I don't know why you speak to him. You know he insults me.
Ask him what he does in the bedroom with them binoculars!
Got so as I daren't wear a blouse!
Don't you turn your back on me!
- He leered at me! - He's entitled to leer!
You'll let a man leer at your wife?!
I just marvel at the quirkiness of his taste!
But tha's got used to her, Wally.
Familiarity breeds contempt. To me she's a thing of mystery.
An unknown quantity. A strange... Strange? Funny you should say that!
- Tell me what you're plotting. - We didn't want to bother you.
I'll be back when you're not busy.
I'M not doing anything! Well, you keep poking Wally with that brush!
Tell her. You tell her. Somebody had better tell her!
That whiter than white washing that tha's just taken off the line.
What about it? Where is it? Inside. Tha's ironed it yet? What's it to you?!
- Just answer him! - No, not yet.
Thank the Lord for that!
I've his dinner to get and my windows are all steamed up. What are YOU worried about? ..Back 'ere, you!
Tell her, why don't you?!
Nora...!
Nora... when tha' does tha' ironing and puts tha' hand in the basket,
if it comes out with a small garment trimmed with fur,
look at it before you iron it. Why?
One of my ferrets was heading this way!
What...? What on earth...?!
Now, you get up...! That man! Halt!
Can you understand any adult human being rushing about like that?
Yes! Well, I'm...
Go on, you lazy lot!
Go on! Get out of 'ere! And keep out!
You're worse than school-kids! Make me tired!
Ahem.
Ahem!
..A paper napkin.
What? One of your softest paper napkins, please.
Three teas between you and you want a napkin?!
Just a paper napkin. With egg and chips you get one.
You've got an inflexible system for issuing napkins?!
A business needs good stock control. Other places put them in a glass on the table! You just pick one out!
YOU should've picked TWO out and brought one with you!
Funny things, feet.
If they were turned the other way round, we'd be able to stand much closer to walls.
It's me toecap. Some idiot stood all over it. Tha' nearly put tha' knee in me groin! Soldier's reflex.
OK, tha' nearly put tha' knee in me soldier's reflex. You should... Oh, sit down!
The fact that feet are not turned the other way round suggests that the evolutionary plan...
The what? The divine plan... The divine plan! HE won't know what you're on about!
He picks up things in his own way.
That's what worried that store detective in Woolworth's! It FELL into me pocket!
I knocked it off with me elbow!
You're always knocking things off! Will you please keep quiet! Wriggling out of it?
Shut tha' cake hole!
The implications of feet in the evolutionary pattern...
Ready when you are, Norm. Look, drink your tea. Hm?
..OK. SLURP!
Yeugh!
Ready when you are. I've forgotten.
The divine plan. Oh, yes! Thank you. Well, look.
From the position of our feet, it is clear that Nature never intended
that we should fit snugly against smooth, flat surfaces.
And yet the rectangle is all we ever get from the planners.
Now, when future archaeologists dig out the remains of our buildings,
they'll think that all inhabitants were composed of right angles.
Yeah...
Ready when you are, Norm.
..You know, personally, I find the modern bed too short.
Never tried shortening your legs?
Look, all I'm getting is antagonism - first Nora, then him behind the counter, and now him!
There's none of the comradeship of army life. What? The brotherhood of sharing danger.
We could share a beefburger.
Comradeship in the army(?) Yes. Gerroff! They'd steal the spit off your boots!
Listen to him! The Huddersfield Raffles! Comradeship, my RSM!
What happens when two armies meet? They knock hell out of each other!
Walls come to an end, but...
how do you stop the beefburger?
D'you realise that there are generations growing up who think that meat really tastes like that?
Well, at least you get a napkin! He won't part with a paper napkin!
With egg and chips you get a napkin.
I USED to put them out. Four clean, white, paper napkins in a glass. What happened?
People started using them.
Wiping things up with them and scrunching them into little balls.
Must live like pigs, some folk.
Nah...there's no class.
Aaaaaaaah!
Oh, close your mouth! How can you when you yawn? You needn't open it THAT wide.
If this was a battlefield, they'd have two men and a gun in there! I couldn't sleep last night. Oh?
Had a few people in. YOU did?!
Like who? Like three policemen.
They had this idea I'd been out poaching.
Aaaaaaaaaaah!
When you blink, can you see little bobbles in your eye?
Oh, all right (!) There's not much you can do with them, anyway.
When I blink, I see them policemen. Serves you right!
He had more meat on his notebook than I had on me pheasant! ..Pardon?
