Idea for a program - "Agent Natsionalnoi"......

...or "National Agent" is one of the most popular TV soaps in Russia, and this morning I had the "pleasure" of viewing it for the first time.

The general plot is as follows - the mysterious Agent Natsionalnoi, known only as Nikolai, drives round St Petersburgi n a Lada, fighting the various criminal and terrorist factions of the city bare-handed. This episode though, after infiltrating an armed gang of neo-fascist skinheads and confiscating their weapons, Nikolai carelessly gave one of their grenades to an orphan, who then proceeded to accidently blow up his best friend. So now the police are investigating the incident and are hot on the tail of our hero.

Yes, someone actually comissioned a soap about a Lada-driving maverick crime fighter. And people watch it in their millions. What next on Russian TV, Monkey Tennis?

 

Arm wrestling with Chaz and Dave??

 

Tell thi wot ...

Alan: Right, OK. ‘Shoestring’, ‘Taggart’, ‘Spender’, ‘Bergerac’, ‘Morse’. What does that say
to you about regional detective series’?
Tony: There’s too many of them?
Alan: That’s one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is, ‘people like them, let’s
make some more of them’. A detective series based in Norwich called ‘Swallow’. Swallow
is a detective who tackles vandalism. Bit of a maverick, not afraid to break the law if he
thinks it’s necessary. He’s not a criminal, but he will, perhaps, travel 80mph on the motorway
if he, for example, he wants to get somewhere quickly…

[Tony Hayers shakes his head.]

Alan: Think about it. No-one had heard of Oxford before ‘Inspector Morse’. I mean, this will
put Norwich on the map.
Tony: Why would I want to do that?
Alan: Yep, fair point. OK, right. ‘Alan Attack!’. Like the Cook Report, but with a more
slapstick approach.
Tony: [Shakes his head again] No.
Alan: ‘Arm Wrestling with Chas and Dave’.
Tony: I don’t think so.
Alan: Pity, because they were very keen on that one. Right, ah, now you’ll like this one.
‘Knowing M.E., Knowing You’. I, Alan Partridge, talk to M.E. sufferers about the condition.
You know, we intersperse it with their favourite pop songs, make it light-hearted, you know,
give them a platform, you’ve got to keep the energy up, because…

[Tony shakes his head, horrified.]

Alan: You don’t like it?
Tony: No.
Alan: That’s alright, that’s OK. ‘Inner-City Sumo’.
Tony: What’s that?
Alan: We take fat people from the inner cities, put them in big nappies, and then get them to
throw each other out of a circle that we draw with chalk on the ground.
Tony: No, no it’s a bad idea.
Alan: Very cheap to make.
Tony: No.
Alan: Do it in a pub car park.
Tony: [Laughing] No.
Alan: If you don’t do it, Sky will.
Tony: Well I’ll live with that. Is that it?
Alan: Well, no, no. Cooking in prison.
Tony: [Laughing] Oh, no.
Alan: [Desperately] ‘A Partridge Amongst The Pigeons’.
Tony: What’s that?
Alan: Well, it’s just a title, I mean… erm, well, opening sequence, me, in Trafalgar Square, feeding
the pigeons, going "Oh God!"
Tony: [Holds his hands up] No, I’m sorry, no! Stop!
Alan: Whoa, whoa, whoa, erm, ‘Youth Hosteling with Chris Eubank’.
Tony: [Laughing and shaking head] No!

[Pause]

Alan: ‘Monkey tennis’?

 

best comedy program ever written. scientific fact

proven in labs.

"Butter your Arse"!

 

One of my personal favourites ...

Alan: You’re joining me, Alan Partridge, and Peter Baxendale Thomas of the Norfolk Farmer’s
Union. Now, yesterday I, sort of, trod in a rather large farmer’s pat when I made some
comments about intensive farming. Where did I go wrong?
Peter: Well I think your comments were ill-founded. They were deeply ignorant, they showed
a complete lack of understanding of modern agricultural methods, and simply served to
highlight the sort of intense stupidity that farmers encounter from armchair pundits who
forget to think before they open their mouths. But with a full and frank apology that you’re
about to give us this morning I’m sure you can dig yourself out of this rather ugly hole.

[Alan has looked increasingly irritated throughout Peter’s speech. He now forces a smile.]

Alan: Yeah. Erm, sorry. Er, do you have any requests, anybody you want to say hello to,
or…?
Peter: Look, I’m just trying to say that when you make ignorant comments like you did the
other day, you serve simply to alarm the public and inflame the farmers, which is exactly
what you’ve done. Why don’t you just apologise and make it nice and simple –

[Alan interrupts Peter with a loud impression of a cow’s moo.]

