black butts 1

due to huge demand*, enid is going to share some of her and the man's comedy, "black butts." (named after the first house she and the man bought, a tiny mid-terrace victorian cottage in an english village not too far from london).

* that's you, tinks.

she's also going to give you the chance to vote on what she should write about tomorrow night. do you want

(a) news on the house purchase in california? (warning, there isn't much of it)
(b) an amusing piece about another of the man and enid's games, called "the disgusting game."
(c) more black butts?

onward and upward. here's the backgroundy bit to black butts, and then the start of the first episode.

Background

A week ago, Tom and his partner Helen moved into their new house - a mid-terraced cottage at the end of a cul-de-sac in [censored], Berkshire. Helen, 30, is a literal-minded science teacher who writes contrived poetry. Tom, 35, is a medical supplies salesman with a wild imagination. Tom’s view of the world is radically affected by what he watches on TV, reads in Hello magazine or even eats for breakfast. He meets his perfectly ordinary neighbours, and thinks that they are vampires, prophets, Norse gods or serial killers.

As the introductory titles roll, we see:

Tom is slumped on his settee watching “The Vikings” starring Tony Curtis on TV. A car pulls up outside and Tom’s next-door neighbour Fiona (25) gets out. She’s dressed like a hippy given carte blanche at Harvey Nicks. After she’s extracted two huge IKEA bags from the boot, the driver pulls away, but then stops and toots her horn, attracting Tom’s attention. Fiona dashes back to the car, and unclips her baby from the back seat.

As Tom’s film ends, Helen enters and waves a bottle of wine at Tom. Back outside, Fiona’s husband Oliver (28) gets into his Volvo. He’s a tall, heavily built Yorkshireman, and he’s wearing unflattering shorts. The car makes lots of ugly noises but fails to start. Oliver gets out, opens the bonnet and pulls about at bits of engine at random. Something big comes free in his hand. Oliver is furious – he beats the front of the car with his new weapon and then slings the engine-part over his shoulder and strides back inside. Tom sees Oliver’s silhouette – a Viking warrior, with a helmet and a huge axe.

SCENE 1. EXT. TOM AND HELEN’S BACK GARDEN. DAY 1. [15:00]

HIGH VIEW OF BOTH BACK GARDENS. TOM AND HELEN ARE SITTING AT A TABLE DRINKING WINE, HELEN IS WRITING. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE, UNSEEN BY THEM, FIONA IS READING “NEW WIKKA WOMAN” MAGAZINE. THE BABY IS IN A COT BESIDE HER. WE CLOSE IN ON TOM AND HELEN ONLY.

TOM:
No, this time I’m certain.

HELEN:
That our new neighbours…

TOM:
Odin and Freya.

HELEN:
Oliver and Fiona. Are Vikings.

TOM:
Yup, as certain as you’re sitting there writing… What are you writing?

HELEN:
It’s a poem about the futility of modern schooling. I’m trying to contrast the struggle of a modern science teacher, well, junior head of department actually, against the trials Galileo Galilei faced from the Catholic Church in fifteenth century Florence. I’m having trouble defining a lyrical yet scientifically accurate metaphor for…

TOM:
Good. I was saying about Odin

HELEN:
(SHARPLY) Yes. So you were claiming that Oliver

TOM:
Odin

HELEN:
Oliver is a Viking because he shouts a lot, drives a Volvo and wears a helmet with horns on.

TOM:
And Freya-

HELEN:
Fiona.

TOM:
Freya shops at IKEA.

HELEN:
Even though the hat

TOM:
Helmet.

HELEN:
I would say that there’s a high statistical likelihood that that helmet was an engine part - possibly a carburettor, or a big end.

TOM:
He does look like a Viking.

HELEN:
He looks like the fat one out of Abba.

TOM:
Agnetha?

HELEN:
Tom, let me get on with this poem – the deadline for the competition is tomorrow. Have you unpacked the box with the paper and envelopes and stuff yet? It’s in the spare room in a box marked “Junk”.

TOM:

(SCARED) No.

TOM’S IMAGINATION: THE SPARE ROOM IS DARK AND MENACING. THE CURTAINS BLOW AROUND BUT THE WINDOW ISN'T OPEN. RIDE OF THE VALKERIES IS PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND. THE BOXES, ALL MARKED JUNK, ARE PILED HIGGLYDY-PIGGLEDY ALMOST TO THE CEILING. A HUGE TENTACLE COMES OUT OF ONE AND MOVES AROUND THE ROOM, SEARCHING.

HELEN:
There’s nothing in the spare room, Tom.

TOM:
Yes there is. That which cannot be named, Yog Sothoth, he who waits beyond. Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darts like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith of boxes, about which it flings its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bows its hideous head and gives vent to certain measured sounds…

AS TOM RANTS WE SWITCH TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE. OLIVER STRIDES DOWN THE KITCHEN STEPS, SLAMS THE DOOR BEHIND HIM AND THROWS A HUGE ENGINE PART ON THE GROUND.

OLIVER:
There you are! Fucking hell, Fiona, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.

