Monday 29 June 2009

I AM THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD

You see, anyone Googling "who is the most beautiful woman in the world?"will be led to this opulent new post, and good thing too.  Because it is true.

Anyhoo, I was getting ready to go out on Saturday night, and I had the television on and it was Who Wants To Be a Millionaire (C. Tarrant in the chair) and it was a real eye-opener.  Other people have described it as a real eye-closer, but they are the ones ready for swinish sleep at 1900 hours and have no place in this discourse.  There was a man answering the questions, 30-ish, not too ugly, quite common.  He was struck dumb by the following:  which of these artists shares a name with a town in Lincolnshire?  The choices were Lowry, Reynolds, Gainsborough and Hockney.  He gazed at the selection as if seeing the Rosetta Stone on autocue.  Then he gazed at his interlocutor.  Then he made a vague mumbling noise and looked up to the heavens.  He stood to win £20,000 for the correct answer; if he fucked up he would be back to a grand.  "Is anything ringing a bell?" asked keen campanologist, Tarrant.  "Noh reeely", said the dolt, "but I got a ninkling".  His ninkling was that it was most likely Hockney.  Hockney, the well-known Wolds town, famous for bespoke linoleum,  and Hockney Hardcore, the local delicacy, a sort of pemmican made from mashed yeast and boiled bronze.

So, he was royally stuck and he'd used up his Ask The Audience on a car question and his 50:50 on a tricky one about tropical fish, so he phoned a friend, and his "friend" was his mother-in-law, which most of us would surely regard as mutually exclusive, but hey.  Needless to say, his MIL knew nothing and said she hadn't heard of any of the artists, and if only the county had been Worcestershire she would've been ok, and then she hung up.  So, that was that.  But he still went away with 20 grand, which is a result in anyone's language.  But it had made me cross and distracted, and I must have sprayed myself with Ange ou Demon for about two minutes and I stank like Portsmouth on pay-night, but I didn't care.  How dare people be so dim?  And how dare they go on game shows and make a virtue of being dim?  Who would want to advertise dimness on prime-time television?  The whole thing is beyond reason.

That is not to say that I would denigrate game shows; far from it.  Or, at least, not game shows of old.  Some people have commented cruelly on my love for Guy Lux, and other people (K. Musgrove) rag me mercilessly about Michael Miles, but I turn the other cheek.  Key references here include Criss Cross Quiz, The Sky's The Limit, The Golden Shot and, crucially, Double Your Money.  Everyone remembers Monica Rose, but hardly anyone recalls Julie de Marco, which is barely understandable.  She was almost ludicrously sexy, and when I didn't want to be Kathy Kirby, I wanted to be Julie de Marco, because even at that age I could see a bottom like that could take you very far.  It is a glorious maxim I have carried with me all these years.  

I would gladly volunteer for Ask The Family, if some of you kind people would agree to be my kin.  Kevin could be my husband, and Scarlet and Emerson Marks could be our toddlers.  We would win the lovely Dartington Crystal Rose Bowl in a trice.  Most of all, though, I see myself on Family Fortunes.  Daphne could be my aunt, Gadjo my troublesome cousin.  Inky could be my foster-child and Pat could be my twin.  And Scarlet could make up an opposing team with some of the appalling deviants who frequent her grimy site.  My team would win, of course, and we could all pile into the cerise Punto, which is always the star prize, and wave gamely from the smeared windows.  It is my dream.

I was lucky enough to witness the FF episode where the two grandmothers went head-to-head over the buzzer.  The question was: name something, or someone, who people believe in, even though its existence has never been proved.  Mine host was B. Monkhouse.  He was expecting the nans to say something like Father Christmas or the Loch Ness Monster; he expected too much.  Grannie One said "Ay-dolf  Itler" and was gonged out.  Gran Two (who  was on industrial doses of  Haloperidol) said "Driving Licence".  It was magnificent.

Anyhoo, I watched Millionaire to the end, and I truly feel I could win.  My only weaknesses are motor racing, mountains and the films of Matt Damon.  Apart from that, I know everything.  My evening was ok.  I went to the newly refurb'd Boulters Inn at Maidenhead with my grisly old beau, Tullough Kiltpin, the moronic miser of Balbeggie.  At the end of the meal he promised me the Three Words I Longed to Hear and rasped "Separate checks, please".  He is a git.

