The Skinny & Nod Dialogues

#3: Swanky

"Looks like a nice place."

"Yeah."

"Making me hungry. You hungry?"

"Yeah, but don't be going in there for it. It's that nouvelle cuisine malarkey. Little heap of mash, few strands of green stuff and a mouthful of meat, all sat in a big puddle of jam on a plate the size of the tables you get in other places. You ever see the prices in there? They don't put them on the menu 'cause nobody would feel like eating if you saw 'em. Excuse me, sir, just got to check your tie."

"Hold it up to the light please, sir. Looks black to me, Noddy."

"Hmm. Better to be safe than sorry. Won't keep you a moment, sir."

"Want me to get the colour chart, Nod?"

"Please, Skinny. Ahh. See, sir? It's more of a blue, isn't it?"

"It's on the blue side."

"More blue than black, wouldn't you say?"

"Azure, Noddy."

"Cerulean, even. With a hint of lapis lazuli."

"Sorry to say sir, but your tie falls between green and violet. Either way, it certainly isn't black, now is it?"

"I'm afraid there is a difference, sir. Eddie Murphy isn't one of our foremost blue comedians, now is he?"

"I think sir is more a Stephen Fry man, Nod."

"Ah, well, if Mr Fry were here..."

"Which he is."

"He's on table 12, yeah, with Tony Slattery and the man from the radio. But if we were to ask him to leave his boeuf à la cocotte and come out here..."

"I don't think we should do that, Nod."

"I wasn't suggesting we should. I was speaking oratorically. But if we were to ask him the difference, I'm sure he would tell us that your tie is the product of the effect of light with a wavelength between 450 and 500 nm and was not, in fact, absorbing all wavelengths of light. As requested on the invitation."

"Sorry, sir, can't let you in. But if you hurry back, you should still catch the pudding."

"Bye, sir."

"What did he mean, a cocotte is a prostitute?"

"Nothing. These posh gits hate to be wrong. See the name on the invitation?"

"Danny-effing-Baker!? Pardon my tmesis..."

"Yeah. Danny-effing-Baker. He's probably bitter because we have jobs and he doesn't. That show went right downhill once Pertwee left."

"Yeah. And I never liked the way he peeped on those kids in The Book Tower..."

"Yeah. Pervert."

~ R.F.

Illo: A.W.

 

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