Image by agnesliinnea from Pixabay
Something truly remarkable happened last Sunday and it featured in every newspaper and TV station in the land. Under the circumstances I thought I would devote this entire section of Septic Eye to this extraordinary event.
Having secured Bob’s grudging agreement to this, mellowed by my promise to furnish him with some Groupon vouchers for Zizzi, they seem to be remarkably good value at the moment by the way, here is my take on the major event of Sunday, the 18th of March 2018.
No, not Speaker’s Corner, silly billy, of course not. Hyde Park was only about the death of democracy, the suffocation of free speech and the grip of an authoritarian regime hell bent on replacing its indigenous population. This is hardly worth talking about for our erudite, investigative media, in fact, so not worth talking about that they didn’t talk about it, not one word.
This story was way bigger than all that democracy trivia, this was the shattering revelation that Ant McPartlin, one half of the dynamic TV presenter team Ant and Dec had been involved in a car accident this Sunday just gone, he had subsequently failed a breathalyser test and had been detained well into the early hours by the police.
If you have no idea who Ant and Dec are then I tip my hat in your direction and offer my sincere congratulations to you. If you are aware of Ant and Dec but can’t always tell which one is which I recently devised a foolproof identification system.
Dec is a Geordie chancer whilst Ant is a fucking Geordie chancer, the system works every time, happy to help.
I was made aware, through the vast media coverage, that Ant was now living in a rented house in Richmond, with his mother and his Labrador Hurley, the media certainly don’t stint on detail in vital matters like these.
I’m sure Old Mother Ant, Christine Woodhall, facts at my fingertips again, is a perfectly charming Geordie lass, or not. However I am trying to picture the notion of this successful TV star, his career now on the brink due to his pain killer and booze addiction, separated from his wife and having to ‘battle his demons’ at home with his mum.
“Take your shoes off if you’ve been outside.”
“Aren’t you going to do anything today?”
“You’ve got to eat something.”
“Did I see a small bottle of Smirnoff in your bathroom cabinet this morning?”
“Aren’t you even going to get dressed, it’s nearly teatime.”
“Why are you crying?”
You have the funds, check into some grand a day rehab hotel or, if now on a budget, a discreet bedsit in Lewisham. Anything, anywhere really but not with your mother, it will end in tears and they will be yours.
No detail was spared in the miasma of despair that surrounded this once great human being. Pictures of Ant returning in the early hours, ‘to face his mum’, that was one caption I swear to you, pictures of the wrecked automobiles and even one of Ant taking his dog lead, not with the dog attached, just the dog lead, out of his devastated vehicle.
You read that correctly, a picture of a man with a dog lead was featured more prominently than anything that happened in Hyde Park. All the news we consider is fit to print.
One of the victims in his crazed venture into the world of drinking and driving had been a 3 year old girl in one of the other vehicles. She was apparently upset but not injured, however she was taken to hospital as a precaution, a fact the glorious hacks dwelt on at length. What the media giveth, they also taketh away.
One bystander said he was only a few feet away when the police arrested Ant, imagine being so close to such an event?
“Can you remember where you were when Ant McPartlin was arrested”, will be the dinner party choice of conversation in years to come. One lucky man will be able to say,”Only a few feet away.”
This bystander also added, “He looked as if his world was at an end.”
Not just a keen observer of minutiae but indeed also an eloquent man, almost poetic in his choice of words, I now await his emergence on the back of all this, Bystander, the people’s poet. Every cloud etc.
I felt it was incumbent upon me in such difficult times to find some resolution in all of this for the ‘troubled’ presenter, some way to get his life back on track, some means of turning this all around.
Since I could no longer refer to my old compadre Max Clifford for PR advice of a high moral standing, I decided I would do something myself.
Now I don’t know about you but I quite enjoy an acidic burning sensation after liquid refreshment, so over a cup or two of Lemon and Ginger tea, I came up with two options.
The first option is that Ant retires entirely from all public life, disposes of all his worldly possessions, whilst obviously leaving a small trust to provide for Hurley the Labrador, including leads in perpetuity, and then donates the remainder to provide housing for British military veterans.
Afterwards he will anonymously devote the rest of his life, like a latter day Profumo, to selfless work in the care of the elderly and incontinent, perhaps in a hostel in South London.
I’m sure his cheerful quips and one-liners will bring a smile or two to their faces in their twilight days and, as a personal bonus, he will have a captive audience incapable of leaving the building.
This would be my preferred option and I think, presumptuous as it is, that I also speak for the nation.
Option two is rather more radical, this involves the condition that Ant will want to rebuild his shattered career and reputation, some inner force or perhaps even money, will drive him on to conquer those fiends that lurk within us all.
After a suitably contrite period with only a few very sombre photo opportunities it is announced that Ant will star in his own series of peak Saturday night specials.
The solo Ant, Ant sans Dec, is titled provisionally ‘Ant on a Stick.’ The premise is that each week Ant visits a British seaside town where he bounces along the seafront on a pogo stick, not for too long obviously. Each week he is joined by one or more ‘A list’ TV big hitters who pogo along with him for a while, hilarity inevitably ensues!
John Bishop, we know John loves a physical challenge, perhaps also Michael Macintyre. “Mummy, why is that Chinaman on a stick?” a small child in the crowd will ask. The studio audience watching the playback howl with laughter as Michael makes his funny, silly Chinaman face.
James Corden, just the idea of that chubby funster on a pogo stick makes me giggle, stop it. One week footballer Peter Crouch emerges from the seaside crowd and guess what, Ant uses him as a pogo stick!
The promenade at Westcliff-on-Sea has never seen anything like this, human beanpole Crouchy bouncing along with his diminutive cargo.
Tears of mirth, the greatest Saturday night entertainment ever, the audience roll around, chubby grandmothers wipe tears from their cataracted eyes.
In best Jimmy Carr style, Ant is very self deprecating, in the Peter Crouch episode, as he is aloft on the human giraffe he says, “I haven’t been as high as this since the last time I drove my car.”
Laughter and then respectful applause for a man acknowledging his past failures. He’s nearly home now.
One week the supposed allotted guest is delayed, Ant asks the gathered crowd, “I don’t suppose anyone can stand in till my guest gets here?”
Gasps of amazement as little Dec steps out from the assembled mass “Will I do?” they hug for the longest time.
Grown men in the throng weep into their seaside knotted hankies, women sob but there is palpable relief too. “They belong together, they should always be together.” At last, finally he is back home.
I wonder which option our intrepid hero would choose?
And it’s… option two, phew, that didn’t take long.
Please note that I have filed copyright on ‘Ant on a Stick’ and any variants of similar pogo or stick based scenarios, just in case.
I can’t stand the man but if there is money to be made from his resurrection then I want my slice.
Call me shallow if you like, many people already do.
© Viciousbutfair 2018