42 comments:

  1. You would never beat me at Family Fortunes!!! Never, never, never!! It's the one quiz I'm good at.
    Please don't mention Matt Damon. I'm feeling a little odd at the moment... I still haven't recovered from watching Ben Fogle and James Cracknell frolicking in the snow...
    Sx

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have a 'ninkling' that the very same Tullough Kiltpin, late of Balbeggie cottage, was once turned down for that awful 'Deal or No Deal' thingy with that ghastly Noel Edmonds chappy.

    Of course I could be wrong, which would rather explain why I've never been selected fae the audience to appear in any quiz show other than Question Time.

    Bastarts!

    ReplyDelete
  3. When I was marooned in Sheffield with a broken ankle and Edinburgh a distant memory, I lived for 'Going for Gold', with twinkling Henry Kelly. I soon discovered that similar questions were asked on 15 to 1, so that I looked outstandingly intelligent when my hosts returned for their labours. It was almost worth staying in Sheffield just to look so clever.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm just happy to be here, Michael.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The four words I long to hear are 'Free bar all night'

    ReplyDelete
  6. Doesn't *everybody* recall Julie de Marco? Didn't she cut a disc as well?

    I will own up here and now that I have two video compliations of "Hold Your Plums," and in colour, too. Eunice from Wallasey trying to guess "Shed rock, Me shack and A Bendy Go" from the clues supplied by Wally. A bit modern for both of us but you have to go with the times every so often.

    Will you be coming clean about your crush on Gilbert Harding?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm sure you had the perfect voice for the "up-a-bit, down-a-bit" routine of the Golden Shot, Mrs Pouncer. Clear, crisp and fruity. Would you have rather had a date with Monkhouse or Hughie Green?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Whenever Henry Kelly said "what am I?" on Going For Gold I never understood why none of those gurning Europeans just said "you're a twat Henry."

    ReplyDelete
  9. I used to think The Bolt was a common Austrian surname in the pre-Bruno era, as in Heinz The Bolt, the famous human target in Golden Shot.

    BTW, Kathy Kirby was my first serious crush as a pre-teen.

    I also used to think that the question, "Is this the key that will open box 13 tonight?" had some relationship to those dodgy wife-swapping parties that I hear are common in the Thames Valley

    ReplyDelete
  10. Magnifique, Mrs Pouncer.
    “Ask The Family” What a bloody nation we are. The families were horrors, yet we all watched it.
    Mater detested the eager ones, the buzzer-happy families, then half way through she would wish that my dear father were alive so we could enter and win hands down being the ideal nuclear set of precocious intellectuals. In fact, I only ever got the close up photo questions:
    “ cheese grater...penny black…egg whisk…dildo!” I would shout from my seat by the Cannon Debonaire
    “That’s never a dildo, it’s a courgette, go and wash your mouth out with soap.”
    “Ask The Family” had a creepy Roald Dahl quality to it somehow.
    “This one’s for mothers and younger children only” (because you are stupid).

    Once, on FF, the question was, “Name something that people are frightened of”.
    It was down to Granddad and all the best ones were gone so what did the bugger say?
    “A raging bull.”
    I loved the old darling for that. His family fucking hated him.

    Which of these famous musicians share their name with an actual place in Perthshire?

    Glen Miller, Glen Matlock, Glen Michael-Jackson, Glen Haggis?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Kathy Kirby was my first celebrity crush, too. Along with Sophia Loren. My, how my tastes have changed: all that wall-to-wall Twiggy and Julie Driscoll and I paid not one whit of attention.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Kinnell Kev, how old are you? Kim Novak shurely.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Calmez-vous, Kev and Maroon, for I am Yvonne Romain to a T, and woman enough for you both.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Trying to rack up your points?
    Never trust the RR keyring in the Thames Valley Hoseasons ashtray, is my advice to you Mrs Clarissa Pouncer, let not your hand falter but grasp the humble fob for that way riches lie.

