Original subtitles

When we got married, I took the merry -go -round. In sickness and in health, I

said I'll do.

For a richer or for a tilt -deaf heart.

And you said, touch it on and obey me too.

But it wasn't very long before I soon found out. The one who wore the crown,

dear, was you.

Now after all these years of loss, I'm pushing you about.

But in sickness and in health, I love you.

I've done us a matter with these glasses.

I've done seen about a few out of them like I used to.

You're always complaining about them glasses lately.

Must be something wrong with your eyes.

Nothing wrong with my eyes.

The same glasses you've always had. They're the same eyes I've always had.

They're getting older.

They're no older than the rest of me.

None of you is as young as it used to be. There's nothing wrong with my eyes.

It's just small print, that's all.

It's a small print.

I don't see anybody to be able to read the small print, that's all. I wear the

glasses just for reading small print, that's all.

Oh. You have to wear glasses for everything you can't see. Nothing

glasses. Who can't? You can't. I can see without my glasses.

I can see you.

I can see that table. I can see that chair.

Bloody hell. Who put that thing there?

You can see so well without your glasses. Why do you wear them all the

didn't say I could see so well without them. I said I can see without them,

didn't I?

Yeah, you can't. What are you doing?

I'm having a clear out.

All I said was I can see better with them, that's all. But what I'm saying

is something seems to have gone wrong with them. Because I'm reading this

print and... I don't know.

I can't see the head and the tail of it. Well, don't read it. Well, I want to

read it. It's a newspaper.

Somebody might have dropped out and gone on us. I want to know.

That wouldn't be in the small print. I don't know.

I don't know what might be in a small print, do I? I can't see it with these

bleeding glasses.

Then it must be your eyes, pig.

Oh, yeah.

It must be my eyes.

Because that's what you want, isn't it?

Couldn't be the glasses, could it? Oh, no, no.

Because that wouldn't please you so much if it was my glasses that was packing

up, would it? It makes you a lot happier if it's my eyes that are packing up,

doesn't it?

Well, I'd be happier if you went and saw someone about your eyes.

I don't want you bashing me into things when you're pushing me in the

wheelchair. No.

You want the truth?

It's National Health glasses. That's what it is.

You belong to a crappy health service, you get crappy glasses.

You've had those glasses since long before the health service.

Well, nothing lasts, do it.

You took them over when your granny died.

Well... You can't waste things, can you? Waste not, what not.

Hey, look, you try looking through them. Go on.

They're no good for my eyes. No, they're no good for my eyes, neither.

You could try cleaning them. Yeah.

Look at that.

I wouldn't be surprised if they ain't printing the words smaller, you know.

You'd get more of them on a page.

Anything to save your paper.

Anything to push their profits up is your teddy's unacceptable face of

capitalism. I mean, they don't care if the rest of us has to rush out and buy

new glasses just so we can read their rotten, lousy newspapers.

Look at that. Look. Look at the state of my hands.

The print's still wet on them.

No worse than the state of your feet when you get into bed.

read papers with them. That's not the point, is it? It's not the point.

Your printers, your soul gaps, all screaming out for more money, and they

even be bothered to block the bleeding newspapers before they send them out.

Can't spell, they've got no grammar, lines all out of order. I mean, even if

could read a small print, I wouldn't be able to understand it.

I mean, blimey, in the old days, you didn't have to wear a pair of gloves to

read a newspaper.

You could eat your dinner off them.

You used to.

Your mother's tablecloth was the newspaper. Oh, yeah?

And what was your mother's tablecloth, eh?

At least my mum's tried.

Yeah.

There it is.

What? The torch. I found it.

I knew it wasn't lost.

I knew I'd put it somewhere where I could find it.

Told you. If you put things where you can find them, you will not lose them, I

keep telling you.

Oh, go away.

I sat all that time in the dark because of this. What?

This torch.

When? When I couldn't find it to look for the candles.

What candles?

The candles I bought for the power cuts.

What power cuts?

When the miners were on strike.

We never had no power cuts when the miners were on strike.

We sat in the dark for three days. That was because the bulb had gone.

Why wasn't the telly on?

Why didn't I do any cooking, and why wasn't the fire on? Because you told us

there was a power cut, and we was daft enough to let you do it.

Now I've found it, I shall put it back where it is.

If they drop that bomb, we're going to need this.

We'll need it to look for the candles again.

They won't drop no bomb.

You watch too much telly, this will trouble you, let them frighten you.

They dropped it on the Japs.

Yeah, well, I was just trying it out, that's all.

Got to see how it works.

Can't expect her to spend all that money and not try it out.

Anyway, it was only Japs they dropped it on her, that's all.

I wish they dropped a few more of them and buggered up their car trade.

It wasn't very nice, was it?

