CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
It’s now 2.30
in the morning. Pants returns to his seat at the GIT’s table after neatly tying
up the rest of the loose ends in his previous chapter, most of which weren’t
loose until he tied them up. Peace and harmony reigns. It seems everyone is in
a mellow mood and the GITs are all getting on like a house on fire. Mr. Biggins
has added a rather dashing nightcap to his ensemble of dressing gown and
pyjamas and is now carrying a candle. He crouches up to Jonathan’s microphone
and adjusts it for what could be the final time. Mr. Ross speaks, sounding just
like the elephant man.
“And now, before we get to the cwowning of King GIT
2006, we have our final act of the evening. Please welcome your own, your vewy
own…The Dagenham Darling…The Bermondsey Belter…The New Cwoss Nightingale…The
Catford Cweeper…here she is…NOWWIE “Me Knickers Is Soakin’”…POD…NEY!!!!!!!”
And finally, there she is. Mrs. Flagg, as her
alter-ego Norrie Podney, marching on to the stage to the opening bars of ‘I
loves to shove a carrot up’. Waving ecstatically to the crowd she cries, “Ooh,
me knickers is soakin’”, and the audience roars its appreciation. She turns and
looks out across the audience stage left and shouts, “Ooh no don’t, me knickers
is soakin’”. The audience roars again. She turns again and looks out across the
audience stage right shouting, “Ooh no don’t, me knickers is soakin’”. By now
the audience is crying with laughter. Old Mr. Mayfield is standing on the bar
shouting, “Give us another Norrie, give us another, gel” while most of the old
ladies in the club are wiping their eyes with their hankies and with each cry
of ‘me knickers is soakin’ they nudge each other as they collapse in fits and
screams of laughter again and again.
Norrie is on her twenty-fifth ooh, me knickers is
soakin’ when she suddenly shouts, “Music, maestro please.”
A hush falls over the auditorium as Mr.Biggins starts
the tape recorder.
The music starts, slowly at first then gradually
increasing in speed as the tape spools reach the correct speed of 3 ¾ i.p.s and
hover at that speed give or take a few i.p.s.
Norrie launches into her first song singing, “Ma,
look at Charlie, whoops he’s at it again. Ma, look at Charlie, whoops he’s at
it again...” as the audience erupts into cheers of recognition and start
clapping in time to the music.
Norrie owns the stage, winking and fluttering her
eyelids frantically, while many of the old dears in the audience are now on
their feet raising their skirts and doing the Lambeth Walk Oi!
Pants, Crawfie and The Count are doing the Mary
Poppins chimney sweep dance in front of the stage while Marty and Joe have
linked arms and are in full flow with the knees up Mother Brown dance round the
table.
Norrie finally finishes her song by jumping in the
air and doing the splits.
The audience go “Oooooooh”.
She looks up and over towards Mr. Ross and says,
“Ooh, me knickers is soakin’ Jonathan”. Mr. Ross lowers his eyes in
embarrassment and smiles nervously. The audience are helpless with laughter.
Old Mr. Mayfield has by now fallen off the bar and
has landed in front of old Mr. Roundtree who has just picked up another tray of
Guinness and immediately drops it all again in surprise. From the bar floor old
Mr. Mayfield shouts, “Give us another, gel” before five pints of Guinness and a
tray land on his head.
Pants shouts, “More slapstickery, that’s what we
need. Where are the sound effects?”
Norrie is still in the splits position and it’s
becoming increasingly clear that she can’t get up again. The audience are
shouting and laughing as they think it’s all part of the act while Norrie
keeping a fixed grin on her face flutters her eyelids and hisses at Jonathan
out of the corner of her mouth, “Don’t bleeding stand there, help me to
bleeding get up.” As Mr. Ross stands behind her and lifts her up by her armpits
she does a final little jump to try and give the impression that it was all an
act but spoils the illusion at the last minute by tottering to one side as she
loses her balance and composure. “Ooh, me knickers is soakin’,” she shouts to
nobody in particular and the crisis is over.
The audience is back on her side again.
She launches into her second song of the evening and
with the opening bars of “Do as You Please” she’s drowned out by the mass
applause of recognition from the audience. All that comes across is the odd
phrase that’s recognisable during lulls in the general uproar. “Oh, ‘ere we
are, from near and far, do as you please, up with your knees, it’s party time
again,” sings Norrie, “Oh, ‘e was ‘oldin’ ‘is coconut , ‘oldin’ ‘is coconut,
‘oldin’ ‘is coconut, whoops we go again.”