FIONA:
(MUTTERING) Breast toning exercises? With bells? Sorry, sweetie?

OLIVER:
Fee, the fucking car won’t start, I’m right fucked off with it. There’s more action in Stephen Hawking’s trousers. Fucking great fucking heap of fucking Scandinavian fucking shite.

FIONA:
(STILL LOST IN MAGAZINE) What? Has Magnus been on the curry again?

OLIVER:
No, the fucking Volvo. Bastard won’t start: absolutely cock-all happening in the engine department.

FIONA:
What’s up with it? What’s that wiggly spider thing?

OLIVER:
The wiggly spider thing is a distributor and it should not be on the fucking patio, it should be in the cocking engine delivering high bastard voltage to the spark twatting plugs. Something I’d like to do to the Scandie tosser who designed it. In layman’s terms, the bastard won’t start which means I can’t get into the office tomorrow, and I’ll get my arse reamed if I miss my bi-monthly inter-personal one on one performance review with Jim.

FIONA:
I’m sure it’ll be…

OLIVER:
Jeez, Fee, these days the bloody Scandies couldn’t win Eurovision never mind build a decent executive estate. All they’re good for is handing out dope to hippies and giving out degrees in arse like “Relationship Dynamics and the Emerging Socialist State”. To think they were once Vikings: pillaging and rapaging and generally scariging the shit out of everyone. Harder than fucking Yorkshiremen – now look at them, bunch of fucking uphill gardeners. (PAUSES) That Volvo’s a heap of shite, it’s time to trade up, Fee love.

FIONA:
Oooo, I always fancied one of those big German ones. BNPs. But we can’t afford a new car, can we, sweetie. I really don’t want to go back to work while I’m lactating…

OLIVER:
(INTERRUPTING) Yes, yes I know, but if we consider…

WE MOVE BACK TO TOM’S SIDE OF THE FENCE. TOM IS LOOKING TOWARDS OLIVER & FIONA WITH A WEIRD EXPRESSION ON HIS FACE.

HELEN:
(READING BACK TO HERSELF) “Oh, my sweet love, If I could keep safe, Each of your locks so fair, Then I would have, to take the population mean, Thirty-five million hair.” Hmm, it should be hairs, really.

OLIVER: (O.O.V)
(SHOUTING) No, we’ll show them what it’s like to be a Viking! We’ve got to make sacrifices!

TOM:
See! They are Vikings, I knew it!
TOM’S IMAGINATION: OLIVER & FIONA ARE DRESSING IN SKINS AND HELMETS, DANCING AND MAKING BATTLE CRIES AROUND A HUGE STONE TABLE ON WHICH LIES THEIR BABY, SCREAMING.

TOM:
They’re going to sacrifice the baby! We’ve got to do something!

HELEN:
(NOT CONVINCED) Yeah. Where’s the thesaurus?

TOM:
Not bad, Helen, not bad. Slight historical incongruity and possibly against the Geneva Convention, but you’re right, the only things harder than Vikings are dinosaurs. Where will we get them? I reckon we could extract dinosaur DNA from prehistoric flies trapped in amber…

HELEN:
No, Roget’s.

TOM:
Ah yeah, Roger Attenborough, the old guy who owns Jurassic Park? Brother whispers about birds and stuff, maybe he could bring sharks too?

HELEN:
Roget’s Thesaurus. The one with synonyms in.
TOM:
(TO HIMSELF) Don’t the pages stick together? (ALOUD) Ummmm, dunno, I’ve not seen it.

HELEN:
It’s in the spare room, isn’t it?

TOM:
Might be.

TOM’S IMAGINATION: SPARE ROOM AS BEFORE

TOM:
What’s up anyway? I might be able to help - I have a very large vocabulary.

HELEN:
Maybe. I’m getting a bit stuck with the middle bit -“Heartstrings tie in knots when they’re left in a drawer, Complexity of knots can be given a score. Most knots score a one, But some are just tangles, Their score is like one eighty minus the degrees in a triangle…s.” I’m trying to show what it’s like to be a maths teacher in love for the first time yet unable to demonstrate that love for fear of prejudicing one’s chances at promotion to junior head of department.

WE MOVE BACK OVER THE FENCE.

OLIVER:
OK, so we could stop buying those fluffy things for the baby.

FIONA:
Teddy bears?

OLIVER:
No, nappies. We’ll send him round to your mother’s to get cleaned up. (THINKS) …and fed.

FIONA:
We could stop eating meat. It’s ever so expensive and “New Wikka Woman” says a vegetarian diet is much kinder to your body, cleansing, you know? And it makes your chakra ever such a pretty shade of mauve…

OLIVER:
Fuck that. I’ll cut down on the fags and you can stop all that tantric bollocks you do on Thursday nights with that fucking hippy in the kaftan. Sold. Want to come to the BM dealership with me?

FIONA:
Oooh, Olly darling, fab!

OLIVER AND FIONA GET UP AND GO INTO THEIR HOUSE, LEAVING THE COT. A FAINT CRYING NOISE COMES FROM IT, BUT NEITHER OF THEM TURN ROUND. THE DOOR SLAMS BEHIND THEM.