
Can't help loving that man of mine.
And then but there's a great grip type sellers must be hell
in Wales. And there's any meaning you wish
to take from that line you can take and it's whatever.
And then don't talk about my old Dutch like that.
And there's a great laugh from you can hear the orchestra
really enjoying that. Well, of course sellers the
month before had released my old Dutch as a single.
Yes, yes, again, product placement, product placement.
That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Spike doesn't know how to wind this.
Should we call it a plot? Doesn't know how to wind it up.
So he has seek him or Ned introduce or reintroduce
Moriarty to a match. And Moriarty says, yeah, that's
that's the match that belongs to Thin and me.
And that's how Mariarti grip pipe met their match.
And and that's that's disposed of.
And then and then later or after that, Scrooge is Scrooge.
Here's here's the other thing I thought, right.
So Scrooge is transformed from miser to the nicest man in
London. And it's crazy to me that the so
the episode's called A Christmas Carol, but Spike decided against
parodying the three ghosts and nephew Fred and so on.
Which would have been fertile ground, I would have thought,
you know? To.
Think so. But then if you look at so the
in the the transcription services catalogue entry for
this show, where there's always a synopsis of the show, there's
a there's a one sentence synopsis for A Christmas Carol.
And it says for a shortened version of this program, please
read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and you won't
find much resemblance. Which speaks volumes, really.
Yeah, it does. It does.
And yeah, and that bit, that bit where blood not comes along
again, that could have been anywhere, you know, you just the
mistletoe could have been replaced by any manner of means
for Mini to have a pash with Dennis.
And there's a boob gag in there as well.
Great. Kazukas very carry on.
If you. If you, if you wish to interpret
it as that, yeah, that fair enough.
But she's she's, she's men of Mongolia to, to, to blood knock.
And Dennis, if do Lally, which is a great anyway, it could be
again, it could be an E show and you're sort of going what's
going to happen what's and it is now in total shambles.
Yep, and they've got to get out of jail free card, which is
singing. End on a song which end on a
song? Yeah.
Which is? You see?
Me or or when they start singing all all those different tunes,
it sort of hacks forward to that big thing at the beginning of
the last goon show where they're all speaking across each other
and Andrew Timothy says they haven't got quite got the hang
of it yet. And I'm just wondering what you
as I said it right at the beginning, as soon as you start
looking at the script, listening closely, listening for edits,
listening for things off my you can go into a Wonderland of
conceptions. But things hung around in
Spike's head for a long time. It was just or was it just the
idea? I don't know.
I think it was, I think it was more that he would be in his, in
his office, wherever that was. He'd have a filing cabinet of
old scripts. He'd just dip his hand and pull
one out and then go, Yep, Yep, I'll take that, I'll take that,
include that. So, yeah.
So, so it culminates with them singing White Christmas and then
it, and then there's old, old Lang Syne and, and then Ding
Dong, which is dead. And that's it.
And I'm trying to, I'm trying in my head, I'm trying to imagine
what they're doing, the goons are doing while all this music,
the play out is happening. And it's, I'm just thinking that
they're probably just there swinging back Brandy or, or
maybe because of the, the time of year and the, the, the
celebratory atmosphere, maybe they've, they've gone into the
audience and are embracing their loved ones or something.
You know what I mean? You don't quite.
Which in a number of cases could have taken quite a while.
Yes. It's telling when Greenslade
says right at the end as the goons bluff through the playoff.
It's another meta kind of thing. And that dark line, Merry
Christmas and custard to human beings everywhere.
And it appears to me they are just about everywhere.
What a pity. That's dark.
Spike, do you know what it's I've not until you've just
pointed that out. It didn't.
That didn't occur to me at all. I didn't even take that line in.
But you're right, it isn't it. Yes.
And in, in, in with Greenslade, who is the most jovial man who I
still want, I still think there's this.
I went down a green slave rabbit hole of newspaper cuttings
earlier this week, which hasn't helped this episode at all.
But he's a most interesting and enigmatic man.
To have to have read the television news and done the
Goon Show and presented record programmes and being the face of
the BBC at the national radio show.
Here was somebody of of heft, in more ways than one, and perhaps
next time you might have me on, I might have an outline for
Greenslade the Musical. Oh yes, we talked about that
previously, didn't we? Greenslade the musical.
Now I was thinking if I was a if I was a 10 year old boy in 1959
listening to this on Christmas Eve, I'd have been blown away.
Imagine. Yeah, you'd look at.
I mean, this year is the first year I haven't bothered buying
the Christmas Radio Times because I'm always disappointed
by it. I buy it and I open it expecting
to see some some great shows and movies scheduled around the
Christmas period. There's never anything that
appeals to me, and so you should.
Try Australian television this time of year.
I get the the double, double edition every year from my
brother and sister-in-law and I too open it every year and look
at it and go, I thought this was supposed to be the best
television in the world. The radio remains interesting.