“Ooh, -,” she cries cupping her right ear with her
hand. The audience yell back, “Me knickers is soakin’.” “Ooh, -,” she cries
again, cupping her left ear with her hand. The audience yell back, “Me knickers
is soakin’.” This is repeated over and over and over causing old ladies to
hyper-ventilate at the wit of it all and old men to wink and nudge themselves
into crumpled heaps of exhaustion.
The GTI nominees have all returned to their table but
the audience reaction to Norrie, the consumption of numerous champagne magnums
and the increasingly rowdy atmosphere seems to have had a remarkable effect on
them. Joe suddenly stands up and starts juggling five pickled eggs and as he
catches each one in his mouth and swallows it down, Crawfie stands to one side
and throws him a replacement to keep the juggling going. As Norrie launches
into her next song, ‘Nancy
With the pickled egg jar now empty and the juggling
over, Joe and Crawfie are running around the table giggling and waving their
hands in the air for no apparent reason. Amidst all this hedonistic behaviour
Marty – sitting in his chair with a pair of underpants on his head, his tie
around his forehead, his shirt untucked and buttoned up in the wrong button
holes so that one side is hanging twelve inches lower than the other, his shoes
on his hands and two empty pickled egg jars on his feet - suddenly jumps to his feet and shouts to his
fellow GITS, “Please gentlemen, can’t we behave with a little bit of decorum
and dignity!,” before falling face down in his strawberry syllabub.
Norrie finishes her third song while The Count
continues rowing under the table. The crowd are in a frenzy. The Dagenham
Darling…The Bermondsey Belter…The New Cross Nightingale…The Catford Creeper
hasn’t yet shoved a carrot up and they know it. Mr. Ross is being given the
wind-up signal but knows that if he gets Norrie off before the carrot song
there’ll be a riot. He decides to ignore the producer shouting in his ear-piece
and, ripping it out, runs across the stage and joins Norrie in an impromptu
display of eccentric dancing and funny walks. “Ooh, me knickers is soakin’,”
laughs Jonathan as he acknowledges the applause at the end, walks away sweating
cobs and leaves the stage once again to Norrie. She stands now, completely
still in the glare of young Mr. Jones’ ‘See for Miles’ torch spotlight, staring
out fixatedly at a point high and to the back of the room. The opening bars of
‘Shove a carrot up’ start to play, slowly at first but gradually gaining tempo
as Norrie sways her hips in time to the music and the audience start to clap
and stomp along with the beat. As she starts to sing she becomes almost
inaudible due to the applause and cheers of the crowd. She begins: “Oh, I loves
to shove a carrot up, a carrot up, a carrot up, I loves to shove a carrot up,
on the top shelf of me green’ouse…”
The audience are in raptures. Everyone is singing
along and the atmosphere is electric. Mr. Ross has left his podium once more
and has linked arms with Norrie and they both continue with the song. They
finish the song to a five minute ovation, women are fainting and men are
throwing their hats in the air as finally, Jonathan shouts, “Thank you, the one
and only, Nowwie Podney.”
Grown men are weeping and now, even though the
music’s stopped all the GIT nominees are under the table rowing with The Count.
They’re all singing I’d love to shove a carrot up when Joe suddenly slurs, “I
know a good one boys, Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Auntie Mary had a
canary up the leg of her drawers, when she farted it departed, to a round of
applause,” before collapsing in hysterics.
“Hooray,” shouts Pants, “Another fart gag. The third
one I believe. Things are looking up.”
Mr. Ross has gained some composure and, straightening
his tie and grinning at the audience, he continues.
“And now ladies and gentlemen we have finally weached
the climax of the evening’s events. The moment you’ve all been waiting for, the
culmination of a whole years hard work, sweat, tears and not to mention a good
few back-stabbings along the way. The cwowning of King GIT 2006!”
The crowd start to boo amid shouts of “Bring back
Norrie”, “Let’s ‘ave another one” and “Shame” but Jonathan ignores them raising
his voice to be heard over the clamour. “Ladies and gentlemen. We all know who
the nominees are so please give another warm welcome to our star guest of the
evening, Nowwie Podney, who will announce the winner by one point of tonight’s
King GIT award.
But first…the Meat Waffle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
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