Alvin Butler's got a new wife.
I wouldn't say new. Looks more like reconditioned!
He was like that at school. He needed two goes at everything!
I don't remember him at school. Was he a cissie?
He would be, by your standards.
If he wasn't dropping worms down girls' blouses... We had some fun!
Teaching the First Year to drink ink! You had to in our gang!
I wonder if that's why I've always been cautious about what's in girls' blouses...?
I was damned glad to get to Grammar School. (Bedwetters!)
Different sort of education... we didn't have to drink ink!
Funny how life goes full circle...
after a glittering career I'm back playing with the backward stream.
But you're enjoying it. Quiet!
Clegg! Where are you steering? I thought YOU were steering!
COMPO LAUGHS
CRASHING
I thought retirement would be more...elegant than this.
Let me pick a winner, I'll do thee some "elegant"!
I wish I knew more about elbows.
I thought there might be a knighthood for my services to education.
..You go through life picking up pieces of information,
but surprisingly little about elbows.
I thought they might offer me the Chairmanship of a few quangos.
I backed it last week!
Horse called "Quango" at York.
Odds-on favourite, 2.30.
Did it win?
No. But it nearly won the 3.00!
I've just mended a mixer for me Auntie Ivy.
Well, it's the first time I've ever mended a mixer.
MIXER BEING USED AT HIGH SPEED
GRINDING NOISE
A-A-ARGH ! Milburn...!
MILBURN...!
Leave it to me. You should have sent it to me.
YOU should be carrying this!
Oh no...it's me back! O-ohh, me back!
HE SIGHS A headmaster has to be so careful socially.
A few laughs with a barmaid and oh, dear...
A man makes enemies.
Then those rumours, that I used to drink!
Used to? Tha' can still shift a few!
If we're going to be friends you must stop noticing things.
When I say "friends", I'm speaking... In a whisper!
In general terms! As I see it, there's no need for people to know.
It's not necessary to stress things like that.
After all, we're all British. I'm not sure about "ALL British"!
I have this unsettling suspicion that me elbow is Lithuanian!
Hey up, Seymour. Don't give us that headmaster crap!
We've heard all the juicy gossip about Her-from-the-Dress-Shop!
Cor! Lies! You see what I'm up against.
Can't you practise keeping quiet?
I was only trying to interest her in a...coat-hanger I'd invented.
Coat-hangers have been invented!
Not like mine! Mine was hollow. You could fill it with lavender-water.
You big Jessie!!
Not for me, you little prawn!
For a ladies' dress shop.
I once got taken into a dress shop by my missus.
They promise to love, honour and obey...
and next you're inside a dress shop!
Women are funny!
Yours certainly are. They change when they've got you hooked.
Mine did. Changed me for a chuffin' Pole!
That's highly understandable. A name full of Zs and Ws...!
By heck, they'll think twice before cuttin' off his electricity!
I'm fed up with bein' married.
I mean, it sort of tapers off after about...the third week.
It's not going to work anyroad. Why?
She had no capacity for handling me ferrets!
I spotted it at once. They know, too.
"Will there be all them ferrets?", she said.
Silly woman!
Did you make the right choice? Oh, aye...
You can't go through life without a ferret!
..So there I am inside this ladies' dress shop.
I'm trying to keep me eyes closed.
Bad move, Norm. Never close mine. Not in a ladies' dress shop.
I'm always eager for a new experience!
Try as I might, I kept catching glimpses.
There was this big, blotchy woman wearing something with the tiniest shoulder-straps.
So much shoulder and so little strap.
I'm thinking - they'll never hold. They'll never hold.
I had to leave the shop.
I've been thrown out a few times meself.
I was glad to get back outside.
It's great to come out of a dress shop
and feel God's good natural rain on your face!
Where 'ave you got to?
Oh, there you are!
Where's my carpet-shampooer? You go off without a word...
Suppose you get killed and there's me with no shampooer!
Did you hear? Why is 'e not listening to me?
Listen when I'm shouting at yer!
I thought we'd some tiles off!
Where's my carpet-shampooer?
Don't take another step. Where is it?
Seymour said he could fix it, so I let him.
Have you no more sense?
He should be able to, he invents things.
Aye, mostly excuses when he can't fix it!
Don't put your helmet back on...
You can't hear me with it on! I know!
They cost you a fortune, does a good helmet...
but they're worth every penny!
Have a look in the mail-box,
see how many applicants there are for my postal courses. None!
Same as last week - demand remains steady!
ALARM-BELL RINGS
AND CONTINUES RINGING
STOPS ABRUPTLY
Well, get the key out. Key?!
Yes, I suppose you laymen are STILL using keys.
To anyone who's up to date technologically, keys are antique.
A device from the dawn of history.
Is that Dawn from the "Canal Tavern"?
Not necessarily.
She's got some history, I tell yer!
Pay attention, there's a good chap.
Show me your keys. Come on...chop chop.
See how inconvenient it can be, rummaging around for bits of metal.
