Revenge is a dish best served cold. Let your victim wait for retribution, get none, think they have got away with it, maybe even forget the original slight completely and then make them wait a bit longer and then strike. With extreme prejudice.
This is how Richard and Judy have taken revenge on me.
You may recall that I used to be in a show called "This Morning With Richard, Not Judy". It was ostensibly a parody of the show done by the original Richard and Judy - if anything it was a tribute - we just thought that the morning show format might be a good vehicle for comedy and I was called Richard and Stew wasn't called Judy. With a coincidence of that magnitude who could resist calling it what we did?
However for the publicity shots, at least for the Edinburgh version of the show we did dress up as our hero/heroine combination, me as Richard and Stew, rather gamely (and dare I say attractively without prompting further speculation of the nature of our relationship after yesterday's tender and somewhat gay entry) as Judy. In between us we had a shopping trolley full of empty wine bottles, which may or may not have been a reference to a certain alleged shoplifting incident and maybe even to the rumours of dipsomania that were incorrectly being spread around at the time (mainly by us). It was a cheap shot. A funny shot. But a cheap shot.
Richard Madeley was not best pleased. He admitted as much to Stewart when he was on their show some years later. He'd been through Hell and didn't like the fact we were making light of it. Fair enough. We are all sensitive and sometimes we forget that people on TV are human beings too. We think they are fair game, but that doesn't mean they don't cry into their pillows at night at the nasty things that get said about them. I know Andrew Collings does. Not that I am there in bed with him. I don't sleep with ALL my double act partners. I mean ANY of them.
Neither Richard, nor Judy ever said anything to me about the show on the two or three occasions I have guested on their show (
this was the first time,
here's what happened on the second occasion,
this is the third visit, which is the one that is relevant to today). The last time I was on (16 months ago - I think I might not be on the list any more) I was reviewing a rubbish best selling novel for the Richard and Judy book club. To thank me for my time I was given a goody bag with chocolate, coffee and a posh coffee mug in it. A nice gesture, I thought at the time - now I realise part of their plot for revenge. Whilst the other fripperies have long since been used up, the mug has remained, as a reminder of my wonderful day being upstaged by Bonnie Greer. It was just the right size for me to drink my soup out of (half a carton of Sainsbury's Red Thai soup my favourite - and just 160 calories).
Last night though, just when I least expected it, the final stages of the avengement began. I was going to make some herbal tea, to calm me down after my excellent Lyric gig and I opened my mug cupboard. As the door opened the Richard and Judy mug propelled itself out towards me. There was no logical explanation as to how it would have been able to move unaided. You might say that perhaps when I had unloaded the dishwasher earlier, I had packed in the mugs too closely and carelessly and perhaps the R&J mug had gone in at an angle, an then slipped forwards against the door, so that when I opened it, the dreaded force of gravity would do the rest. But I would say, no, that isn't what happened.
Though the mug hurtled at me I almost managed to catch it, but alas had two beers and a glass of wine in my system and was not quite as cat-like as I could have been (cats are excellent at catching falling mugs). The mug hit the stone of my kitchen floor and spectacularly smashed into dozens of pieces. I picked up the bigger bits, but it was late and my dustpan was downstairs and I am very lazy when it comes to cleaning up broken things,
despite previous disastrous consequences, so I left the fine residue of harmless looking porcelain dust to be dealt with at some later date.
As I came down to the kitchen, bare foot, this morning to make my porridge I saw the dust, remembered the calamity of the previous night, felt sad, but determined to tread softly, lest I tread on the broken dreams of Madeley and Finnegan. And also cos I didn't want mug shards in my foot. Even so though, as I crossed to the fridge to get some milk just moments later I misplaced my foot and stood on a tiny sliver of mug which went into the sole of my right foot, sending a sharp shiver of pain up my leg.
As I pulled it out I realised that this was Richard and Judy's revenge. The whole thing had been leading up to this moment. The seeming forgiveness or forgotness of the early appearances, lulling me into a false sense of security, the lavishing of gifts, the fact that I had never been back on after they gave me the mug. They knew what they were doing.
The mug contained a sophisticated kamikazee timer and breathlyser booze detector (oh the delightful irony that I should be the one with alcohol in my system, after the cruel jibes I had made as a younger man) which would send it flying on to my kitchen floor when I was in no fit state to arrest its descent. Then each individual flake of mug had some kind of computer chip mind in it that would allow it to home in on any bare piece of foot skin that was presented to it. I would be able to avoid most of the shards, but like the IRA, Richard and Judy's Porcelain Shard Army (the RAJPSA - spookily when spoken aloud Raj Persaud) only had to be lucky once. And sure enough today I got what was coming to me. A slightly bit of pain in my foot, though thankfully no blood.
They had got me. Debt paid. Revenge.
To be honest they might get me again, as I still haven't swept up the rest of the remnants. Almost like I know I deserve to be punished. But mainly because I am very lazy. Though I have outsmarted the RAJPSA as from now on I am going to wear slippers. And my cleaner will be here on Thursday, so why exert myself?
