Movie icons – a series (if I can be bothered to write any more)

Number 1 - The Baddie.

Requirement originally met by Indians of the reddish hue, whipping boys for Duke Wayne and his trusty Winchester repeater. "The hell I’ll let those redskin varmints live." They were often seen throwing themselves with gay abandon into the sights of a six-gun. Occasionally, they would even paint a target onto themselves just to make it easier.

During the 40’s however, these were usurped by the very nasty Germans and their very nasty habit of invading other Countries and pulling out other people’s fingernails – very nastily. "Vee haff vays ov making you talk, schvinehundt!!"…….

Now, we are more enlightened, it was soon realised that the Germans were misunderstood. Their bad behaviour was traced to a diet dominated by sour-kraut, cheap beer – oh, and an over burdening desire to dominate the World.

With the Germans forgiven, Hollywood demanded a new nation of saps for the all American hero boys to wup. That mantle has now been passed to the new kids to kick with their heads on the block.

The crew now up for the role of ‘scapegoatery’ has been filled by Englishmen. Yeah, the boys from good old Blighty are now officially Hollywood cannon fodder. "OK Brad baby, in this scene you save mankind, get the dame – and the money. Then you stick a couple of caps into evil Lord Hambledon’s ass"

"Great, then he dies right?"

"Hell no Brad baby! Remember, this is evil English aristocrat Lord Hambledon – Scottish Yard has been on his trail for years….. and it takes you, a rookie cop from the 89th precinct to nail his sweet English ass…. After you let him have it he struggles up the Empire State Building for a fateful rendezvous with his chopper. Desperately seeking a way out he climbs to the top and jumps for the dangling ladder. Unfortunately, he misses and the limey bastard is horribly impaled on the TV mast".

"God, how I love wasting limeys".......

Clipped tones? Well that must mean English cad – and master criminal. Doomed to come to a sticky end at the hands of Tom Cruise……

Estuary? English dodgy criminal geezer, usually employed in Guy Ritchie movies. Not a master criminal, more a thick twat, easily outwitted by razor brains such as Brad Pitt……

Mid European? Englishman, kidnapped at birth and brought up in a secretive Bavarian fencing academy by renegade Neo Nazis’. Ferociously arrogant in an Anglo Saxon sought of way, this psychotically psychopathic psicko is a born terrorist leader. His one weakness however is to always (very stupidly) let the hero off the hook by trying to think of even more exotic ways of killing him. "No…. shooting you between the eyes is far too easy – it does not appeal to my artistic nature ……. Now, where can I find some crocodiles and a tonne of carbolic soap"……….

Meanwhile, the all American hero is fashioning a helicopter behind his back using the twine he is bound with and some discarded chewing gum…….. and escapes, Bruce Willis wins again! Yippee kai ayyyyyyyyy……

Back again ......

Anyone there? Alfie the OK here again. The last few days, I have mostly been Alfie the can’t be arsed, busy, pissed, absent and just plain Alfie the Alzheimic….. Yeah, I've been through the whole spectrum of adjectivorial Alfieness during the last week or so….. (Is ‘adjectivorial’ a word? Well it is now)

Yesterday, I was ‘Alfie the removals man’. I took my eldest lad back to his new digs as he embarks on his last year at college.

New digs? Christ! A bit of an exaggeration there …. What a dump! Our car, stuffed to the roof rack with student type stuff rounds the corner into Tatty Arsed Street, just off Roach Drive in Bed-sit land, Blackpool. And there it is in all its faded, pox-ridden, paint peeling glory - ‘Shite Towers’.

Ring bell…… doesn’t work, obviously.
Knock on knocker and peer through windows that last saw a chamois when George Formby was leaning on a lamppost at The Winter Gardens.

Cue ‘Arsenic’ without ‘Old lace’ as 80-year-old biddy staggers down the corridor to open the door.

Cue stench.

She insists on shaking our hands. Christ, I thought (mental note) – must eat my butty with my left hand on the drive home. Must remember NOT to pick my nose or adjust my manly bits with my right hand. That’s in quarantine until I get home and dig out the bleach.

"It’s up there" she says and points a bony, wizened digit in the general direction of the stairs.

Cue crusty, flowery carpet, in dire need of a ‘Bex Bissell’ and woodchip wallpaper in dire need of a bonfire.

We breast the top of the stairs. Below us the biddy has hardly made base camp, although her odour has sat on our shoulders all the way up. We peer down a black.... black..... bible black corridor to a distant toilet.

The biddy chimes in "Now it’s not gold taps you know John" and gurgles a laugh so chilling I would swear that old Nick himself had suddenly materialised in front of us as ‘old Nicola’.

We get near to the toilet and on our right is a door. THE door to John’s pad. We hurry in – in a vain attempt to avoid the ghastly odour emanating from the bog.

The room is as bad as I thought it would be. I peer around in the unremitting gloom. I must say something. I REALLY MUST say something "35 quid a week for this hovel! JEEZZZUSSS H. KERRRIST this place should be con-bleeding-demned you horrible, horrible, horrible, smelly old bag!!"

Well, that’s what I meant to say. It sort of came out as "Ooooh yes, the room is LOVELY - 50’s chic, functional in a Stalinist sort of way -and yet uncluttered… perfect". Then she shows us the shower room. God all sodding mighty. Underneath the shower tray is a collection of towels, they have been there so long they have morphed together into one wet-through amorphous blob. Vigorous cultures of fungi flourish in near perfect growing conditions.

"Right then John, let’s get you unpacked"

We thank Auntie Festus for the tour and tell her we are just going to the car to unpack John’s stuff.

I didn’t know that a fully laden Toyota Avensis could do 0 – 60 in 7 seconds….