All right, we've made our point. Keys are inconvenient.
There's no need to overdo it!
What is it?
Don't you know? I can't put me finger on it.
Well, I'm certainly not putting MY finger on it!
It's a funny colour.
Anything that's been in there a while would be a funny colour!
They still talk about that night at the Squash Club...
when it was announced that Her- from-Cooper's-Cakes was pregnant!
I don't see the point.
Melvin Boothroyd dropped his racket.
Witnesses told as to how HE went a funny colour!
Well, it just reminded me...
all that talk about funny colours.
Would you rather I stood over there?
What is it I'm carrying around? It's disgusting, that's what it is!
Why carry it round? Is it a piece of desiccated ferret? No, it's not!
Looks to me like dried hedgehog-dung!
Then you'd better have another search for the dried hedgehog!
Don't start him off again!
I still haven't found my key. That's exactly my point.
How old-fashioned keys are...
WILL you come out of there?!
How did he get like that? It's life, Seymour.
It's God that puts holes in your linings.
I believe HE might!
I don't see who else it could be
who keeps putting his boot through certain otherwise sure-fire schemes.
All right...so I'm being tested. I understand that.
I just hope it's not getting personal.
You go astray with one tiny barmaid...
Oh, it's so unfair!
Does He punish you for a barmaid?
His barmaids are punishment enough!
Ginger were OK. She looked like a man-eating carrot!
She held all comers at arm-wrestling for years.
It's deeply moving listening to accounts of his love-life.
Aye, she were good to me. She'd let you go when you screamed!
Bought me pints when I had nowt in me pocket.
You had something in your pocket.
While you were pleading poverty you were rolling in hedgehog-dung!
No...it weren't.
I remember now. I got it from Norah Batty!
I've thrown it away. Calm yourself, man...
I've had it all these years and now I've thrown it away.
Well, don't just stand there...
It didn't look much, but it had sentimental value.
So, there I am without a carpet-shampooer...
I'm all set to get it repaired and it's gone!
Gripping as it is listening to you, I must get these scones on.
Gone! You know where, don't you?
'Ave we to guess? Audience participation, is it?
That muffin I married gave it to Seymour Utterthwaite to mend!
Seymour Utterthwaite?!
Yes! Is he no good?
He's all mouth and trousers!
Well, since he can't talk it right, it's bash and crash!
What about all those qualifications?
HE is just as big a bampot as several others round here!
Well, I always heard that Seymour Utterthwaite was a mechanical genius.
Where did you hear that?!
Well... from Seymour Utterthwaite.
Aye, that's what he's best at - advertising!
After that it's ALL downhill!
Oh, good(!) He's got my mixer!
MILBURN!
Stop splashing about. Let's do this methodically.
Help me, Norm. I meant to have it buried wi' me.
But what is it we're looking for?
Well...some of us are looking for.
A dried date!
I'm NOT looking for that! Don't be rotten!
He wants to be buried with it. Where's the shovel?
You want buried with a dried date? Definitely!
Have you thought about cremation?
A few more ingredients and you'd come up like a fruit cake!
Heh heh heh heh(!)
That's very, very funny(!)
Is nothing sacred to you two?
Well, not about a dried date. No.
You go and get it back!
How? Me motorbike's not workin'!
Just bring it back! You gave it to him.
You can't just tell a bloke he's not trusted with your carpet-shampooer.
Well, you'll 'ave to think of something!
Teach you not to hand my things out to all and sundry.
We're not flamin' Eskimos!
Eh?
What are you doing with Norah Batty's dried date?
Dost tha' remember that long, hot summer a few years back? Mm.
It went on and on. Mmm.
That was the year I invented the Utterthwaite Home Ice-Creamer.
The whole nation sweltering and I had the answer!
So, what went wrong? Got at crossed purposes again, didn't we?
It were red hot, that summer.
Day after day. Well, I hated it... it was decisions every morning.
Should I take one of me pullovers off?
Everybody had their windows open.
The heat was getting to Norah Batty...
She was wearing less and less under that pinny of hers.
Just a long frock, a vest and her usual mixed bag of corsets!
Where does he get detail like that?
A washing-line has NO secrets!
People were actin' funny with heat. It must have been the tension.
Married women fightin' over bingo-callers.
The insurance man had a twitchy look.
And they kept getting the divi wrong at the Co-op!
Not me...no! I was down to me shorts.
They looked terrific with his wellies!
I was brown as a berry.
I were wearing this dangler... What?
Oh, it were made of some kind of teeth.
Dentures?
No - not dentures!
It were shark's teeth... I don't know.
Dried hedgehog. I bet it was dried hedgehog teeth!
Listen, Rambo...do you want to listen to this or not?
We're hanging on every word(!)
It was hot and we'd got as far as your dangler!
I were lookin' good - very Burt Reynolds...
An' I were getting through. Norah used to squeal at my shorts.
It's the tension you get between a man and woman - different sexes.
Male/female tension - Norah Batty?!
I tell thee. It were hot, weren't it?