Alan: Thought that’d fool you. You could talk the hind-legs off a donkey. But your donkeys
are probably born without hind legs because of all the chemicals you put in their… chips.
Peter: Alan, I don’t have donkeys. And even if I did I wouldn’t feed them chips. This is exactly
the sort of rubbish you came up with the other day when you talked about putting a spine
in a bap.
Alan: I admit that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have said bap.
Peter: Well, good. Well, that’s a start.
Alan: Well, no, I should have said baguette. Because a spinal column would fit in a baguette.
Peter: Listen, you’ve upset half the farmers in this community. You seem to alienate everybody
you come across, including, I gather, your wife, which is why you end up living like some
bloody tramp in a lay-by.
Alan: It’s a travel tavern.
Peter: I don’t care what you call your sordid little grief-hole. It makes no difference to me.
The fact is that an awful lot of my colleagues, are –
Alan: [Interrupting] Are farmyard animals, yes.
Peter: You’re talking about my friends, here.
Alan: I’ve probably got more friends than you’ve got cows.
Peter: This is ridiculous.
Alan: How many cows have you got?
Peter: I’ve got a hundred cattle.
Alan: Yeah, I’ve got a hundred and four friends.
Peter: I don’t see what this is going to gain you. Why don’t you just issue a frank and full
retraction of what you said, and you’ll get yourself out of a lot of silly bother.
Alan: Yeah, you are a big posh sod with plums in your mouth.
Peter: I don’t think it’s got anything to do with class –
Alan: And the plums have mutated and they’ve got beaks.
Peter: Beaks?
Alan: Yes, beaks.
Peter: Have you got any more of this, or do you want to stop at quacking plums?
Alan: No, no. You make pigs smoke.
Peter: I want to know where you think you earned the right to go swanning off on these
ludicrous flights of –
Alan: Ah, swans. You feed beefburgers to swans.
Peter: Do I?
Alan: Yes, you do.
Peter: Alright, well, perhaps you can tell me what’s wrong with feeding beefburgers to
swans?
Alan: What?
Peter: Well if you fill a swan’s stomach up with beefburgers it’s full of fat and it’ll float better.
That’s why we do it.
Alan: Really?
Peter: No, you complete cretin. I’m just contributing to this total farce. What else are you
going to accuse me of?
Alan: I’ll tell you what. You farmers, you don’t like outsiders, do you? You like to stick to
your own.
Peter: What do you mean by that?
Alan: I’ve seen the big-eared boys on farms.
Peter: Oh, for goodness’ sake.
Alan: If you see a lovely field with a family having a picnic, and there’s a nice pond in it, you
fill in the pond with concrete, you plough the family into the field, you blow up the tree, and
use the leaves to make a dress for your wife who’s also your brother.
Peter: Look, have I got anything else to say here or shall I go?
Alan: Well, listen, I’ll tell you what the point is. You have big sheds, but nobody’s allowed in,
and inside these big sheds are twenty foot high chickens. Because of all the chemicals you
put in them.

[While Alan talks, Peter shakes his head, gathers his stuff together, and goes to leave..]

Alan: And these chickens are scared. They don’t know why they’re so big. They go "oh
why am I so massive?" And they’re looking down on all the other little chickens, and they t
hink they’re in an aeroplane because all the other chickens are so small… do you deny that?
[Peter has left] No. His silence, I think, speaks volumes.

[Lynn enters the room. Alan gestures furiously at her to take Peter’s seat. She does.]

Alan: And… and basically, do you agree that everything I’ve said thus far is completely
correct?
Lynn: Yes.

[Alan mouthes "lower", and gestures.]

Lynn: [In a deep voice] Yes.
Alan: And do you also run over badgers in your tractor, for fun?
Lynn: Yes.
Alan: Thank you, Peter Baxendale Thomas. This is T’Pau.

[Music plays, T’Pau’s ‘China In Your Hand’]

 

RE: One of my personal favourites ...

Genius. Love that scene - "Ah, swans. You feed beefburgers to swans".

I got a....a little bit bored...so i..dismantled a corby trouser press!

 

RE: One of my personal favourites ...

"Hello....can you put porn on my TV?"

 

Inner City Sumo

I'd definitely watch it, especially a women's version.

 

Or ...

[Cut to close-ups of an eagle, a barn owl, then a vulture, then Lynn and Alan in a section of the
sanctuary where many varied birds of pray are tethered in a row.]

Alan: It looks a little like death row, doesn’t it? I’m sorry, Mr. Hawk. You’re pardon has been
turned down. You have been found guilty of pre-meditated homicide of a mouse, and you’ll be
hanged by the neck until dead. And don’t try to hover up so that the rope goes slack. Because
they could do that, couldn’t they? If you tried to hang a hawk, they could always hover so the
rope went slack. So, I suppose if you were going to execute a bird of prey the most humane way
would be death by firing squad.

 

A match program ?

Hey Noodles! This could be a new look for you.

 

RE: Or ...

Had the Cudderth dog been culling mice, then?

 

you been to Riga yet?

 

Last weekend. You know them Russians don't you?

Well tell em to leave the Baltics alone now will you?

The whole place is still holding its breath.

 

What do you mean? Did you encounter any bother?

 

"Get you on the old 'jeans' rule did they? Nazi's!"

 

No mate.

I just couldn't believe what's been going on there. All the killing, tanks in the streets of Riga as late as '89. They never really rolled over either. Top people.