Skip to main content

New Malden Expresso

"You 'af to cheer the people ap."
















Photo by Fred Dawson: New Malden Station at 6.30am

[Note: This is made up. It didn't actually happen.]


Sound of a loud wolf whistle... the rumble of a distant train.

In the background: "Ciao bella. Ciao beautiful."


Marco: - "Hello."

Christian O'Connell: - You are listening to Absolute Radio with Christian O'Connell. It's 6:45 on this dark winter morning in London, but now let's go over to Marco in New Malden, who has some good advice for you. Hello Marco. You wanted to say something on our programme about having a positive attitude?"

Marco: - "Yes, I am Marco. I am phoning to talk about life. It is beautiful. You sound so depressed sometimes on your show. You should cheer up, mate. Like me.

In the background: - "That’s a two pounds please."

Marco: - "Yes, you ‘af to cheer the people ap."

Christian O'Connell: - "And how do you go about cheering someone up, then?"
Marco: - "I say nice things to them."

In the background: -"Ciao bellisima,  followed by a more muted 'Good morning sir.'

Marco: - "Yes, I always try to make people feel 'appy in the morning."

In the background: - "What’s that?... No sir I was just saying she is beautiful... To cheer her up, y'know, Sir.....

What?...I would love to 'ave a beautiful woman like her as my girlfriend. You should be proud. "

Marco: - "So that’s why I am calling your show, but sometimes customers can be be very difficult. This man, for example, he is looking at me in such a bad way."

In the background: - "Ciao bellisima. Beautiful. 'Ere's your change. 'Ave a lovely day."

Marco: - "I try to make people smile. Sometimes everybody just complains on your programme. That's very wrong."

In the background: - "What do you say? ... If you want to talk to me. I am 'appy to talk to you." , "Why you say to me again?... It’s a beautiful day. What's the matter with you?


Christian O'Connell: - "Marco?"

In the background: - "Yes, yes I come out to talk to you if you like. What you want to say to me? Who you think you are. ?"

Sounds of muffled shouting. Thudding.

In the background: the tannoy announces: "The approaching train is not stopping at this station. Please stand well back from the platform edge."

More shouts. A woman's screams are drowned out by the sound of the express train rushing past.

Christian O'Connell: Marco, Marco?... - "Well I'm a fraid I think we've lost Marco. I hope he's alright.

Marco: (breathlessly) - "I am sorry, there's been a terrible accident. A man just fall in front of a train, I 'af to go now..."But please, remember. Cheer the people ap, OK?"



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aerogramme from Lisa and Richard

To: Mr & Mrs J. Hall, Box 49 Eikenhof (TVL) Johannesburg Afrique du Sud. 28.3.76 Dear John and Nola, Today a week ago we were still in New Delhi with Eve and Tony and the boys and the whole thing looks like a dream. We arrived on the 28.2 in New Delhi and were happy to see the whole family fit and in good health. The boys have grown very much, Phil is just about the size of Tony and the twins are above average. We stayed untill the 22nd March, as our visa ran out and we did not want to go through all the ceremony of asking for an extension. It also got hotter and I don't know how I would have supported the heat. The extra week would also have passed, so we decided not to go to all the trouble with the authorities and leave on the 22nd. I cannot tell you how happy we have been to see such a lovely family, so happy and united. It is rare to experience sucha thing and we have both all the reasons to be proud of them (when I say goth I mean you and us ). There is su...
2 comments
Read more

Guardian books blog fringe: Norman Mailer

FLASHING THE GUARDIAN -- A BOOKS BLOGGERS' REBELLION :  The unheroic censor with a death wish Part 1: In which Norman Mailer stars in an experiment in search engine optimisation By ACCIACCATURE 3 February 2009 When Norman Mailer died in 2007, informed opinion – in the blogosphere, people who had read at least two of his books – was split. The army of readers who saw him as one of the most despicable misogynists writing fiction in the 20th century was perfectly matched by warriors on the other side, who raged that the label wasn’t just unwarranted but tantamount to heinous calumny. Before commenters returned to bitching-as-usual, tempers were lost on literary sites all over the net in debating temperatures high enough to bring to mind tiles burning off space shuttles re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. After I'd agreed to a spontaneous suggestion by our good friend Sean Murray -- a pioneer and stalwart of the comments section of The Guardian’s books blog – that we re-...
71 comments
Read more

Guardian: Kate Harding's reactionary censorious blog on CiF

It should go without saying... ....that we condemn the scummy prat who called Liskula Cohen : "a psychotic, lying, whoring ... skank" But I disagree with Kate Harding , (in my view a pseudo blogger), posting her blog in the Guardian attacking bloggers. It's a case of set a thief to catch a thief. The mainstream media is irritated by bloggers because they steal its thunder and so they comission people like Kate Harding , people with nothing to say for themselves, apparently, other than that they are feminists, to attack bloggers. I'm black. So I can legitimately attack "angry white old men". I'm a feminist, so I have carte blanche to call all anonymous bloggers "prats." Because yes, that is her erudite response to bloggers. No I don't say that the blogging medium can't be used to attack progressives in whatever context. Of course it can. But to applaud the censorship of a blogger by a billion dollar corporate like Google, and moreov...
32 comments
Read more