And I'm strutting about, drivin' her wild.
In shorts, wellies and a dangler. Very fetching!
You could feel the tension crackling.
Hottest Tuesday this century. Norah were baking.
The hottest Tuesday this century and she was baking?
Mondays is wash-day. Tuesdays is baking!
Scones and a date and walnut cake.
Ah! One of the great Yorkshire aphrodisiacs. Date and walnut cake!
Yeah... They said my ice-cream was runny.
I could have bottled it. But no, they had to put it between wafers!
You finished? Right. Now listen...
So, I'm stretched out in the shade
leafing through old copies of the Ferret Fancier,
when I get this tantalising whiff of Norah Batty, my own true love,
in the form of a date and walnut cake.
It must 'ave been the heat, because I thought, Wally's with his pigeons.
She'll be all alone. Why don't I try for a slice?
Pure Sound Of Music(!)
She knew I were coming. She sensed it.
Wellies slobbering. The dentures on your dangler clinking. I'm not surprised!
Oh, you two can scoff, but I'm tellin' thee she knew I were coming.
I heard her gasp. I'm just surprised it wasn't hysterics!
"GO BACK! Go back!", she cried.
"Don't fight it, lass", I said. "Don't fight it!"
"Just cut me a chunky slice of that date and walnut cake!"
Then she looks at me bare chest...
panics...and starts to pelt me with dried dates!
I tell thee, lads...
if tha's never stood in the warm sunlight, outside Norah's kitchen,
naked to the waist, with her peltin' thee with dried dates...
ohh, tha's never lived!
Well, no...
but don't stop now.
Well, Wilkinson's dog came round and scoffed the lot.
Except one, which I saved as a souvenir.
And now I've gone and thrown it away!
Oh, let's help him find the damned thing, for goodness' sake!
I feel lost without it. Threw dates at you, did she? Huh!
Lucky for you she wasn't baking a coconut cake!
Hey up! It's Howard and Marina.
Been out secret cycling again, have you?
W-What you lookin' for?
Happiness, Howard. Just like you.
What are you talking about? We've only been out cycling,
without a stain on our characters...
How do, Marina?
Nicely, apart from the bicycle.
Hey up...!
How DID you manage to get them locked together like that?
Tell him, Howard. Tell them?
Tell him something, Howard!
Well...it's just... having stopped to admire the view,
as any keen touring cyclist might,
we left our bicycles leaning together. For convenience really.
HAMMERING All right. I'll hold it.
CRASH Ohh...! Ohh...!
Ohh! The man's a complete fool on the hammer!
It's just the natural desire of a husband to be above suspicion.
Particularly when he's guilty!
There's a rubber hammer inside...
Amazingly clumsy for a small person.
Right.
Open the door.
Hey, Seymour. Tha's been burgled.
Somebody's stolen the doorknob!
WHY a doorknob?
So there's no fingerprints.
That's clever, Norm.
I removed it! It fell off.
No, it didn't. Mine does!
No, mine was removed for a purpose.
It's been replaced by this piece of electronic wizardry.
"The Utterthwaite Intruder-Proof Entryphone!"
All that to replace a doorknob(!)
But this little beauty ALSO replaces all those keys!
How does it work? It opens the door when you speak.
Open the door.
Open the door!
Maybe it's deaf.
Open the perishin' door!
Don't shout. It's not listening!
It's not heard the right command. It's been programmed for a code-word!
Hey! Wowee! A code-word. It's a complicated doorknob.
It's simplicity itself. Well, what is the code-word?
(Codfanglers.)
Codfanglers?! Keep your voice down. This is confidential.
WHAT sort of a code-word is Codfanglers?!
It's only a test word for starters.
It has to be something people won't stumble on.
I'd hate to stumble on any...
..by accident! Open the door. Use the code-word.
Codfanglers!
It don't work. Let Clegg try.
Come on, Norm - this is your big moment.
"Now then, Cleggy", they'll say. "What have you been doing today?"
"Well, you know how it is," I'll say.
"I just...
"I just got talking to this door."
Norman!
(Codfanglers.) Phew!
Right. Pay attention.
Now, as you see, the door remains closed to strange voices
even when they know the code-word.
And the reason is, of course,
that a voice print is as unique as a set of fingerprints.
And this ingenious little beauty -
which simple justice demands should make a bob or two -
is programmed to obey its master's voice ONLY.
No matter who else shouts at it, it won't answer.
Would YOU answer a pillock calling you names?
Just wait there... it'll answer to me.
Codfanglers.
..Soon as I get the pitch right.
CODfanglers. You have to get the pitch exactly right.
CodFANGlers...CodfangLERS... Co-odfanglers!
# Codfanglers... Codfa-anglers... #
CODFANGLERS!
It's ME, you stupid door!
Codfanglers...!
Have you finished with the mixer?
An' Norah's going broody for her carpet-shampooer!
How are we going to get these bicycles back?
..A-ah!
Good man! You're doing great.
CODFANGLERS!
Baa-ahh...