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(Getranscribeerd door TurboScribe. Upgrade naar Onbeperkt om dit bericht te verwijderen.) GRUMPY

ANALYSIS Grumpy old men.

The thirty-five to fifty-four year old

generation is the grumpiest of any generation in

history.

For most of their lives, 1984 was a

date looming in the future, when Big Brother

would be an ever-present eye, constantly watching

all of us, rather than a television version

of Bedlam in which half-wits entertain the

masses.

In this terrifying future, cameras were everywhere, monitoring

our every move on street corners.

In offices.

And everything you tried to do, or wanted

to do, was regulated by the state.

So you couldn't speak, eat, smoke a cigarette,

or fart without someone wanting to have a

say in it.

Sound familiar?

Soon you won't even be able to smoke

in your own house.

You know, there'll be people coming round banging

on the door, saying, you've got a fag

in there.

Whose business is that?

Why is that somebody else's business apart from

mine?

If someone said, drinking is bad for you,

stop drinking, I mean, take up drinking.

If I weren't drinking already.

There's this sort of underlying assumption that it

is offensive and unnatural for us to die

at all.

I don't put my finger up my bottom,

thank you.

It is fuck all to do with people

caring about us.

Why do we have to have signs at

swimming pools telling us we may not use

video cameras?

This is baloney, you know, this is too,

too safe.

You do wish the world could go back

to the way it used to be.

So now, 1984 is not a date in

the distant future.

It's a date in the distant past.

And we've woken up to find that the

Orwellian nightmare has come true.

We're nannied, bossed about, mollycoddled and monitored.

And the excuse is exactly what we were

warned it would be.

If you've got nothing to hide, then what

are you worried about?

You're looked at, you're numbered, you're tagged, they've

got your DNA, they've got your blood.

They've got your bank account, they've got your

national insurance number, they've got your records, your

dental records, your health records.

You just are a completely open book.

There's nothing left of your individuality.

It's very difficult to have a hooker at

the top deck of a bus without it

being recorded on the driver's periscope.

It's reckoned that if you live in a

city, such as Manchester or Birmingham, that you're

actually on camera 300 times a day.

There's some amazing statistic that if you walk

through London, you are on 100-and-something

cameras every hour.

And they swivel as well, which is quite

scary.

I don't want to be seen everywhere I

go.

I want to be kind of shambling around

in a corner by myself sometimes.

It's like coming out of Monaco.

Monaco has more security cameras than anywhere else

in the world.

I always feel like stopping at the border

and saying, can I have my holiday snaps

now?

Grumpy old men were brought up watching Humphrey

Bogart smoking cigarettes, Clint Eastwood drinking beer and

living on a diet of hamburgers.

Nobody ever told them they'd get lung cancer,

liver damage and become obese.

Men were men, and the state got the

hell out of their way.

Today, it's like you've constantly got a nursemaid

mewling in your ear.

I think we live in a state which

tries to make it look as if it's

interfering with our lives for our own well

-being, but actually is really doing absolutely fuck

all.

It's a form of vote-chasing, really.

Trying to say, oh, we're looking after the

public.

You're not really looking after the public at

all.

You're turning them into a bunch of weak

-kneed nannies.

Every day you get someone saying, you can't

drink coffee.

Then tomorrow you can drink coffee, but you

can't drink tea.

Or sugar's bad for you, fine, I know

that.

Salt's bad for you, fine, I know that.

Newspapers were full of stuff saying we've got

a really big problem with the economy, everybody's

living far too long and we're not going

to be able to afford to keep old

people.

The next week, everyone's too fat, they're going

to be dead at 60.

Which?

Looks like everything's bad for you, living is

bad for you.

We wouldn't die if we weren't alive, would

we?

Which?

How am I supposed to live to be

120, in which case the state can't afford

to keep me?

Or shall I go and have a meat

pie and explode at 58 and then everyone's

happy?

But no, it's every single thing, every single

aspect of your life.

I get up in the morning now and

wait for the phone to ring from some

government office telling me when I can have

my first shit.

You can't eat that egg, you can't eat

that steak, you can't drive there, you can't

do this, you can't do that.

It drives me up the wall.

It all starts even before you leave your

house in the morning, before you've even put

your clothes on.

