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We are snobs.
Well, according to Kylie the gap-year backpacker from Oz and there's gratitude for you.
Kylie turned up effing and blinding on Thursday morning banging on the orangery windows demanding that we find her a "bivvy" which some of us took to be a request for a thing called lager but which the saintly Ed who once did missionary work amongst the Queensland surfers told us was the Oz way of asking whether we could find a spot for her to unfurl her sleeping bag in order to spend a night or two. He explained that it is short for "bivouac".
Quite why she picked on us I don't know because it's bad enough having to accommodate Hector the swan, the mysterious blaspheming "Ephraim" and the pist Tiny Tim to say nothing of having to find hanging space for Mark Lawson's vintage astrakhan coats. And now we have a distinctly non-U Ocker bursting in through the patio door and hanging her shark tooth roo-skin Stetson on one of "Ephraim's" rigored limbs fingering the Today cruet and holding up to the light the fish-knives that Sarah has carefully dried barking "streuth ... yi've gotta git yir dushwisher sortid, mite" before wiping her hands on the trapped bit of shirt tail protruding from Jim's flies.
But we are kind people and noblesse oblige after all and so we got Bragg the Butler to show Kylie first to a spot near the geraniums in the Blue Peter garden but to be honest that probably was a bit insensitive because it was near the place where vandals had dug up one of the programme's many former mammals and where the earth is still loose and so John finds it easy to bury used portions of Minister there and the smell can be a bit bad so in the end Bragg shooed Hector from his spot by the Aga, shifted the boxes of Blue Nun that'd arrived only that morning from the Richard and Judy wine club and motioned to Kylie that this was to be her "bivvy" at least for the night.
Jim would have helped but he has had his nose in the Reader's Digest condensed version of Finnegan's Wake for days now because he's just realised that it's the book of the month on R4's Book Club and he doesn't think he'll have time to finish the whole thing before recording the programme.
"Ice, Melv..." Kylie shrieked tousling Bragg's greying coif, tinkling "yi'r a bruck" or something like that and unhooked her web of tinnies, folded out her collapsible Sky+ dish and collapsed into a snoring heap even though it was only half-past nine in the morning though I suppose in the outback it was already Friday evening or possibly even some time in the following or previous week.
Kylie's charge that we are snobs - or "snubs" - is very hurtful and cannot be true because on Wednesday we gave lots of airtime to Mr Kevin Jackson
(Listen Again)
who is a lorry driver at a Yorkshire pudding factory in Mr John Prescott's Hull constituency and who has become a frequent follower of the Holderness Hunt. Mr Jackson never called us "snubs" at all and it was entirely appropriate when the saintly Ed pointed out to Mr Jackson that he was not a snob either though it risked a further skirmish in the class war because Mr Jackson's MP - Mr Prescott, of course ... do try to keep up - is in the habit of calling Ed and Sarah "the posh twins" and the Tory MP Mr Stephen Dorrell once alleged that being interviewed by them made you feel you'd wandered accidentally into the Morgan Grenfell hospitality tent at Wimbledon and cor blimey mate strike a light he's one to talk innit?
Carolyn tut-tutted as she set out the doilies and cake-forks for the mid-morning Viennoiserie but Kylie went on and on about how she was particularly put out by Billy Bragg and Lord Onslow's discussion about the monarchy, the Prince of Wales and the House of Lords
(Listen Again)
and she says that was "prif" that we are "snubby" but she will have the smile on the other side of her face after Twickers on Saturday when we will learn once again who is boss.
And we are also not "snubs" because we invited the very-not-a-snob-at-all Corin Redgrave
(Listen Again)
onto the programme to explain his new political party which is all about making sure that none of us are snobs any more and it all went surprisingly well in spite of John not recognising the famous actor and he might have got away with it except that he tried to cover up by arguing that it was because Mr Redgrave was such a brilliant actor and was so good at taking on other people's identities that it was in fact a tribute to his brilliance that radio presenters didn't recognise him.
Plus and finally on this topic we cannot be snobs because we also had a piece about turkeys and everyone knows that snobs eat things like geese and even swans at Xmas though this piece was about turkeys for Thanksgiving which is not a holiday in this country but apparently is in some parts of the former empire. The novelty - and we do like to have some novelty in our programmes these days -is that the turkey recipe we featured involved deep frying the whole bird
(Listen Again)
which the chef assured us would only require a litre of oil which is just as well since the national lard shortage means we all have to be very careful.
Kevin
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