It wasn't supposed to be nice. We was at war with them.

They was our enemies, the Japs.

The Russians was our friends then.

Well, they wasn't proper friends, not real friends. They're more like, it was

only wartime friends, weren't they?

Well, the Japs was only wartime enemies.

Yeah, well, nothing stays the same, does it?

As long as they don't drop the bomb on us, that's all you've got to worry

Why don't you see someone about your eyes?

Who? Who?

Optician. Optician?

Do you know how much money them opticians made last year?

No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me.

Fortunes. Bloody fortunes they made.

I wouldn't be surprised if your opticians ain't in league with your

Your Murdoch, your Matthews and... What's the other one, the foreign one?

What's his bloody name?

The one they call the bouncing check.

I would have died there in a false eyebrow.

Dennis Healy?

No!

That mulchy bastard, no!

The one he... Blimey, what's his name?

He had a football club.

Elton John. No.

He's got false hair.

So has Bruce Forsythe. So has Frankie Howard. So has Max Bygrave. He wasn't

neither. Blimey, what's his bloody name?

It's a household word.

What word?

Him, his name.

What name?

His name. It's called... Blimey, everybody knows it.

You don't. I don't.

I don't.

I don't.

Coffee,

coffee.

got any. No. His name. His name. Coffee. Coffee.

Coffee.

Nescaf. No.

Coffee.

Cam. No. God, no.

Well. That's it. Well, Maxwell.

Maxwell Murdoch and Matthews. The three bad coins of Fleet Street.

Wouldn't surprise me. They've got shares in your eyeglass -making business.

I mean, it's no wonder they can lash out millions in bingo prizes.

You did the bingo.

I wouldn't do so low.

You do the pools.

It's not the same, is it? Pools. You've got a bit of brains to do your pools.

I mean, any fool can do the bingo. It's not a question of sticking your pin in

with the pools.

You've got to follow form, my dear. You've got to use your noddle.

Or up the road, stuck a pin in one half a million.

Anyway, what do you... You know about form. You only go to West Ham.

I'm not reading this. Look at that. That's criminal, that is. Look, only

in there in decent -sized print is your adverts.

Yeah, well, it's all adverts. Of course it is, because that's where they earn

their money, innit? Adverts.

Adverts and bad news, that's all that is.

Adverts and bad news. I've got a good mind to cancel that thing. I ain't read

nothing good in there for years.

Oh.

The TV news is better.

TV news.

They're adverts. Their adverts are better, too. None of their news is any

Well, better than most of their programmes, the adverts are.

I don't know why they bother telling us if all they've got for us is bad news.

They come on here on that telly, they're bursting with what they are.

Can't wait to ruin our evening.

We ought to make a few more films that Maggie Thatcher don't like. We won't get

no news at all then.

Rita's goes in the pot.

What you keeping that for?

I could never get her to sleep without it.

We went through the war, didn't we?

But even at its worst, it wasn't as bad as their bad news.

It's a good thing we didn't have the telly during the war.

They'd have put that war on the news. We'd have given up. We'd have been too

frightened to fight Hitler.

You was frightened anyway.

Shut up.

And that weatherman, that blooming weatherman of theirs.

Which one? The BBC one, that cartoon with the glasses.

I like him. He makes me laugh.

Gloatsy. Does he positively gloat? Gloats if he's got something nasty for

And that low depression there.

As if the news we watch ain't a low enough depression already.

And all that... That bad weather that you had last week, when it's all turned

around, it's coming back again.

He's got a blimmin' great BBC fire to sit in front of, hasn't he? Ain't got to

manage on two bars of electric like we have.

Well, he won't let me turn them both on. Well, if it's cold, I do. If it's cold,

you had both on at Christmas?

And I thought you'd remember much about Christmas, the state you was in.

Look, give us that paper.

Give us that.

It's my paper, isn't it?

You know I don't like people reading my paper before I do, getting it all out of

order, pages missing.

Wouldn't be pages missing if you bought toilet rolls.

I can't afford to waste money on toilet rolls. Buy your paper in the morning,

read the news, keep it for the TV programmes at night, and the next day

for the only thing it's fit for.

And look, don't turn that thing off when I'm talking to you.

I got you that thing so you could hear.

I hear what I want to. Good marvellous, eh?

Always complaining you can't hear. I get you that thing and all you do is turn

it off.

How can I hold a conversation with you if you keep turning it off?

You'll turn that thing off once too often, you will.

You'll turn that thing off one day and you'll miss any you want to hear, you

see.

We'll be sorry then.

You see.

Only waste of money getting you that thing. It's a waste of money.

All right, if that's the way you want it.

Two can play that game, my dear.

Two can play it.

Would you like a nice cup of tea and a choccy biscuit?