Don't upset the woman!
I'm looking for Wally. See if he's found my ferret. "Greater love hath no man..."
Why don't you keep the damn things under control?! They're wild killers! Not like your guinea-pigs!
Must be about the only thing that's never gone up.
What is? The guinea-pig. Wally! Come on!
And politicians want to get rid of everything British.
Even the word "guinea" has to become "105p".
Wally! Hey-up! Wally!
What kind of a name is "105p"?
Sounds like a geriatric malfunction.
HE WHISTLES Come away from there!
You're making more noise through that letter box...! I were only whispering!
Whispering? I've heard quieter bayonet charges!
COMPO MUTTERS
Quieter bayonet charges?! When's HE ever heard a bayonet charge?
Sat in t'Corporal's side-rider (?)
I can just see his lot - advancing through the smoke of battle,
the sunlight glinting off the end of their pen-nibs!
Look at him flapping his arms for a vertical take-off!
It's essential to take advantage of every bit of natural cover.
THUMP! BASH! AOW! OH! AH!
You're getting as daft as him!
Don't you show your face again!
The woman is totally unreasonable!
Ah, but so sexy!
You mean there's something about an evil temper, wrinkled stockings and hair curlers that you can't resist?
Oh, there is! There is!
Well, she certainly made an impression on Foggy! She's totally unreasonable!
AND while he was making use of every bit of "natural cover"!
You might've warned me she was behind me. You were my mobile rear-guard.
We WERE mobile, Foggy. You can't fault us on mobility. Well, that kind of behaviour is VERY civilian.
I suppose it's living next-door all these years. I've got used to her little moods.
From nasty to atrocious! That's a photo of Nora Batty?! Aye!
She didn't want her photo took.
I think she's shy.
Yes, the Waffen SS were very similar!
Ooooh...!
Dost tha' think I'm in love?
At our age, the most you're likely to be in is a draught! This is very improper - the woman IS married!
Only to Wally!
That's not like having a husband.
It's like keeping a lame whippet!
I mean, she feeds him regularly,
but she knows she won't win anything with him.
I hope HE were faster getting to my ferret than SHE were! Agreed. Much as I admire Nora,
I couldn't trust her with the welfare of my ferret! It's the stuff of classical romance, eh (?)
It's moving to see you torn between passion and animal husbandry.
Passion?! Passion for Nora Batty?! Why not?!
Well, to be blunt, because she's ugly.
True... But what else?
Isn't that enough? Hardly, Foggy.
Most women are ugly. Are they? Of course.
That shows you how much notice HE takes! The big fairy!
A life dedicated to the martial arts requires certain sacrifices.
It's like a call to the cloister.
More like an oyster, clamming shut when a woman appears!
Yes, a military man must forgo the pleasures of the domestic hearth.
Quite often a MARRIED man must forgo those pleasures too! In fact, marriage can be the quickest way!
Now what are you up to? Ssh!
Sometimes when she leaves Wally alone, me and him can get in touch.
The old wall telephone on the ear, you see? That part on the ear,
this part on the wall, like so.
Are you getting enough (?)
I see the inflated prices paid for the French Impressionists are going down.
I should think so.
Funny how the visual arts reflect the cultural changes
much more clearly than the writing on the local urinal walls.
Not much change since I was there in short trousers.
When I was painting regimental badges on regimental doors,
I never felt a need to be innovative or revolutionary.
Tradition is everything on army doors, rather like icon painting. Byzantine...
Mmm, very interesting. Of course, I can read the walls higher up these days,
but it hardly seems worth growing up for.
One's work improved, of course, but always within the tradition.
I was greatly influenced by acting Sergeant Paignton Moffat,
a man very demanding in respect of his curly hues. Overdo it by so much as an extra trefoil or crocket
and his sensitivity was such that he'd whop you up the crutch with a 3-foot ruler!
Suppose he's not there. He must be. She keeps him on a very tight rein.
Why are you tapping down there? I've reached him here before.
What was he doing down there? I don't know. You didn't ask?
If he wants to come down here, that's his affair!
KNOCKING That's Wally. By George, he's down there again!
How do you know it's Wally? Who else would be tapping down here?
The Count of Monte Cristo (?)
If I give him three long and two short, like this...
that means I want to see him and he'll nip round once he finishes what he's doing.
KNOCK-KNOCK! That's Wally!
What IS he doing? Finding my ferret to bring it round.
Bring it round? Oh, an unconscious ferret (!)
Hello, Wally.
