DR. NOSTRUM
‘Not being a cunt’ is not a bad theme. ‘Trying not to be a cunt’
HUTCHBACK
Yeah. ‘Trying to live your life...
DR. NOSTRUM
...without being a...’
HUTCHBACK
It’s almost like the Buddha’s teachings isn’t it? “Don’t be a cunt.” That’s all it is, that’s the whole of Buddhism in a nutshell – don’t be a cunt.
DR. NOSTRUM
It’s very hard. (long pause) M saved me the other day.. It’s not about trying not to be cunt, it’s just about not.. cos I think a lot of people wouldn’t think to say the things that they were thinking. A lot of people do that, it’s just an art isn’t it – not to say the thing that you’re thinking?
HUTCHBACK
It’s not that much of an art. (pause) You just basically don’t say the first thing that comes into your head. It’s not like some great skill.
DR. NOSTRUM
Yeah, well. Oh dear. It does let me down. No, as I was saying, M saved me. It was just this woman who’d come over to measure up curtains, so she was saying.. you know what you need in a curtain so you retain the first bit, yeah, so the curtain, when you pull it, doesn’t slide away from the wall right?
HUTCHBACK
Yeah
DR. NOSTRUM
So she was saying you have to have this particular thing, which was a particular horrible..
HUTCHBACK
Who was? When? What?
DR. NOSTRUM
The other day – it doesn’t matter! It was a woman who’d come round from John Lewis and we’re having curtains put up..
HUTCHBACK
Oh, you’re having curtains put up. Why didn’t you put them up yourself?
DR. NOSTRUM
Because I don’t want the responsibility of it being done wrong and then having to send it all back..
HUTCHBACK
If I can do it...
DR. NOSTRUM
No, I can do it too, but...
HUTCHBACK
...you can do it.(as we know, HUTCHBACK can’t do this)
DR. NOSTRUM
...I want to do it on, er, I want to do it on, er, on a reveal, so it’s inside ‘a box’ right, so you have to cut the thing to the right length and then you have to do all this shit, and get all your measurements right and yes – I could do it, but I don’t think.. First; if I did do it I think M would get annoyed at me...
HUTCHBACK
Probably
DR. NOSTRUM
Which is one bye-product, and the other thing is; I might do it wrong anyway and I’d rather someone else did it wrong and then, er, we could get annoyed...
HUTCHBACK
You could get annoyed together...
TOGETHER
...at someone else.
DR. NOSTRUM
Exactly. So it’s much better.
HUTCHBACK
Yes.
DR. NOSTRUM
Anyway, so she comes round and says to retain the curtain you have to have these two other hooks in the soffit in the ceiling – and we don’t like these hooks anyway – I said well why can’t you just get a ring around the curtain rail...
HUTCHBACK
‘A ring around your anus’
DR. NOSTRUM
Yeah, a ring around the – I wish – and get a little grub screw and just attach that to the thing (the DR is animatedly enacting this) and she looked at me, and I could see that it just didn’t make any sense, what I was saying, I could see it, and I couldn’t think of how to explain this simple idea of just having a collar on this rail, that isn’t this hook that you have to have in the ceiling, that you wouldn’t see and that would stop the curtain being pulled along the pole. And the woman didn’t get it. You get it, right? It’s quite a simple idea.
HUTCHBACK
Would it stop the curtain coming through? It would have to be quite a big...
DR. NOSTRUM
No, of course it would stop it, it doesn’t have to be that big cos the weight of the curtain means the top of the eyelet runs along the pole, doesn’t it?
HUTCHBACK
Yeah
DR. NOSTRUM
So as long as it’s big enough to stop – if you’re not pulling hard – so long as it stops the curtain at the top it’s enough.
(for the sake of readers I’ll stop here, because this is very boring, and pick up after the good DR has finished explaining the way another useless invention of his is clearly superior and simpler than other, existing, useless products - ed)
Anyway, she looked at me like I was an idiot (pause) and I looked at her like she was an idiot, which M saw, and the woman actually said to me “You’re looking at me like I’m an idiot, have I missed something.” And M said, “Oh, no, no, he does that sometimes...” and she was all polite, but of course I was looking at her like she was an idiot cause I don’t understand it: This is your job, your job is to go round to people’s houses and fit curtains, this is not a great mental leap - that you can use something else, apart from the hideous thing you use all the time, to retain a curtain.
HUTCHBACK
Mm-hm.
DR. NOSTRUM
It just annoys me: all shit like that. But (pause) I was being a cunt.
HUTCHBACK
You were being a cunt.
DR. NOSTRUM
And I didn’t mean to be, I just was trying to say something simple, but the way I do it, and this is, again, M points out, I have a way of doing it that makes people think I am (pause) looking.. that I think very little of them.
HUTCHBACK
Which is probably true.
DR. NOSTRUM
Which is true. And that’s a problem,
HUTCHBACK
You see?
DR. NOSTRUM
But, it’s a great problem.
HUTCHBACK
You see, you have to mask...
DR. NOSTRUM
I have to learn how to not have a face...
HUTCHBACK
...(with a Jedi like pace) masking your feelings, (and back to normal) you see, this all goes back to (pause) bloody Paloma Picasso. It’s her fault.
DR. NOSTRUM
Is it?
HUTCHBACK
I blame her. I’d blame her for everything in fact – telling you, at a very impressionable age – that you should always be honest...
DR. NOSTRUM
Yes, and I’ve been honest ever since.
HUTCHBACK
...and you’ve been honest ever since and...
DR. NOSTRUM
And look where it’s got me...
HUTCHBACK
...it doesn’t get you anywhere.
DR. NOSTRUM
Well, it gets you up to the point where the people who don’t like it don’t help you. (pause) I’m trying to learn and I’m improving, but my face betrays me, that’s the trouble, I’ve got a face that betrays me...
HUTCHBACK
Mm-hmm
DR. NOSTRUM
...even if my voice is silky sweet and smooth I look at people in a certain way and they instantly know that I’m lying, (pause) and that I think they’re a cunt. (HUTCHBACK begins to snigger at this misfortune) And it’s begun to leach into my personal life (pause) and that’s a great problem. Ahh!
HUTCHBACK
Oh dear.
DR. NOSTRUM
It’s just not, you know, and the other thing is it’s not true, it’s just momentary.. It’s momentary annoyance, you know, it’s momentary annoyance that someone doesn’t see the world the way I see it, whereas of course (pause) no-one sees the world the way I see it (pause) all the time. So what can you do? Ahh! (pause) Exasperation. It’s a life of exasperation. Living with idiots, you know, living and working with idiots I every aspect of your life except when it doesn’t happen and the biggest idiot (pause) is the one that can’t accept it (pause) Tony Adams – there’s a fucking idiot. He got a book out of it.
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