    ReplyDelete
  15. So which artist was it then?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Should I dye my hair? My Mum said you must never call people common. I do sometimes in the privacy of my own home and even add 'as muck' but that's just entre nous.
    I did one of the earliest 'Double your money' with Hughie and met Michael Mills who was really nice because I berated him for something Michel Mills was responsible for and he charmingly forgave me.
    BTW on of the biggest draws to my blog was when I mentioned William's awful rubber mackintosh with a rope instead of a belt.
    Does one want those sort of people - CAM?

    ReplyDelete
  17. GB's mention of your voice is interesting, Mrs P. How about an audio clip on Youtube? Maybe berating a minion for a shoddy piece of cross-stitching?

    ReplyDelete
  18. OMG, I so love quizzes and before the hormones started destroying my brain cells and I was the supreme champion of all of them. Oodles of general knowledge but absolutely no common sense of course :)

    I remember Anne Aston very fondly but Im too young for some of those other ladies :) My first crushes were David Hemmings and, of course, both Terence Stamp and Monica Vitti in Modesty Blaise... until I discovered Star Trek.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Mrs. P, what do you know of Portsmouth on pay night? I thought you were far too redolent of Knightsbridge for all that sort of caper.

    ReplyDelete
  20. My dear Doctor, I am just a slip of a lad. I seem to be channelling an older spirit.

    ReplyDelete
  21. It must be the heat. It was MIchael Miles and Michael Mills of course.

    ReplyDelete
  22. There is no point being clever in the UK, Mrs P, the hoi polloi will run you to ground and rip your entrails out with their teeth. Look how they destroyed poor Diana just because she had an O level. If you want to discuss Schopenhauer in public you will have to do as I have done and go into exile.

    ReplyDelete
  23. ah simply can not feature y'all as a game show fan, sugarpie! ;~) xoxoxo

    ReplyDelete
  24. Mrs P , I like to lull myself to sleep imagining the sound of your Jimmy Choo's clicking a frantic tatoo as you are egged on by the excited piping voice of the marvellously wood stained dale Winton as you complete the final furlong of Supermarket Sweep

    ReplyDelete
  25. Dear Ms Cake. I think I have the full collection of Modesty Blaise paperbacks. No matter how bad this recession gets, ebay shall not have them

    ReplyDelete
  26. Okay, so some may think that Lowry is in East Angular. But they do know how to embed...
    Sx

    ReplyDelete
  27. Mes chers amis, so sorry to have been delayed in commenting, but this weather! Of course, the glorious Thames Valley is absolutely at its best under these conditions, and I have taken the opportunity of lying on my back in my Michael Kors highcut, the better to let the sun onto my ancient stretch marks. Do I regret childbirth? No, of course not. Each one of those angels bears my crest, and they are all in gainful employment or working for Channel 4, so I don't complain. However, some of us may look wistfully at the Madonna path and sigh; how much easier it would have been to apply direct to the emerging-economy country of your choice and await despatch!

    I must be swift with these sumptuous retorts, as I am off to the (newly refurb'd) Meridien Rimini in a couple of days and have to be prepared. I am sorry to have to shamelessly plug Le Meridien, but it is a promotional freebie. How ghastly these recessionary times are when an Englishwoman in her prime is forced to accept continental hospitality from the palsied hand of a gnarled old magazine proprietor, but that is my vile fate. Needs must. Look out for hagiographies for Le Meridien Rimini (+39 0541 396 600) in some of your least favourite fashion rags in the coming weeks. I will be bigging it up for Autumn breaks, and announcing the revamp of the Ekstasis Float in their Wellness Centre. Yes, Le Meridien - part of the Starwood Group Luxury Collection - just the place for a dose of la dolce vita!
    I shall spend more time than strictly necessary, however, in nearby Riccione, and specifically at Pascia.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I have a Starwood preferred guest card. Is that better than a black AMEX in your books, Mrs P?

    .. and Scarlet, what is this in-bed thing of which you speak?

    ReplyDelete
  29. Scarlet, my team would beat yours hands down. Quite liderally. We would be quicker on the buzzer. Your team would be gazing into the middle distance, their thoughts on baser things. Or they wouldn't know how a buzzer worked.