Time was when bath time was one of

those few remaining occasions when we had a

little bit of quiet time to ourselves.

A moment to relax, play with the ducks

and fantasise about things there should be a

law against, and indeed in some countries there

is.

But for grumpy old men, even this simple

pleasure has now been ruined.

It's just another opportunity for the nanny state

to interfere with us.

Do I do testicular self-examination?

No.

No, I haven't got the balls for that.

I bet they've all said that, haven't they?

If I examined myself for every ailment I

thought I might have, I'd be examining myself

all day.

I've been told to examine myself.

I haven't even seen my balls for the

last 20 years.

I can't see underneath this stomach.

Well, I examined myself for testicular cancer, but

on the train.

And I say, well, that's what you're supposed

to do.

No, I don't do that.

But no, I suppose you're supposed to fondle

your balls once a month, aren't you, and

I'd like to get someone else to do

it.

I don't like examining myself for that particularly,

so I have Helga come round and do

it twice a week now, and we're still

not finding anything there.

But I just give her different little ways

to check it, different oils, that sort of

stuff.

I do it as much as I possibly

can, because at my age it's really hard

to find other people to do it for

you.

If you were to examine your balls, if

you had the time and the inclination to

get them out and have a fiddle about,

a, you don't know what you're looking for,

and b, if you were to find something

unusual down there, what are you going to

do?

What would you do about it?

Kill yourself.

Cut them off with scissors?

I suppose I've felt them from time to

time.

I don't know what I'm looking for, that's

my problem.

I don't even like talking about it, so

I feel very annoyed and grumpy that you're

raising the issue.

But since you have, I'd say self-examination

is...

It's actually slightly more bearable than doctors doing

it to you.

I think it's a good excuse, self-examination.

This seems a bit stiff.

I'm obviously tense.

I probably should massage it and get the

poison out.

There's always one, isn't there?

And there's the rub.

But OK, maybe it's all very fine to

examine our own testicles, but maybe also it's

the thin end of the wedge, so to

speak.

Who knows where it will end up?

Do you ever examine yourself for prostate cancer?

I don't know where a prostrate is.

A prostate?

Yeah, that.

Or what it is, or how you spell

it.

Prostate cancer is more common than breast cancer,

but men are just too butch to get

involved with doctors sticking fingers up their arse

and things like that.

Well, no, I mean, I wouldn't know...

Ooh, dear.

Maybe go all thingy-no.

Yeah, but it's bloody hard looking in a

mirror.

What do you mean to do?

I don't put my finger up my bottom,

thank you.

Will they want me to rig up an

elaborate system of mirrors and look up my

own arse?

I mean, I happen to have done that,

but are they going to encourage it?

I mean, I'm buggered if I'm sticking my

hand up my arse to find out.

He'd love it, you see.

He's already grinning at the prospects.

Ooh, can someone go up my bum?

Be like back at school.

I really only put my finger up my

bum when I've lost my keys.

That's about the only time.

And when our grumpy old men eventually stop

playing with their privates and leave the house,

they're immediately under the influence of Nanny.

Today, you can't buy a new bike if

it isn't fitted with a bell, and you're

forced to make the difficult choice between risking

getting your head caved in in a crash

or wearing something that looks like the uncovered

brain of a creature from Alien.

Five hardened bananas.

That's always a good one.

The five hardened bananas and a face contorted

with rage to the point where it actually

looks like leather.

It actually looks like his face.

I just read that.

You just wrote that in the Dutch piece.

That is an exact quote of what you

have just written.

What, their faces look like leather?

Five hardened bananas and their faces contorted with

rage.

I've just read it.

Yeah, you know that bit you said about

Monaco, asking for your holiday snacks?

Do you remember when you wrote that?

I do.

So that's one or the other.

Children, children, if you carry on like that,

you'll be grounded for a fortnight.

And by the way, we were under the

impression that we were getting new material, not

some recycled tat from your old newspaper columns.

Yes, you might well look ashamed of yourselves.

So anyway, the state wants to save us

from falling over, bumping our heads and drinking

or smoking ourselves to death.

And when listening to all that gives us

bloaty head or the croup, we can't even

be trusted to buy the cure.