There's still a great wealth of radio from the BBC, but
television, not so much. But you're as a 10 year old,
there was plenty in it that you didn't, wouldn't have understood
but knew was adult. So that's exciting.
But even the chaos as a 10 year old, the chaos is OK because
it's a funny noise and it's fast and it's all over the shop.
It's when you sort of grow up a little that you start
questioning and but it would have been electric I think for a
young person. Absolutely.
I was looking at so this is this goes out Christmas Eve.
I wondered what audiences could enjoy on the wireless on
Christmas Day 59 and interestingly so, the Radio
Times reported. Thus this little bit in the
Radio Times saying if it's laughter you want, there's
Sikkim in Cyprus in the morning. All right, I'll come back to
that. And special editions of
Hancock's Half hour, the Goon Show.
So basically they repeated A Christmas Carol the next day on
the light program, Raise a Laugh, which I didn't know that
was still going, although it might have been a repeat.
The Navy Lark and life with the Lions and for laughter Tinch
with nostalgia. Listen to the Tommy Hanley
story. So but seek in Cyprus was yeah.
So that goes out on the light program 10:30 in the morning
Christmas Day. Harry Seek in was entertaining
the forces stationed in Cyprus and introduced Patricia Lambert,
Len Lytola, Norman Vaughn, Harry Worth and it's It's in, a
combined services entertainment show in Cyprus, edited and
produced for the BBC by John Brow.
He gets around a bit. He does, and there was a an
audience ABBC audience research report after this show
conducted, basically gauging the reactions of listeners to A
Christmas Carol and opinions were largely positive.
Somebody said that the inspired lunacy of the script is as good
as ever. There was a few AOS who
complained that they were vaguely disappointed by the
show. There was a desire to hear some
new characters and a few people. Few disgruntled listeners
kvetched, if that's the right word, that that sometimes the
audience laughter drowned out punch lines, whereas your
contention is that there was very little audience laughter at
the right moments. Well, they were, they were
extremes. They either were going off or
they let things just they just sort of lay there and did
nothing. You know that like a non moving
about bowl of gravy. Strange audience.
But they're having fun clearly and increasing fun and there's
enough joy in this. I think on 1st, I think it's a
tricky first here because I, when you mentioned this a few
months ago, I, I went to it just to remind myself and I was a bit
yeah. And then the more I listened to
it, the more I realised there's some wonderful.
There are moments, and perhaps that's the thing, the the glory
is becoming in the moment rather in the half hour, because there
were some episodes and the last tram I believe is one of them,
but there are many more besides where it's well constructed.
The payoff, even if it's offbeat, is a good payoff.
The music is integrated. It makes a kind of sense.
But this one, perhaps it was a touch of Spike going through his
his drawers and doing a a 1959 version of Cut, paste and post
it notes. Merry Christmas, Mariotti, you
said that last year. You listen to it and you when
you realize the turmoil that Spike's going through in his
personal life and you do. There we go.
So Andy, any final thoughts on on the show or anything in
general? I would just like to wish
everyone Natalie Cowan happy Christmas and if a reminder if
there are any shoy goon Kev not clear shoy goon since I can like
anyone speaking goon show fans haggling Chameri RHAGLEN new
word Cymru is my podcast and that would make that would make
an episode of the heart. It would be so meta and so
niche. It would disappear up its own
fundament. And one other thought.
Thank you, Tyler for expanding the remit of this podcast and
continuing to provoke and entertain.
And in particular, a recent episode of The list got me
thinking long and hard as well. And some of my framing is very
much determined by that list. So thank you to you and yours,
including your cats, who I know are big fans of this show.
But no, thank you, Andy. I really appreciate that and and
great to hear you're a great guest to have on and I want to
get you back. Any any thoughts on you know
when you return what what you'd like to talk about?
Might be telegoons it it might be I might actually, because I
could do a Co pro, I could do something on Secum because it's
it's easy to argue he was probably the most the most well
known Welshman, certainly in the 1950s and early 60s in terms of
entertainment. And I could do perhaps I do what
I call a pod dog, a pod LED dog Ven, which means a documentary
podcast. And based on that research, I
could talk about that. So perhaps, and I also went to
university in Swansea. I'm a Swansea City supporter for
my sins. I'm very much a Jack in that
that way. And so, yeah, I'll just drop a
little marker for that please, if I may.
Brilliant. OK, OK, well enjoy your
Christmas. And listeners, enjoy your
Christmas. We've got a special show not
recorded yet, so hopefully there'll be a special show on
Christmas Day which falls on a Wednesday this year.
So that should be with you next week and in the meantime, please
rate and review in all the usual places and I will see you next
week. And as the goons bluff through
the payoff, we wish a Merry Christmas and custard to human
beings everywhere. And it appears to me they are
just about everywhere. What a pity.
Good night. None.