    Jimmy, Deal Or No Deal is the most extraordinary spectacle. Noel Edmonds shrill cry of "Focus! Positivity!" is the rallying cry de nos jours.

    Madame De, Marooned in Sheffield is one of the vilest things I have heard in a long, long time. In Sheffield, of all places. Good grief!

    ReplyDelete
  30. Vicus, I had forgotten that! It was oft-heard. I loved the yes-no interlude, mainly because the contestants were so gormless. "Your name is Iris Noble?" "Yes". Gong. Off.

    Dave, you are damned from your own mouth. However, shamingly, I have to agree. I always refuse wedding invitations which include the dire warning Pay Bar.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Kev, I have given some thought to this response, as I have a brand to protect. However, I came out some months ago as Merseyside's favourite daughter, and what have I got to lose anyway? I always knew it as Billy & Wally's Hold Your Plums, and my favourite exchange ever was the Borussia Munchengladbach imbroglio. The question was something like "who did Liverpool play in the European Cup Final in 1976 ?" (or '77 - can't remember exact year. Google it for me). If someone can find an audio clip of this then we are all in for a comedic treat of the highest order. Wally's signature cry of "I tink she's strugglin a bih, Bill" is a joy to behold.

    Although rest assured, Gorilla dear, that to hear me you would never think I had strayed far from Guildford. For the past decade, I have adopted the Hendon rasp. But that is the company I keep. And, oh, Bob Monkhouse every time! He had veneer. He had varnish. He almost had a patina. How well suited! For I have Queen Anne legs and Ball Claw feet.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Hello, Mr London! Yes, I think many would agree with you, not least Mrs Kelly and all the little Kellies. I quite like "who am I?" quizzes, though. My sister used to make up games like that for car journeys, to keep me and our youngest sister amused. Once, on a trip to Woolacombe (which was a bit of a schlep) she played 20 Questions with us. One was "Mineral with strong Animal connections". The answer - once we'd got through our quota, and still couldn't guess the object - was "a lavatory". We thought it was the funniest thing we'd ever heard.

    Dr Mr Jekand, you live in a fool's paradise! There is no wife swapping of any description in the Thames Valley any longer. I blame Thatcherism. Market forces prevailed, and people were dissatisfied with their exchanges, demanding a leaner, less subsidised partner. Non-union couplings were preferred and, before too long, orgies were described as "ludicrously over-staffed" leaving mine host and wife alone with their sunken souffles and Mateus Rose. Musical fondue evenings took precedence, which explains the popularity of Richard Clayderman.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Hello, Dr Maroon. I had forgotten about ATF. All the contestants were weirdos: they would now be called "gay" by our young people. My sisters and I hated them, and we were gratified to be joined in this loathing by Mutti, the opulent old harridan herself. My father, on the other hand, a gentle and benign man, outnumbered and outplayed by his womenfolk, and thoroughly disappointed by all of us, loved and admired the creeps. "What a family!" he would cry, as father, Donald, an Architect, mother, Janet, a home-economics teacher, and children, Eleanor (14) and Philip (12) answered everything correctly, even though wearing dun-coloured homeknits and comic spectacles. Everyone had a side parting, or a furious comb-over (R. Robinson included) and most had squints or something going on with teeth. Father would look as us meaningfully as if to say "I wish you were ugly and wearing serviceable pinafore dresses and could at least work out a simple profit and loss appropriation, where interest on capital and share of profits is specified, like this lad (aged 10) from Newbiggin." But we couldn't.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Dear Mrs P, I am disappointed for you that the excitement of a good Swap-Shop can no longer be found during cultured evenings in the Thames Valley (perhaps something we should blame Noel Edmonds for, and not just Her Handbagship, Margaret T). I have fond memories of these parties in my early twenties. I always made a point of putting my Jaguar car keys on a Lada key fob before casting them into the Tupperware (we were less sophisticated). I did this as I wanted someone to want me for my body and not just my money. Perhaps this explains why my early twenties were so lonely.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Famulus, you silly boy! The answer was, of course, Reynolds. The town of Reynolds, Lincs, is world-famous for being closer to the moon than anywhere else because of some odd geographical quirk. The name is pre-English and means "ugly hamlet".

    Maroon, I am grasping at humble fobs as if my life depended on it, so help me God, I am.

