Original subtitles

Paper! Paper!

rival newspaper, Dickie, and tell me what you see.

I see a story claiming that Elton John's caucus panels having a gay affair was

one of the Queen's corkies. A story which nowhere appears in today's

because... Because I spiked it, Mr. Rathbone.

You spiked it?

Excellent.

If you took the helm of my newspaper, Dickie, You've raised the standard of

journalism higher than I ever dared hope.

Readers are deserting us in their thousands.

Sir, for the first time in nine months, we've been overtaken in the circulation

race by the sun.

We'll win them back in no time at all, sir. With integrity.

Okay,

everyone, this is a special crucible reconstruction of last week's real -life

murder tragedy. The family of a High Court judge all found slaughtered at

so we want it done with taste and sensitivity.

Okay, right, everyone, positions!

How's it looking, Maggie?

Well, apart from the fact that none of these people look remotely like the real

murder victim...

I thought the judge was never found holding a knife. He'd already gone by

time the police got there.

Perfect. Great!

OK, Andy, let's try and knock a few off quick before Dickie.

It's the best murder yarn since Lord Luke and Dickie.

Four corpses and a judge who's done a vanishing act. It's not the sort of

we can afford to ignore. Wait.

Maggie, I gather the police have now launched a nationwide hunt for this man

Hitchcock, furiously known as Throat Hack Beak.

Can Mr Justice rip them up?

What are the chances that we could find him before they do?

Dickie, we'd respect the man could be anywhere. This is your story, Maggie.

giving you first crack.

Well, we're up to sex discrimination.

Are you sure it shouldn't be somebody more experienced looking for him,

like Greg Kettle? There is no one like Greg Kettle, Russell.

I'm certainly not sending him out in a lurid mass murder story with all the

subtlety of a ferry to the trouser factory.

I put him in a plane this morning to cover the worsening situation in El

Salvador. El Salvador?

Greg Kettle?

There's still too much rubbish percolating through, Russell.

As from this moment, I want to see every story before it's printed. Every story,

Dickie? You're talking about, well, over 200 separate... I don't care if it's

200 or 300.

I want to see every story.

Ladies and gentlemen, as from now, I'm expanding the Crucible to carry 1 ,200

stories a day.

Six separate editions.

Constantly updated to bring the reader all the news as it happens, when it

happens.

starting at 6 a .m. with our normal modern edition and regular, and followed

thereafter by the noon review of the time tittle -tattle, late night

slowdown, the midnight express, and 3 a .m. by the homeward wandering

drunk.

Now, incidentally, let me refute this rumor that I'm in any way launching a no

-holds -barred.

Speculation war against our competitors.

Competition in Fleet Street will continue to be what it has always been.

Clean, fair and mature in every respect.

in San Salvador are not nearly as bad as the news reports will have you believe.

I'll be the judge of that, Inspector, as an ambassador of Her Majesty's Press.

Here is a list of my breakfast requirements, which has the force of

You'll note I am entitled to four slices of black pudding under the Geneva

Convention.

I will treat this with the respect it deserves.

Excuse me.

You are official representative of Queen Elizabeth.

My face is well known at Buckingham Palace.

You must help us. The political situation is worsening.

Repression, persecution everywhere.

I see.

And your name is?

No, no, please.

Well, I'll just put peasant.

What exactly is your problem?

Each and every morning, I leave our home in the village.

I come into town to see the man who will buy a horse.

When I return, my father, my two brothers, have been arrested and

no reason at all.

I see.

Yes. You're about to sell your horse.

Your horse.

You're selling it. Why?

Well, it's very old horse.

The man at the factory pays a good... Factory?

What sort of factory?

The factory. They buy old horses.

Forget it.

No, not of its words. You're planning to sell off your horse to be melted down

for glue.

Is that it?

So this one now reads, News at 10, Alistair, in bogey or nose bristle

Was it or wasn't it? No, I'm sorry, Mr. Bradford. You have millions of homes.

Yes, I will. I don't like to rush you, Dickie, but the noon refused you for

rolling 25 minutes.

Which of these have you checked?

Don't I check, Russell?

Right, Mr. Rathbun.

Hundreds of callers jammed ITN switchboards with offers of tissues and

and a Tory MP has already slammed the IBA, calling for sweeping nostril

Look, we'll just get the page up, will you?

