THE QUEEN WILL BE WATCHING/ COAL MINE (HISTORICAL ARGUMENT)
Announcer standing in front of his
desk.
Announcer: (J.C.)
Ladies and gentlemen, I am not simply going to say 'And now for something
completely different' this week, as I do not think it fit. This is a
particularly auspicious occasion for us this evening, as we have been told that
Her Majesty the Queen will be watching part of the show tonight. We don't know
exactly when Her Majesty will be tuning in. We understand that at the moment she
is watching 'The Virginian', but we have been promised that we will be informed
the moment that she changes channel. Her majesty would like everyone to behave
quite normally but her equerry has asked me to request all of you at home to
stand when the great moment arrives, although we here in the studio will be
carrying on with our humorous vignettes and spoofs in the ordinary way. Thank
you. And now without any more ado and completely as normal, here are the opening
titles. (bows)
Very regal animated opening
titles.
Caption: 'ROYAL EPISODE THIRTEEN'
Caption: 'FIRST SPOOF'
Caption: 'A COAL MINE IN LLANDDAROG
CARMARTHEN'
A nice photograph of a typical pit
head. Music over this: 'All Through the Night' being sung in
Voice Over: (J.C.) The coal miners of
Wales have long been famed for their tough rugged life hewing the black gold
from the uncompromising hell of one mile under. This is (at this moment across
the bottom of the screen comes the following message in urgent teleprinter
style, moving right to left, superimposed 'HM THE QUEEN STILL WATCHING 'THE
VIRGINIAN') the story of such men, battling gallantly against floods, roof
falls, the English criminal law, the hidden killer carbon monoxide and the
ever-present threat of pneumoconiosis which is... a disease miners get.
Cut to coal face below ground where
some miners are engaged at their work. They hew away for a bit, grunting and
talking amongst themselves. Suddenly two of them square up to one another.
First Miner: (G.C.)
Don't you talk to
me like that, you lying bastard.
He hits the second miner and a fight
starts.
Second Miner: (T.J.)
You bleeding
pig. You're not fit to be down a mine.
First Miner: Typical bleeding
Rhondda, isn't it. You think you're so bloody clever.
They writhe around on the floor
pummelling each other. The foreman comes in.
Foreman: (E.I.) You bloody fighting
again. Break it up or I'll put this pick through your head. Now what's it all
about?
First Miner: He started it.
Second Miner: Oh, you bleeding pig,
you started it.
Foreman: I don't care who bloody
started it. What's it about?
Second Miner: Well ... he said the
bloody Treaty of Utrecht was 1713.
First Miner: So it bloody is.
Second Miner: No it bloody isn't. It
wasn't ratified 'til February 1714.
First Miner: He's bluffing. You're
mind's gone, Jenkins. You're rubbish.
Foreman: He's right, Jenkins. It was
ratified September 1713. The whole bloody pit knows that. Look in Trevelyan,
page 468.
Third Miner: (M.P.) He's thinking of
the Treaty of bloody Westphalia.
Second Miner: Are you saying I don't
know the difference between the War of the bloody Spanish Succession and the
Thirty bloody Years War?
Third Miner: You don't know the
difference between the Battle of Borodino and a tiger's bum.
They start to fight.
Foreman: Break it up, break it up.
(he hits them with his pickaxe) I'm sick of all this bloody fighting. If it's
not the bloody Treaty of Utrecht it's the bloody binomial theorem. This isn't
the senior common room at All Souls, it's the bloody coal face.
Two more miners run up.
Fourth Miner: (Ian Davidson)
Hey,
gaffer, can you settle something? Morgan here says you find the abacus between
the triglyphs in the frieze section of the entablature of classical Greek Doric
temples.
Foreman: You bloody fool, Morgan,
that's the metope. The abacus is between the architrave and the aechinus in the
capital.
Fifth Miner: (T.G.)
You stinking
liar.
Another fight breaks out. A
management man arrives carried in sedan chair by two black flunkies. He wears a
colonial governor's helmet and a large sign reading 'Frightfully Important'.
All
the miners prostrate themselves on the floor.
Foreman: Oh, most magnificent and
merciful majesty, master of the universe, protector of the meek, whose nose we
are not worthy to pick and whose very faeces are an untrammelled delight, and
whose peacocks keep us awake all hours of the night with their noisy lovemaking,
we beseech thee, tell thy humble servants the name of the section between the
triglyphs in the frieze section of a classical Doric entablature.
Management Man: (J.C.) No idea.
Sorry.
Foreman: Right. Everybody out.
They all walk off throwing down
tools. Cut to a newsreader's desk.
Newsreader: (M.P.) Still no settlement in the coal mine dispute at Llanddarog. Miners refused to return to work until the management define a metope. Meanwhile, at Dagenham the unofficial strike committee at Ford have increased their demands to thirteen reasons why Henry III was a bad king. And finally, in the disgusting objects international at Wembley tonight, England beat Spain by a plate of braised pus to a putrid heron. And now, the Toad Elevating Moment