    Mrs Cake, how things have changed! Can you imagine for one moment A. Aston being asked to do C. Vorderman's job? Anne had one of the most glorious French Pleats in hairdressing history, but I remember she was quite unable to add 37 and 17 (it's the only arithmetical blunder that sticks in my head; there were others). Also, am I imagining this, but isn't she Chesney Hawkes' mother?

    ReplyDelete
  36. Pat, I am glad you cleared up the Mills/Miles imbroglio, because I thought it was my poor eyes. As you know, I am bat-like sightwise, but my Linda Farrow's are for show only. Shamingly, I have recently been to Specsavers so that I might read and relax in Rimini. Your mention of "early Take Your Pick" begs the question: did the Forfeit Interlude exist then? It didn't last long, and no-one else remembers it.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Inky, spelling and everything might go haywire here because it is uber hot in the Thames Valley and I am hammered, but anyhoo, re my glorious voice. It is yours for the listening! Imaginez vous mes tres chers amis: an undeniable Scouse timbre has to be hurriedly overlaid with something refined as I marry (young) an Old Etonian. Settling in North West London, and being immersed in an organised religion/cultcha thang, I have to adopt the Hendon rasp to be accepted into the local Haddasseh group. The result: Carla Lane meets Joanna Lumley, but is hijacked by Miriam Carlin. Yes, I am Beryl Bainbridge.

    Daphne, I am in exile. I live in the Thames Valley FFS! But this weekend will find me in Rimini, where I will be as clever as all get-out, and spend a lot a time at Byblos, wishing you were there, too. (Going on my own. No friends, and everyone I meet will be as thick as pigshit. Sorry, but it's true).

    ReplyDelete
  38. CAN I JUST SAY THAT ALL COMMENTS FROM ME FROM THIS POINT WILL BE A BIT RADDLED BECAUSE I AM NOW ONTO TANQUERAY & TONIC AND EVERYTHINGS GONE BLAAAAAAAAH

    Ayway, Auty, you are naughty,. as per. "Portsmouth on paynight!" was the cri de coeur of my dear old father (recently dec'd) and applied to all his daughters (3) as he watched us leave the house most Saturday ngiths. We did not dress as GPs daughters should, and he was disappointed. I was part of the Goldmine, Canvey Island, soul scene (pre-punk) and used to annoy him greatly. We lived in berkshuire, so nowhere near Essex. so it was a weekender for me, and he worried (undersandabnly) about my safety. For some reason,I cant remember wy, it was de rigueur to dress in military surplus. and we used to go to Lillywhites - God. auty, remember them? One of my bestr oiutfits was an ATS, but my favourite was a Womens Indian Army meidical corps fatigue, unbuttoned to the cleavage. Good grief. Portsmothh on paynight, You said it, dad. Sorry.

    Beast sorry I can't wirte much more. Kiss kiss kiss kiss kissums. Just imgaine me in a WAAF uniform inappropriately worn. Lovya xxx

    Have I missed anyone?

    SAve!!! SAV!@!!!! SAV!!! Over here!!!! Now then, GAME SHOWS. Youare fromthe LAND OF GAME SHOWS. do not shirk them. There is a game show from your home land which I wish I knew about. It is called Jeopardy. I was once with a very bad American man. Something appalling had happened and he said fuck! I wish there was a category for this on Jeopardy! I will say no more. My lips are sealed.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Aha we have connected Mrs P on the subject of alcohol. Wife's gone out. Daughter's at sleepover. Eldest son's here and it's his 21st birthday today. He's not drinking, saving himself for party with friends tomorrow. I'm on my 5th vodka - not because I want to, but because I feel someone should get tanked on his 21st birthday. I'm that kind of caring father

    ReplyDelete
  40. whaddya mean your "troublesome cousin"??

    It's Gainsborough, isn't it? (if you think I've got time to read if somebody's already said that - or to look up Gainsborough - then you are very much mistaken...)

    ReplyDelete
  41. Mr Jekand, your paternal skills shine through. The Thames Valley salutes you.

    Gadj, yeah, troublesome. Wanna make something of it? And why is your time so valuable all of a sudden?

    ReplyDelete