Go into a chemist and ask for 50

paracetamol and it's like you've gone into Boots

in Harrogate and asked for a strawberry-flavoured

condom.

It is utterly crazy, you know, and again,

it's sort of like demeaning, really, that you

can't be given the responsibility to handle 200

aspirins on your own.

You know, there's some nanny person there saying,

no, you're only going to have eight.

You know, it's just...

It's my life, you know.

That's the thing.

That's what people should think.

It's my blinking life.

It's not yours.

You can't tell me whether to buy 200

or...

You know, if I want to swallow the

lot in one go, fair enough.

But you can only buy three and a

half of them at a time.

And you go, but I've got a seven

headache.

Have these people got any brains?

That's what I ask myself.

You can only buy eight aspirin or eight

paracetamol.

You can buy eight in Tesco's, you can

buy eight in Boots, you can get eight

in Waitrose, you can get eight in Safeway's.

So you can kill yourself anyway.

It doesn't all go on a computer, so

when you go into the next shop, they

go, ha-ha-ha, you've just been in

Boots, haven't you?

Oh, sorry, caught out.

You know, you can walk out with carrier

bags, loads of this stuff.

It's absolutely preposterous, what you can do and

what you can't do.

Do you know we can't give anybody aspirins

in this blinking restaurant?

We can't give people headache pills.

I don't know why, but there's some reason

that, you know, if they sort of choke

on the thing or...

It's always this blinking thing about, you know,

just in case this might happen.

Let me decide what's good for me, what

isn't good for me.

A little aspirin, half an aspirin a day,

could be a ticker, apparently.

Not only that, we're not allowed to have

aspirins in the kitchen, in any of the

lockers, in any shelves anywhere.

When the health people come in, they bollock

us if we've got aspirins in there.

And as if all that isn't hard enough...

Can I have some Viagra, please?

Oh, we can't just give it to you,

sir.

You can't actually just go in and get

it.

You have to, you know, prove you need

it, which I think is ridiculous.

What are you supposed to do?

Hold up a photograph of your wife and

say, there you are, can I have a

dozen, please?

Viagra, can you get it over the counter?

Well, if you can get it over the

counter, you don't need Viagra in the first

place.

Tony, we said no silly willy jokes, didn't

we?

Perf...

Perf...

Perfume cares a way...

Anyway, as regular viewers might have gathered, it's

in the nature of our grumpy old men

to be grumpy.

They're either grumpy about not being allowed to

smoke, or they're grumpy about other people smoking.

And since fairness and balance is the hallmark

of our series, let's listen first to the

smokers.

I do smoke, and I believe I'm entitled

to smoke.

It's not illegal to smoke.

And as for the Livingstone and all those

trying to stop smoking in adult centres of

entertainment, that's what I call restaurants, fine in

McDonald's, fine in Burger King, where you're going

to get a lot of kids, but where

you've got adults who have got a brain,

they're meant to have a brain, they've got

a perfect idea of making freedom of choice,

they can come in here, or they don't

have to come in here.

Why don't people open a pub or a

bar that's totally non-smoking and let the

non-smokers go to that if they want

to?

They'll probably make a fortune if they're pissed

off with having people smoke around them.

But how many times do you actually go

into a smoky atmosphere these days?

I mean, I just think it's over...it's overstated.

OK.

And in the other camp, our anti-smoking

grumpies, of course, exhibit that tolerant, caring, sharing,

compassionate attitude that we've come to associate them

with.

I think people who smoke and boast about

it deserve to die.

You know, it kills you.

People who say, hello, it's on the label,

in very big letters, and they puff away

and go, I smoke, you know, as if

they were climbing Mount Etna or something, you

know, as if they're doing something risky.

They're not.

They're just killing themselves in a very obvious

way and also blowing the smoke in your

face as they do it.

Half of the pack says smoking kills.

So you're going to be in a situation,

I should say, in ten years, where actually

it's all smoking kills and all you see

is a little players or something sign, literally,

about three points.

And I was thinking people would be going

into the old newsagents, saying, can I have

the sun, please, and 20 smoking kills.

Show us a grumpy old man and, chances

are, we'll show you a man who smokes

and wishes he could give up.

Or a man who used to smoke and

wishes he still could.

