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Absent Friends

Popular TV duo, Rant & Cheque apologised to fans last night after missing the show ‘This is Your Life’ made about them and in their honour.

‘We were unfortunately filming our next series, Celebrity Padded Cell, and only found out about This Is Your Life when a man cloned from Eamonn Andrews’s stem cells leapt out of the curtains.’

R & C’s agent justified their actions by adding:

‘The show must go on only applies to anything with a genuine Rant & Cheque logo, so they had to send the warm-up act, Pass & Move instead. Still, it keeps the public guessing doesn’t it, and Rant & Cheque can always appear again next year.’

The man behind the new This Is Your Life series, Graham Butty was disappointed naturally, but he himself was filming a documentary about celebrity pensions in Patagonia. He texted the following to Snotters News Agency:

Bt of a bmer RnC nt bng thr. PnM OK?

Butty knew how important it was to manage absences from awards. Nothing gave a career a greater boost to be seen on a set somewhere when receiving any kind of award. Indeed, some nominees careers had accelerated past award winners, as long as they were visible anywhere other than at the ceremony.

‘A’ listers made a habit of it. Not being at the awards ceremony itself suggested the award recipient knew nothing in advance, was more important than anyone of their peers at the ceremony, and was working 24/7/365. Those wishing to climb the greasy pole all had ‘stand-ins’ who could pop up immediately their famous masters managed yet another absence.

Unfortunately for Rant & Cheque, Pass and Move were fast coming up on the rails, and it was only a matter of time before P & M would get an award in their own right. They had won ‘Celebrity Stand-In of the Year’ for the last three years, and had groomed their own stand-ins, ready for the step up to the big time.

A number of things told P & M to get moving. One was that at least three Pass and Move tribute acts were already doing the club circuit. One P & M tribute act actually appeared on ‘Stars With Their Noses’ on a cable channel. The down side was that ‘Arse and Moan’ occasionally came to light in the sleazier medium-sized venues at weekends. Arse and Moan were no more than a soft porn satire of Rant & Cheque.

P & M’s stand-ins, Now & Then had first come to the public’s attention when appearing on ‘Muffer the Puffer.’ Muffer the Puffer was a women only show aired after the success [5000 viewers] of the men’s ‘Jasper the Gasper.’ M the P and J the G were shows in which ‘members of the public’ were invited to indulge in increasingly frowned upon and unacceptable behaviour, i.e. smoking in restaurants, lifts and at home, talking whilst eating, chewing gum at awards ceremonies, throwing fireworks at pensioners, driving whilst using mobile phones, parking in disabled spaces, shouting obscenities at neighbours and generally acting in a ‘f*** you’ manner.

Now and Then, or Sandra and Tracy as they were known before they teamed up, were at their most appalling on Muffer the Puffer. They won show after show, which was ‘interactive’, i.e., votes were cast on-line, by simply being themselves. Not only did they do everything above and more, they parachuted into local communities and turned whole estates into gaspers, gozzers, boozers, swearers, burpers, pukers, snotters, farters, slags and bum-crackers.

Legends in their own lunchtimes, Now and Then were champions of the underclass in every underpass. They had even introduced a new craze which was sweeping the country, Stub ‘n’ Rub. Stub out your fag in someone’s face, and laugh as they rubbed the burn, usually screaming.

The connection between Sandra and Tracey aka Now and Then, Ron and Ron, aka Pass and Move, and Rant and Cheque, aka Tarquin and Godiva had been made public.

It had been a front page story in the Daily Mail. ‘Rant and Cheque, alias Stub and Rub?’ was the headline. After a few mumblings on Channel 5, the connection was acknowledged by all three parties, and then dismissed. The essence of the rebuttal was:

‘Don’t most successful people start out a bit iffy? Schwarzenegger, Geri Halliwell, and dozens of Hollywood actors and actresses began their careers in soft porn movies. So what?’

Prime Minster Blair, who had often appeared with Rant and Cheque on TV, was asked for his opinion:

‘Well I agree with everything the Mail says. Rant and Cheque are wonderful people. Alistair Campbell used to write for porn magazines, and we in New Labour have benefited massively from donations from that industry. Doesn’t Berlusconi enjoy a bit of porn?’

Rant & Cheque, when they had once been pinned down and asked intelligent questions, attributed their success to Morecambe and Wise.

‘They were and are our heroes. Good clean fun, with just a bit of double entendre. Priceless observation of the stupidity of life, sharp writing, attention to detail, and perfect timing.’

‘We don’t need anything other than good timing for our act. The public today will put up with imbecilic behaviour, brain-dead punters, and more sex than a skip full of Viagra. You see Pass and Move do the imbecilic behaviour, whilst Now and Then entertain the brain dead. So when we appear, in truth we are representing the six of us, who in turn represent the whole corrupt industry.’

‘One thing we do know is that the public aren’t as stupid as they are portrayed on the screen. You know that when you go out and meet people. The whole world over is full of millions of well-intentioned, intelligent people. We’re all on borrowed time, like the jokers at ancient courts, and idiots you see trying to be clever on ‘reality’ shows.’

‘There are always three ways to process any occurrence. You see an absolute pillock become famous for being famous, and you despair; or you think, ‘I could do that.’ What about the realisation that we actually create this nonsense in our minds? If enough of us think about connection, peace, love and sanity, then the garbage can’t even appear on the radar.’

‘I suppose we, as Rant & Cheque, are becoming so over the top, you can rightly accuse us of lowering the tone of entertainment to the level of the gutter. And you would be right. However, there are a growing number of people who are seeing through it all. We know no-one will ever hear this stuff, and if they did, it would be the end of us and you cynics too, so we’re all safe.’

For now.

JS, January 2007.