01/12/08
Dr. Nostrum
I tremendously enjoy this business: there's this guy who my cousin knows, he goes off to Indonesia and he buys their rubbish...
Hutchback
Oh, pop music, Indonesian Pop..
Dr. Nostrum
No, no, no, no. It's nothing to do with pop music; it's actual rubbish...
Hutchback
Oh!
Dr. Nostrum
...it's like wooden bowls that they used to pound rice out in but they no longer work cos they've got cracks in them. You know, all this stuff they throw out to the side of houses and he stuffs containers full of it and he sells it to Habitat and people like that.
Hutchback
That's good.
Dr. Nostrum
So, and you know, we pay, like, a thousand pounds to buy something that doesn't work...
Hutchback
Probably not a thousand pounds.
Dr. Nostrum
No, no, Habitat were selling a lasong – these are called lasongs – these things they stuff rice in, you know, you've gat a wooden.. they use them all over the world – wooden..
Hutchback (for the benefit of the listener)
I'm shaking my head.
Dr. Nostrum
...um, Mahogany.. sideways (Hutchback's head, that is). Um, Mahogany – if you hollow out a bit of Mahogany and you make it into a kind of egg-timer shape, so you can use the bottom as well as the top...
Hutchback
Oh, those things!
Dr. Nostrum
Right.
Hutchback
What are they for?
Dr. Nostrum
They're for putting rice husks in...
Hutchback
Oh, ok.
Dr. Nostrum
...and then you smash it down and the husks separate from the...
Hutchback
Yeah, I think I have seen them.
Dr. Nostrum
...Right. So when they're broken – they don't work anymore cos they've got too many cracks in them – they just throw them away and this guy goes over there and he buys loads of them...
Hutchback
But what do you use them for?
Dr. Nostrum
Decoration
Hutchback
Ah...
Dr. Nostrum
We decorate our gardens with them
Hutchback
For a thousand pounds?!
Dr. Nostrum
Well, five hundred to a thousand...
Hutchback
An actual antique...
Dr. Nostrum
...bit of rubbish...
Hutchback
...antique bit of crap
Dr. Nostrum
... bit of crap. That's it, we're buying it.
Hutchback
Why buy new crap when you can buy old crap?
Dr. Nostrum
Cos old crap is better.
Hutchback
Old crap is better.
Dr. Nostrum
But can you imagine someone from over there coming over and buying all our plastic bags and crisp packets and...
Hutchback
No, they'd be buying, you know, old plastic garden furniture...
Dr. Nostrum
So that works? That probably does work, so actually that industry works.
Hutchback
Yeah
Dr. Nostrum
The garbage of one culture is another culture's, er...
Hutchback
Yeah, you know, old stereo's..
Dr. Nostrum
That's true.
Hutchback
Yeah, you see, there you go. You've figured something out there! Who'd have thought that, eh? Eh?
Dr. Nostrum
So one culture just buys rubbish from another culture cause they're just not familiar with it and they treat it as if it's something extraordinary?
Hutchback
Yeah
Dr. Nostrum
When in fact all it is, is just rubbish?
Hutchback
Yeah. (pause) However, it probably wouldn't work – you'd have to find an even poorer country...
Dr. Nostrum
Oh, that's true. We couldn't sell it could we? Cos the cost of getting over there..
Hutchback
No, you cert.. you could probably sell it to certain African...
Dr. Nostrum
Maybe these Chinese billionaires? There must be, in fact, Chinese billionaires must not have been able to see all the kind of rubbish that we generate over here. What would we.. what rubbish would we have generated that they don't have? (pause) Chopsticks?
Hutchback
Heat? (pause) Old copies of Heat magazine?
Dr. Nostrum
No.
Hutchback
They wouldn't get that!
Dr. Nostrum
No, it has to be something decorative. Like, what would we have that the Chinese...
Hutchback
Flock wallpaper.
Dr. Nostrum
It's hard to get off.
Hutchback
Woodchip. Woodchip wallpaper, um, pebbledash. If you could remove whole pieces of pebble-dashing...
Dr. Nostrum
Maybe
Hutchback
...you could sell it as ancient...
Dr. Nostrum
Art
Hutchback
...traditional...
Dr. Nostrum
Wall Art
Hutchback
...traditional English decorative Art.
Dr. Nostrum
That's probably not a bad idea, if you went over there and set up.. well, I don't know if you would. Where would you get it?
Hutchback
Fake Tudor beams. You know, from those 1930's – 1930's mock Tudor, you could sell that, you could definitely sell that.
Dr. Nostrum
Inside the new high rise apartments? I suppose so and you buy and you bring.. but it has to.. where.. where is all.. you know what there is, all these, these old radiators and everything that people throw out, they'd love all that.
Hutchback
Oh yeah.
Dr. Nostrum
Yeah, mind you, we buy 'em here I s'pose, but, you know.
Hutchback
Now, what about, erm, (pause) I was trying to w.. I was tr..
Dr. Nostrum
Where else have they got billionaires that would buy our rubbish? Russia, maybe? They've got similar rubbish to us though.
Hutchback
They do buy rubbish.
Dr. Nostrum
But they've got similar rubbish to us.
Hutchback
They have their own rubbish.
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