They're covering it as a page lead, and spike those two. Why throw stubby to re

-read porn pics, Paula?

What? Shall we spike?

Twenty ways to tell if your teenager is a tie -boy.

Yes.

And we print when you're waiting condoms? Yes.

No, Russell.

I hope you're not

from one of them rubbish newspapers.

I haven't got any time for rubbish newspapers.

I prefer the ones with the naked ladies in them.

The quality under the mark, eh?

Got some of their facts wrong on this, of course, but...

In what way?

Lady Hitchcock. She was on that sofa there with her throat gashed.

Oh, you mean her head hadn't fallen off and rolled into the fireplace like they

said in the story?

Must have been a typing error.

And son and daughter -in -law, were they not half naked upstairs in a position

from the Kama Sutra? No, no, they were playing chess in the front room.

So, um... I don't suppose you've any idea where he, uh...

Might have sloped off to the old boy. I haven't.

But, uh, rumor has it that there was a fancy woman.

Fancy? A few weeks ago, he had me make up a huge bunch of red roses

and sent them off by special delivery.

I, uh, held on to the address.

Miss Marion Jane Randall.

All my deepest love, from your dearest darling, Jimsy.

Morning,

Mr. Lipson. Anything wrong?

Anything wrong?

I've just been stopped by six masked men who stepped in a tube and forced at

knife point to buy a dozen copies of my own newspaper.

Discarded crucible fanatics, Dickie. We applaud their motives, but not their

methods. And furthermore, I thought it was agreed we were running the new

missile offer on the front page, instead of which I find this little gem from

Kettle. A new and hideous atrocity is all set to rock the population of

torn El Salvador.

When poor, unwanted, happy the horse goes to the pile of water to be

callously melted down and sniffed by teenagers.

o 'clock this morning on the phone just after I'd read out Hugh Pollard's wacky

cures for cancer.

It's inane pap and it goes no further. Do you understand?

Kitty?

Kitty boy?

Room service?

I'd like two more bottles of chilled shabbily and some hay.

Page 17, column 3. This one,

Dickie. A two -line filler on the Icelandic ambassador's statement about

mackerel quotas.

Bam! Greg!

How's it going with Pedro the peasant?

No problems with the purchase, Russell. I've got the bill of sale here.

written on the back of a warrant for his daughter's arrest.

Maybe the horse is now the official property of the Daily Crucible newspaper

safely tucked away where evil hands can no longer get.

Sensational, Craig.

Snatch from the jaws of death.

The world breathes again as the Crucible averts another international tragedy.

Happy the Hoofers, happy ending.

Death threat, nag, cheats, bone melt, glue pot, doom.

A word of warning.

We just had a tip -off that a gang of cutthroats from the Daily Star may be

coming over. No telling what they might try to scoop us on this story, so keep

your eyes open.

Have no fears, Russell. The Star won't get a look -in this time. Happy the

is in the Crucible's custody, and that's where he'll stay, rest assured.

Hi -ho, Silver!

It's Happy the Horse Week in your new 24 -hour Crucible.

I get my oats with a crystal ball.

It's heartwarming. It's hit -making.

It's horse aid.

All your favorite stars get together on this sensational fundraising single to

pay the legal fees in our fight to get Happy the Horse back from the start.

So gallop on down to your newsagents today for the white font crucible.

The paper within table top.

I'm disgusted, Dickie, that the fate of our circulation should depend upon some

scrawny nag with a one -way ticket to the knacker's yard.

Where are the responsible values in the press today?

I'll tell you where they are. They're in the men and women of the retail trade

who labour every hour.

God sends them to sell our publications.

And that's why this gala dinner tonight for the Rat House News Vendor of the

Year is so important to us all. You'll be making the presentation to the

Mr. Rajiv Patel of Hackney, whose chirpy philosophy is an

inspiration to us all.

The crucible is the one for me every time, says Mr.

Patel, age 63.

The mirror and sun, they're just a pain in the bum.

As for the Mail and Express, they're nothing but a lump of dog's mess.

Fifteen minutes, Dickie, and don't forget the award.

Go away. I don't want to talk to you.

Miss Randall, it's Maggie Troon here from the Daily Crucible newspaper.

We're trying to trace Mr Justice Hitchcock and we think you might know

is. I don't know anything.