I've given up smoking and now I'm in

the right state because, you know, in the

end, it's just so vilified.

Fewer and fewer places where you could go

and do it.

Eventually, they'll just be like a glass box

somewhere in the Isle of Sheppey, you see,

and then you'll have to go there to

have a fag, you'll have to register as

an addict, and you'll go there and young

social workers will beat you with sticks while

you have your fag.

I started smoking when I was 15 and

I loved every...

I can remember almost every single cigarette.

If you ask me, I can...

I mean, they've almost got names.

I almost have a book, a diary, of

great cigarettes.

Geoff.

And it was all of them.

Geoff, one of my...

He was a great cigarette.

And then you...

And then suddenly I just got the fear.

And it's...

I was fearless most of my life.

Half my life, I was fearless.

I was going to live forever.

Really, I'm of ideal quality for being a

grumpy old man because I speak here.

I've been six days without a cigarette and,

frankly, I could tear your fucking head off.

So let's put it down.

We want to be warned, told about the

dangers, then left the hell alone to make

our own decisions.

Our grumpy old men used to get on

their motorbikes or scooters and ride with our

crash helmets down to Brighton for the annual

bank holiday fight.

And if they wanted to ram their heads

into a tree on the way back, that

was their business.

They used to drive their MGBs or Mini

Cooper Ss like bloody maniacs.

And if they went through the windscreen, they

were free to sport that rather attractive and

currently fashionable sewn-together look.

Nowadays, it's crash helmets, seatbelts, front and rear

airbags and crumple-resistant bumpers.

We even had to fill out a 40

-page risk assessment to make this stupid programme.

In the back seat with a belt on

in the back seat, I just feel I

shouldn't be doing this.

I'm too nannied here.

Look, OK, maybe there's an outside chance I'm

going to fly through the window and die,

but I'm prepared to risk it not to

be trussed up in the back.

This is a three-hour drive.

I don't care.

It's insidious.

It's there all the time in all sorts

of ways.

Everything you do, everywhere you go, the influence

of the state, in one form or another,

and it might be just a local authority,

but it's all authority is there.

You'd never do anything if you followed all

these guidelines and rules that are supposedly set

down for your own well-being and your

own good.

You'd never do anything and you'd never have

any adventure in life and you'd never learn

nothing.

Seems like it's never too soon to start

nannying.

Remember what prams were like when we were

kids?

Handsome carriages with four narrow wheels, just big

enough for baby and a bit of shopping.

What do they have today?

Four-wheel-drive cars.

It's just the pram version of that.

Why do we have those four-wheel-drive

cars?

You know, we're all living in little urban

societies crashing around in battle tanks.

Pavements used to be wide enough for two

or three people to pass.

Nowadays, I saw one of those prams the

other day that had got double wheels on

each.

A Range Rover doesn't need that, and it

weighs nearly three tonnes.

When I had kids, you had, you know,

the nice pram that looked like a pram.

Now you've got these three-wheeled things that

are absolutely huge.

They're like a Robin Reliant without the top

on.

It's just an extension of this pampering, wrapping

your kids in cotton wool.

And it's a case of keeping up with

the Joneses, isn't it?

My pram's bigger than your pram.

But it's got the most precious thing in

our world in it.

Well, carriers in one...

Oh, no.

No, you see, you see, the caboose.

I was waiting for you to get there.

That is the worst of all.

So we can hear Mummy's heartbeat.

Or the worst thing, bar nothing, is you

see the mother driving, or the father, it

doesn't matter, with one of the other parents

in the back with the child.

How tiny and shallow does your life have

to be when you've got a choice?

I could get in the car now next

to my wife or husband and have a

reasonable chat.

Oh, I'd get in the back and talk

to a dribbling, vomiting six-month-old.

And do you remember the first time you

saw one of these?

Well, good job you told me, because I'd

been thinking of driving like a lunatic and

bumping into you.

Now I know that you've got the Messiah

in the car, I'll give you a wide

berth, give me strength.

Was there ever a more ludicrous sign on

the car?

Oh, we'll accelerate right towards the boot then.

Baby on board.

Thank you for telling us.

Nothing we like more than pranging a baby.

Oh, for God's sake.

My mother has cancer?

You know, why not?

Baby on board.