Perhaps...he can throw...his tap.
..Pardon? Some people can throw their voices.
Perhaps he can throw his tap. He knocks at the window and it sounds like it's coming from the pantry!
..Oh! Now where's he gone?
Just checking on HER. He'll be back here in a minute.
I'm surprised she misses him at all if he spends his life on the floor! Why on the floor?! My point exactly.
Well, that's where the tapping came from, isn't...? AAAH!
Can't he stop screaming? Screaming?! Keep quiet, she'll hear you!
Very excitable, isn't he? Excitable?! Has tha' got me ferret?
I'M not excitable! Excitable?! He's off again! I've got nerves like Sheffield steel!
I always get lost in Sheffield. Promises (!) Nerves like steel?!
Screaming when a bloke comes up behind him?! Come on, we've all done that, queuing for foreign films!
You should never creep up behind a soldier. Ssh, I can hear her!
Had I had a weapon, I daren't think of the consequences! Talking of anxious moments,
remember Thoroughgood from Oswald Street? Nearly went demented before they cut him out of that zip fly!
And that wasn't a scream. It was the trained fighter's instinctive battle-cry!
There were several volunteers but he wouldn't let a stranger near him.
The bayonet charge is accompanied by a kind of "AAAAH, AAAAH!" AAAAH!
Even in the depths of his agony, he insisted they send for a workmate who was working at the time.
It sounds quiet, but I'd better not stop. Hey, just a minute... Where is she?
Baking! Me ferret!
Why should she be baking your ferret?
Wally, WHERE is me ferret?!
Upstairs. What is it doing upstairs?
I daren't flaming think! Why d'you let it go up there? That's a free, wild spirit, that!
It's not what I'd call obedient! It's more like stupid!
Yes, I'd expect his livestock to be in an untrained, unruly condition.
Conkers! Ah, le conker!
I congratulate you, monsieur, on the condition of your conker! Don't encourage him! Listen...
I think you've made a muck-up of looking after my ferret!
No, the missis made me flush it! She's flushed it...?! No, no!
From out of the clothes basket! Ever tried flushing a ferret from a pair of WX flannelette knickers?!
It can be nasty in all that elastic!
Wally, you've done all you could. Rubbish! But YOU let her get loose!
No man who is sober should ever tango with WX flannelette knickers!
It shot up one of the legs like smoke from a musket, straight upstairs!
Right, we're going upstairs! What? I daren't go upstairs in the daytime!
Ooh, she'd think that were very sinister. What excuse could I give?
Couldn't you go for a lie-down? Lie down?! If I'm standing up, I daren't stop moving!
Listen, I'll have to be getting back.
How am I going to get my ferret?!
Come back, that man! I'm only going to peep.
Oh, le peep! I congratuate you, monsieur, on your peep!
Peep-peep!
Look, we have to wait for Wally's signal.
Oh, eh, I... They've done that very well considering the, eh...
If you, eh, could get the lads to, eh, chip it, chip it out with a...
and then mix some, eh, you know... in a bucket and, eh...
You can't say you came for your ferret until you get his signal.
We can't just stand looking suspicious. We need a cover story to explain our being here.
Some simple rules, just in case.
We're waiting for somebody?
Then why wouldn't we wait in your house? No. It has to be simple but plausible. Like your Ernie.
Oh! I've got it!
It'll be the first time for years! We're LOOKING for something.
Aye...my FERRET! Has tha' just woken up?!
No, no. Something ELSE.
Could be inner peace and things of the spirit.
..Sorry.
If we just stand here, it looks suspicious. But if we look for something on the ground...
On the ground? Yes. The situation will explain itself.
People will pass on by without a second glance!
Well, come on, then. Join in.
We've got to have the same story. She's got to be something small and difficult to find.
Like your first mortgage.
I know! A contact lens.
I've lost a contact lens. Very tiny.
I mean, you can't go marching about flat-footed. They won't bear treading on. You've got to tiptoe.
Right, she's in the kitchen.
What are you looking for?
(Nowt.)
It's...it's a contact lens.
Be careful how you tread because they're very fragile, very small.
Don't you start, tha' dozy begger! You're supposed to be letting me in for me ferret!
No! We've got to give him a hand to find his contact lens!
How'do, Charlie?
That wasn't their Charlie. That was their Eric.
There's not much to go by.
Their Eric's got thicker ankles.
You just made that up.
Here, wait a minute...
Don't they live in the next street?
Oh, eh... Ahem...
Well, I knew it weren't their Eric!