Mastermind

May 20th 2006

I sat down in the black leather chair and made myself comfortable.

John Humphreys: “And your name?”

Me: “Terry Ravenscroft.”

JH: “And your specialist subject?”

Me: “Two minutes on Kristin Scott Thomas.”

JH: “Your time starts…..now. How long is it since you first fancied two minutes on Kristin Scott Thomas?”

Me: “Ever since I first set eyes on her.”

JH: “Wrong. When you first set eyes on Kristin Scott Thomas you fancied a night with her. It is only now you are nearing your seventies that you have modified your ambitions to a more realistic two minutes. How many times have you seen the film The English Patient?”

Me: “Twenty seven.”

JH: “Wrong. The right answer is ‘Too many times for your own good’. When you saw Kristin Scott Thomas naked in The English Patient what did you say to yourself?”

Me: “What a simply delightful, nubile body that young woman has.”

JH: “Wrong, you said ‘Christ, look at the beaver on that!’  And how often, when viewing that part of the film on video, have you used the freeze frame or slow motion facility?”

Me: “ Er….well, every time.”

JH: “Wrong, the answer is every time but one; the only occasion you didn’t use either the freeze frame or slow motion facility being when your wife The Trouble unexpectedly came  into the room and you quickly changed channels before she saw you were watching it yet again. Given that you were granted two minutes on Kristin Scott Thomas and while you were halfway through your two minutes she asked you to…

BUZZER

…I’ve started so I’ll finish – she asked you to stop, what would be your reply?”

Me: “I’ve started so I’ll finish.”

JH: “Wrong. You would say ‘Thank Christ for that, two minutes of this and I’d have a heart attack’. And at the end of your two minutes on Kristin Scott Thomas Mr Ravenscroft you have failed to score, which would probably be the case if you we were ever given the opportunity of having two minutes on Kristin Scott Thomas.

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Razzamatazz

Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things. Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things.

5 thoughts on “Mastermind”

  2. You dirty old man – pick someone closer to your own age. To this end, may I suggest Susan Sarandon? Even at 60, she has me (a youthful 47) reaching for the freeze-frame button.

    Joe.

  5. class post. Jennifer Jason-Leigh had..er has the same effect on me in the Rutger Haur film ‘Flesh and Blood’. She stands there naked, legs slightly apart for about 20 seconds before leaping into a huge sort of bath tub with Haur. The Management walked in on me in mid freeze frame. She called in the TV repairman as I insisted the video had jammed there. It cost £30 but she never knew…..

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