CLIP SHOW

I set myself a small goal at the beginning of November to publish something new here every day for a month. It’s been surprisingly tough to come up with a new rant every morning and I’m sure you’ll have been fully aware of the occasional drop off in quality and inspiration that has struck these pages over the last few days especially.

Don’t expect the same kind of commitment during December…

Anyway, today I’m going to do what they always used to do towards the end of a season in old American television shows and present a “clip show” with all-new (but comparatively cheap) linking material…

OPENING CREDITS

ECU: MAWH WAKES UP WITH A BEWILDERED LOOK ON HIS FACE. HE IS IN A HOSPITAL BED.

(He’s not really in hospital, by the way, it’s just the cheapest linking option we had in the drawer)

MAWH:

W-Where am I…?

NURSE:

You’re in hospital…

MAWH:

What happened…? The last thing I remember is it was October…

WIBBLY WOBBLY MIX EFFECT

MAWH (V/O):

It was Halloween… There was a vicious pumpkin…

CUT TO:

He blinked. Then he realised that he had blinked. He blinked again, more deliberately this time. Then his wide mouth with its jagged rows of sharp little teeth broke into the broadest of smiles.

He was very sure that they’d all be coming home soon…

CUT TO HOSPITAL ROOM AS BEFORE.

MAWH:

Not that anyone noticed…

NURSE:

You’ve got amnesia. Don’t you remember November?

MAWH:

November!

NURSE:

You seemed quite obsessed with dates this month…

WIBBLY WOBBLY MIX EFFECT

NURSE (V/O):

November 22^nd 1963…

CUT TO:

In the end, what happened in Dallas that unforgettable and tragic day is that a comparatively young man moved into the crosshairs of the telescopic sight of another man’s rifle. A choice was made. A trigger was pulled, a life ended, and the world changed…

CUT TO:

47 years ago today, on flickering black and white television screens across Britain, in a brand new adventure series, two schoolteachers named Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright (played by William Russell and Jacqueline Hill) went into a junkyard at number 76 Totter’s Lane and at the same time entered into television history…

CUT TO HOSPITAL ROOM AS BEFORE.

MAWH:

So it’s 1963 then?

NURSE:

No, it’s 2010. Remember...

WIBBLY WOBBLY MIX EFFECT

NURSE (V/O):

Remembrance…

CUT TO:

We should really try to look at history as a real and genuine lesson about things that happened to real and genuine people, people who are the very people that gave birth to our generations, because such horrors can happen again if we are not very, very careful…

CUT TO:

Now, I don’t know much in life, but I do know that there is a sort of “bar-room etiquette” to be considered in these circumstances, so we couldn’t just leave. You don’t buy one drink and get given two more and then just up and go. That simply is not the done thing at all. My, that man was one heck of a Bar Manager, and quite possibly a fair Psychologist too. More drinks were ordered and I seem to remember feeling very contented…

CUT TO HOSPITAL ROOM AS BEFORE.

NURSE:

How much time have we got? Oh right…

You did lots of unoriginal wittering about

what’s going on in the world…

You made some unwise attempts at trying out

a bit of fiction on Saturday mornings…

and rattled on about some bits of things that

were going on in your life…

WIBBLY WOBBLY MIX EFFECT

NURSE (V/O):

There was some cricket match going on…

CUT TO:

Finally this chilly day, I got up just in time to hear Peter Siddle get his (actually - to be fair - extremely well bowled) birthday hat-trick for Australia (who writes his scripts?), and then I found out that the England (and Wales) Captain, Andrew Strauss, had been out to the third ball of the match.

MAWH (V/O):

I think I am starting to remember, unfortunately…

CUT TO:

Then I picked up the saucepan of potatoes to dish them up.

BIG mistake.

I forgot, just for a split second that it would still be hot, about as hot as a metal-handled saucepan just removed from the oven could possibly be. Ironically, I had the oven protection thingy in my other hand as I did it…

           

JUMP CUT TO:

MAWH:

Ow!! It’s all come back to me. I feel better!

NURSE:

There’s a bench outside. Go and look at the sea.

CUT TO MAWH ON A BENCH, LOOKING AT THE SEA.

MAWH:

Wait a minute, I’ve got an idea…

FINISH ON A BIG SMILE AND RUN CREDITS.