Oh, you heard that, didn't you? We'll see if you hear this.

You can push your own bloody wheelchair from now on. Oh, Christ.

Oh, I've got stuck.

Oh, me back.

Oh. Shut up, you cow!

Not on my bloody pension he couldn't.

Pray for him all your life.

You can believe in him and he's heaven up above.

All of his teachings, this is how he treats you.

This is how he pays you back.

I mean, I've been one of his most loyal supporters all my life, you know that.

That's what he does to you.

He lets you down, like West Ham.

Don't look after his own.

That's his trouble, isn't it?

Not like your Jewish God. He looks after his own. God, blimey, don't see no poor

Jews, do you?

Don't see them pushing wheelchairs.

So much of black he's got.

He looks after his own, doesn't he?

He give all them Arabs all that oil, doesn't he?

See, that's what's so perplexing for us mortals. I mean, according to the good

book, there's only the one true religion, right? His religion, God's

So all the rest of them is lying, right?

But which one's his?

That's the problem for us mortals. I mean, you can go to church all your

you know, say your prayers in it, go to his dances, buy tickets to his raffles.

You die, you get up there to heaven, and you find out it's the wrong one, and

the one man in the corner was the right one all the time. What do I mean?

If your religion ain't going to help you get into heaven, and all you're going

to do is finish up sitting in a wheelchair or pushing one, you might as

have an extra couple of hours in bed every Sunday morning, eh?

So, another load of blackies.

You see how your blackie's god looks after his own? He's given them houses

Roses in a garden.

That won't last long, be a marjorie and a plant soon.

What did you say?

Nothing, I'm talking to myself.

Oh, that's nice.

Nobody enjoys the sound of your voice more than you do.

I'm not talking to you, or have you forgotten?

Roger and out.

Will you get me an ice cream?

Oh, you want to talk now, don't you?

Get me a nice cornet.

We've changed our tune now, haven't we?

Not so high and mighty now, are we? No, not now we want something.

Will you get me a nice cornet? Well, say please, then.

I'm not going down on my knees to you. No one's asking to go on your knees, my

dear. Wouldn't urge you to be a bit civil?

I'll do a lot for you.

I don't ask much in return.

It's not easy for me.

Having you like this.

A lot of men wouldn't take it as easy as I do. There's a lot of men.

Blimey.

Are you going to get me an ice cream before he goes?

You'll lose him if you keep on.

Nurse, mate, that's what I am, a bloody nurse, mate.

Give me some money, then.

I thought you might like to buy it for me.

No, blimey, I was lying out, I am.

What do you think I am, old muggins? No.

Not made of money, my dear. And I want change.

What are that?

That's a pound note you've got there.

Ice cream corn, it can't be more than 50p.

Well, for two.

You've caught me again.

Cunning as a cartload of monkeys you are.

Don't worry, my dear.

You've caught me often enough.

That'll be the day.

Short arms and long pockets you are when it comes to spending.

Except on yourself at opening time.

Two cornets.

Just a minute, Gough. I'm sorry, love, no wafers, only cornets. I get no call

for wafers.

I don't see what else they want instead.

Funny that, ain't it, Ago?

She's the umpteenth customer who's asked me for wafers today.

Marvellous, isn't it?

You know, if I'd done wafers, I could have told over 50 of them this morning.

Well, why don't you do wafers, then?

Well, there's no call for them, is there?

No, you're calling it's easier, isn't it?

Easier? Yeah.

Easier to eat.

Easier to eat?

You can eat it one hand.

You can eat a wafer one hand.

Well, why's there no call for them, then?

60p.

yourself here.

Joy, there's no change.

Oh, thank you.

The agent.

I am the agent.

But I am... Oh, you're not another one.

I've always... Oh!

What? Can you read?

Pardon?

Can you...

Oh, it's a bit marvellous. I mean, you'd think you'd learnt the lip read,

wouldn't you? They never do.

My miss is just the same. Never thinks it might help if she learnt the lip

Here. You've got hearing aid here, mate. Turn it on.

On. On, on, on, on.

Oh, you're hard of hearing.

So am I.

I don't know why I employ some of them, honestly.

How does he know his prayers have been answered if he can't hear?

Having a vicar praying for you, they can't take messages, is it?

Now, vicar, he's even worse.

He stutters.

He seems to catch you kneeling.

It's so hard on the knees, having a vicar, what stutters, isn't it?

You're not one of that Bishop of Durham's lot, are you?

Would like to be standing next to him when he gets started.

As he knows she wasn't a virgin.

Here, vicar.

It's 2p.

Now, shut off.

You top this up first, will you?

What did I say?

Al Bickle, he stutters. I mean, you can't expect God to listen to him

out his requests.

He's a busy man, God, isn't he? It's a big place, heaven.