Fuck off.

And they don't take this baby on board

sign down when the baby isn't on board.

The sign remains there.

They need to take the sign down, they

need a baby not on board sign.

Or a baby auntie jeans.

We need to know where this bloody baby

is so we can adjust our driving accordingly.

But at least when the child is in

the car, we know they're safe against prying

eyes.

Because in Big Brothers Britain, you never know,

do you?

You can't go to a playground without seeing

it.

Playground just round the corner, I take my

little boy, and there's a great big sign

saying you may not enter this playground unless

you have a child with you.

Why not?

Because you might be a paedophile.

This hysteria about paedophilia has rendered me always

on edge.

I was on a tube the other day

and a little boy stuck his tongue out

at me.

So naturally enough, I stuck mine back at

him and he stuck his out and I

thought, well, I'll escalate this.

I went, pfft, back to him and he

went, pfft, to me.

And then this woman looked at me and

said, you paedophile.

And I thought, how shocking, what a shame.

I couldn't have a little silly little game

with this little boy without being kind of

vilified and really humiliated on the train.

Yes, they've become our little princes and princesses,

haven't they?

When our grumpy old men were kids, we

were told to be seen and not heard

and given a good clip round the ear

just in case we did something wrong.

The world revolved around whatever our middle-aged

parents wanted to do.

Now, we're middle-aged, and probably parents ourselves,

the world revolves entirely around the little darlings.

Oh, look at him, isn't he cute and

talented?

He's having flute lessons and dance classes and

passing all his exams and we must take

him to France this year to improve his

languages.

Yes, he's growing up to be a right

little sissy.

People treat children as though there is something

wrong with them because they're ignorant and small.

And I'm so worried about Alexander's development.

I mean, he's got no grasp of bonded

number, no concept of phonics.

His hand-to-eye coordination is all over

the place.

I mean, goodness knows what he's going to

be like when he's born.

When I was a kid, you could go

out and you could ride your bike up

and down the road and get apples off

trees without too much force.

If you got caught, the local copper would

whack you round the head, take you to

your dad, tell him what had happened, then

your dad would whack you round the head.

On Saturdays, I used to leave home at

nine in the morning and not come back

until I was really hungry or it was

getting dark.

And my parents didn't know where I was

and didn't particularly care cos they didn't need

to, they weren't worried.

They banned climbing trees in schools and they

banned past the parcel and musical chairs because

it creates aggressive kids.

They've banned backstroke in one pool up north

I read about.

I mean, please let us get on with

our lives.

They don't want children to be competitive with

each other for some namby-pamby reason or

other.

I've quite grasped this.

Apparently it's bad for them to actually want

to be better than the next child.

It's missing the point, you know.

I mean, it's about sort of through competing

and achieving something actually making yourself a better

person.

Oh, and just in case we thought it

was OK to bring up our children the

way we were brought up or that we

might know or have learnt something about it

ourselves, there's the big brother alongside us, once

again making sure we do it nanny's way.

And what we hate most about it is

that it makes us sound exactly like our

dads.

No, worse than that, exactly like our granddads.

Shut up!

I was on a plane recently, there was

a couple in front of me with a

horrible little brat of a seven-year-old

and they just put on their headphones, turned

up the music and they said, go and

play somewhere else.

So the little kid's running up and down

the plane, driving everybody else potty because the

parents didn't want to sort him out.

It was awful.

I think kids, it would hurt if a

kid got a smacked arse now and again.

These idiot parents you see paraded in the

columns of the Daily Mail who tell you

that they spend £3,000 a year on

their little tiny tweeny daughter's outfit.

For God's sake, they ought to know better,

didn't they?

I gave my little boy his holiday money

the other day, for being on holiday, and

he came back...

Go back to Chelsea Strip with this, son.

Do you know what he bought?

What?

He bought a miniature fridge.

Why the fuck do you want a miniature

fridge?

And he said, so that I can lie

on the couch and watch telly and I

don't have to move to get, I don't

know, whatever it is you're doing.

I'm middle-aged.

He's 11, and already he's got it all.

And if I'd said to my parents, I

want a new pair of trainers, it'll cost

80 quid, they'd have looked at me as

if I'd just come down the chimney or

descended from a spaceship or something, because it

couldn't be done.