Go away.

Miss Randall, every police officer in the country is after this man for mass

murder. And we know you are having an affair with him.

We know you've been sleeping together for several years, Miss Randall. Now,

you going to open this door, or do you want to continue discussing your

sexual fornications in public?

Oh,

no,

Russell, but I have found his auntie. It wasn't terribly helpful.

not terribly helpful.

Well, I'm trying to chase up some story. He might have some bit on the side.

Well, I'm a bit stumped at the moment.

Well, no.

Well, yeah, the police cleared everything out of his desk. There was

typewriter left.

Oh, God.

The typewriter. How could I have missed that?

Um, no, no, no, no. Sorry, Russell. Listen, I've just had an idea, OK?

I'll ring you back later, right? Bye -bye.

Today, the world peters on a precipice such as we have not seen since the Cuban

Missile Crisis.

Will Happy the Horse be returned to the Crucibles?

Or will the Law of the Jungle, as practiced by the Eagle Brigands of the

be allowed to hold sway?

And don't forget, the Queen is said to be taking a personal interest. Really?

Yes, I just said it.

Spam?

Tiki who?

Tiki?

What's that?

tragedy struck at the gala dinner.

Apparently, during the cabaret, Dickie went up on the stage to help a conjurer

with a magic trick.

Yeah.

And halfway through the act, the conjurer died of a heart attack.

And now Dickie's trapped in a box with 15 razor -sharp swords speared through

him.

Well, give him our best wishes and we hope he's out soon.

you're waiting condoms. That was one he approved, wasn't it?

Gentlemen, I have now examined all the legal documentation at great length.

I, Pedro the peasant, shall happy the horse exclusively to the crucible for

$100.

I, Pedro the peasant, shall happy the horse exclusively to the star for $100.

And I am afraid only one interpretation is possible.

You are both owners of Happy the Horse.

Hey, no!

Join ownership, or I take him away. You understand?

You will both leave El Salvador this afternoon, and you will take this corset

out with you!

It's my horse!

And no more of this trivial school playground squabbling! The United

will have this make no mistake!

This is a tragedy no one could have foreseen, Dickie.

But blood chills to the plasma when I think what horrors, spam, may be

perpetrating back in that newsroom right now while you lie here like a human

pincushion. You could just try pulling the swords out. No, no, don't try to

move, Dickie. That could be fatal.

This is a job for the experts.

Ah, come in, come in.

Who's that man?

Abbie Bongo, Dickie. Magic consultant to Paul Daniels. He'll have his skewers

out of you in no time. Ah, right.

Mr. Bongo.

Caballeros, join on his ship, I think we agree.

50 -50, sign here, please.

Oh, come on, come on, where is he? I'm not boarding that plane till I've seen

that horse.

The horse is here, senor, no problem.

Rodriguez!

50 % each, yes?

He's simple.

We saw him in half.

Now there are no more arguments.

Have a good play, gentlemen.

My darling Linda, just a line to say how much I'm

missing you since our last moment together.

Linda Copeland.

I'm speechless, Russell.

Speechless. In what way, Dickie?

After five hours spent in a box with some simpleton and a fez performing

-pocus in my face, I was prepared to come back here and find almost anything.

But I was not in my wildest nightmare prepared for this.

It's a miracle.

Last night, we need a big thank you to the Daily News.

Only hours after a callous kidnap attempt by the star had resulted in him

sawed in half by police officers.

That lucky little steed survived an amazing 11 -hour mercy operation

in which top Brazilian doctors rushed to El Salvador to sew

his body back together again.

The British public are stupid.

They'll see through this load of... We've got a million copies.

What?

Mr Rathbone's thrown a special champagne breakfast at the Rath Hotel to

celebrate our circulation victory.

This is all due to you, Dickie.

Without your vision and guiding light, we should be...

Sightless spirits wandering through the void.

You are the crucible king. And you, Russell, are the mirror

and sun.

Miss Copeland?

Miss Copeland?

Are you in here?

Miss Copeland?

Papers, papers, give us your daily juice.

Papers, papers,

we'll tell you what's the news.

On any page you'll find disaster, servants killing off his master, and a

with some sordid sex appeal.

Someone's secrets we have grabbed, famous facts that we have stabbed.

Now you know where the real is.