It's a lot for one God. I mean, there's Al Bickle, down on his knees, saying, I

mean, God, he doesn't know something. Maybe he's got a point. And, you know,

says, Come on, come on, spit it out for Christ's sake. Ain't got all night.

16 minutes, please.

I'm sorry, love.

Sold out.

He meant there's no call for wafers. I told him if he got more call for his

wafers, there'd be less call for his coolness. He'd be no better off, would

I mean, it's going to mean so much money, isn't it?

Hey, if you spend all your money on your wafers, you've got nothing left for

your coolness and Vicky Barker.

The point is, you cannot have your cake and eat it. And that is what your trade

unions signally failed to realise.

Am I right?

Have you got that bloody thing turned off again?

I might be a minute.

Here, where are you going?

I just want to turn my bike round.

Jimmy Riddle, piddle.

I want to go out to the lobby. Turn that bloody thing on.

Can't you wait till you get home? No, I can't. I won't be a minute. I just want

to have a wee -wee. I don't want to hear about your business. Well, just wait

there a minute.

Don't leave me here.

Well, when did you expect me to leave, then? I can't sit outside here. It's

embarrassing. Would it be a bloody sight more embarrassing if I took you in

there with me?

I'll wait for you there.

No, I haven't seen it, eh?

Nag, nag, nag. I'm busting.

I'm busting, I am.

Excuse me.

Do you wish to cross the road?

Eh?

Oh, no.

No, thank you, Victor. It's a pleasure. No bother.

No.

No,

I don't want to go over there. Don't.

Now they're out.

Come on.

Come on!

She tells me to hurry up.

Oh, obviously.

Bloody women.

Why did it take so long?

What if I do in here? I don't know.

Hello? Hello?

Oh, hello. I'm looking for a woman.

What do you want?

I'm looking for a woman.

Oh, go away.

Now you see, I've lost my wife.

I didn't want to come over here. I wanted to stay on that side.

You'll have to speak up. My hearing aid isn't working.

Battery's flat.

Can you lip read?

I beg your pardon?

My hearing aid isn't working.

Oh, you wanted to stay on the other side?

I told you.

Oh, I see.

You didn't want to cross the road.

See, my hearing aid isn't working.

The battery's flat. But you should have told me. You should have said so.

I did tell you.

I beg your pardon?

Look,

I wasn't molesting anybody.

Look, if you was doing your job properly, you should be looking for my

She's probably been kidnapped. She was sitting here.

Helpless. A cripple in a wheelchair. Anybody could have took her.

She's the one you ought to be worried about, not that old ratbag.

Have you had complaints about someone hanging around these toilets?

You don't think it was me, do you?

I don't hang around women's toilets. I've got better things to do with my

What do you think I am, a sexual pervert or something?

Do I look like a pervert?

Decent, mate.

You ask anyone. Anyway, I see I'm decent. I'm not a rapist.

And if I was, it wouldn't be her I'd be after.

sort of tricks, I'd be looking for something a bit better than her.

I'm looking for my wife.

You said she was dead.

May the good Lord strike you dead. I never said nothing of the sort.

You said you'd lost your wife.

I lost.

I lost her in a wheelchair, you silly old faggot. I lost her.

I went in the car, see for Jimmy, and when I come out, she's gone.

Kidnapped. Who would want to kidnap your wife?

I don't know that.

You're the law, aren't you? You're the one who's supposed to know the answer to

them questions.

I'm just an ordinary citizen.

A law -abiding taxpayer.

One of them you are supposed to serve and not harass.

I went in there for a look. I went in there. I thought my wife might be in

there. You're not allowed to go in there.

You go in there. You go in and have a look. I'm not allowed in there either.

Why not? You're a policeman.

I am also a man.

Why don't you get a woman policeman?

Use a little bit of initiative, sonny.

Didn't you go to the police college?

One of the walls full of terrorists.

I know my rights.

I'll read them out to you in a minute. Don't read them out to me, mate. I'm a

citizen. A crime has been committed and I'm seeking your assistance in the

matter. What crime? The crime of kidnapping.

Would one of you like to go in there and see if there's a woman in a wheelchair?

There ain't.

There ain't no one in there, officer.

There ain't no woman in a wheelchair. That's just his story.

He knows what he's been up to.

There's been complaints before.

I think you'd better come down to the station with me.

Are you arresting me?

No, I'm going to ask you down to the station so we can help you find your

We're going to put a net over London. That's what we're going to do, sir.

going to marshal all our resources in the search for your wife.

We're going to alert the airports, put a watch on the docks.

Come along, sir.

Not a minute to lose. Get your hands off of me. Get your hands off of me! I'd

like to buy MP!

I'll push you home.

Get off of me.

Who are you? It's beautiful.

That's fine.