And who can we blame for that?

If it's not the government's fault, it must

be the fault of the telly.

Not like in our day when the telly

was only on for a few hours a

day and it was all brought to us

by auntie.

Before, there were those rather vulgar commercial people.

I think it all went belly-up, really,

when the advertising agencies and the manufacturers realised

the power of advertising on TV aimed at

kids.

We've turned children into consumers, and, of course,

they always had been, for all the obvious

reasons, but in a completely different way now,

and they really do know what everything costs

and why they have to have it, and

that's sad in itself.

Shame, really.

Children seem to be morons these days, really,

don't they, mostly?

Most children now are illiterate morons.

Shame.

So, it's everywhere we look.

Don't do this, don't do that.

Watch out for this.

Signs letting us know that evil Knievel is

up ahead.

Signs warning us that the couple in the

car behind are having a row.

Oh, look, there's a man ahead, having trouble

with an umbrella.

And what on earth do you suppose has

happened to this poor building to make it

so terrified?

High voltage.

You know, danger of death.

What will not put you off anything is

danger of death.

Danger of electrocution?

Oh, dear, I don't want to be electrocuted.

I saw another one, bleach bottle, that said,

um, contents not to be treated as a

beverage.

HE CHUCKLES So I suppose it puts an

end to rum and Domestos before bedtime.

Here's one.

I bought a sofa the other day and

I was sent an instruction leaflet on how

to use it, which I presume...

I didn't actually open it, but I presume

you just sit on it.

My favourite of all time was the Superman

cape for kids from Toys R Us that

said the cape's not designed to...

doesn't enable actual flight.

Look, it's not to do with genuine concern

for our welfare.

That's the important thing to remember.

It is fuck all to do with people

caring about us.

It is simply that they don't want us

to sue them.

Yes, that's right.

It's because if you get drunk and trip

over a bump in the pavement three millimetres

high, you could be entitled, entitled to £10

,000 or whatever it is.

As of right, you know, it's like this

kind of bizarre lottery, so that any misfortune,

anything that happens to you in the normal

course of life is...

you're going to be rewarded for.

We had somebody in the cafe a few

years ago, tripped up.

We had a white strip on the one

bit of step there, but it was dirty,

all right?

It wasn't quite white enough.

Tripped up, sprained his ankle, and we got

sued for, I don't know, £5,000 for

sort of time off work and stuff.

And you just think, for God's sake, you

know, watch where you're putting your feet.

My father-in-law runs a big supermarket

in Ireland, and he's had people...

He's seen people on camera practising falls to

break their arms.

He's had people suing them because they've slipped

on one of his shop leaflets that happened

to be on the doorstep of their house.

It wouldn't surprise me, outside every major law

firm in this country, if the lawyers hadn't

deliberately actually raised the level of some of

the pavements so that they could be standing

outside.

So immediately, over you go.

Before you can even help yourself up, there's

a sort of a guy wearing pinstripe trousers

and sort of fangs coming rather neatly out

of his mouth like that, saying, can I

help you?

I can't bear to read one more story

about some moron earning £20,000 a year,

who's borrowed £2 million on 50 credit cards

and then blames the banks for lending him

the money.

It's absolutely outrageous.

I think the rise of these insurance companies

that encourage us to make claims, often spurious

claims, it's an absolutely insidious effect in Britain.

I want an advert that says, had an

accident in the afternoon, tough tips.

Look where you're going, you bloody idiot.

Yes, Nanny knows best what's good for us,

and Big Brother is watching to make sure

we do her bidding.

Don't do this, don't drink that, don't eat

that, don't watch that, don't watch that.

Oh, yes, next week we're talking about the

mead jar and feeling every bit as grumpy

as usual.

Silly little twat, right, little bigoted nit.

I can never want to read that again.

It's ugly, it's vicious, it's spiteful.

But do I read it?

Of course I read it.

The beast in me Is caged by frail

and fragile bars More comedy as Dafydd discovers

Mifanwy's secrets.

The award-winning Little Britain, over on BBC

Three Now.

Rants and rages at the start God, the

beast in me And there's now an official

Grumpy Old Men handbook written especially for anyone

who has sympathy with the self-confessed whingers.