(Ben Swain, the Junior Minister that Ollie is "babysitting," arrives at the office.)
TerriBenjamin! Happy New Year!
Ben! Big Ben, Ben-Benji, Beno, Benj.
Happy New Year to you as well.
(to Ben) These are the briefing notes.
Ah, splendid. I'll file these directly in the shredder. Thank you, Glenn.
(Ben, Glenn and Ollie enter an office.)
(to Ben) If you just, uh, stick to what's in there, you'll be all right. Just remember, you're the night watchman, all right?
Yes, well, I like to think of myself as more, perhaps, I don't know, an elected MP than a night watchman, Glenn. But thank you very much for everything, I'll be fine without you holding my hand. You enjoy your weekend cottaging in Wales or whatever it is you're up to.
(Ollie picks up a copy of Ben's upcoming book, which is called, "It's the Everything, Stupid: How to Get Ahead in Modern Politics.")
(impressed) This is looking good. When is it coming out?
End of the, end of the week. You'll be able to make the launch party?
Terri
(to Ben) Great title.
And have you written it yourself or was it ghosted by, uh...
By Victoria Beckham? No, everything in there is entirely-entirely written by me, I think you'll find. Yes.
There you go, you have hidden talents.
Anyone heard from "The Hughster?"
Terri
Yes, he's suffering from jet lag.
(to Ben) Have you ever been to Australia?
No. Why would I want to go there? Full of people in khaki, squinting. Just the world's largest collection of poisonous things.
Oh, yeah. God, yeah. If you want to stick around with poisonous snakes, you might as well stay here.
(Awkward silence occurs after Ollie's stupid attempt at a joke.)
(jokingly) Throw a blanket on me, I'm on fire.
I'm not leaving it to you, eh? You couldn't organise a bum-rape in a barracks.
What we're having here is a secret conversation, and I'm hoping that this time you can keep the fucking secret, because normally you're about as secure as a hymen in a South London comprehensive.
Terri
Yep, well done: that's offensive on a number of levels in a very concise way.
They've ditched Ballentine.
What the fuck is wrong with these people? I mean, what is this, potential leader speed dating? Right, who is standing?
Adam Kenyon (to another journalist working on a Ballentine story): Well, ditch that for a starter, get rid of her, I can't stand her fucking face.
You know, I think you should eat something.
Oh right, yeah! Eat something, that'd be right, wouldn't it? You know what, our coverage so far has either been wrong or guesswork, which was wrong. So all we have now is a story-shaped hole!
Seriously, your blood sugar's low.
Makes you very irritable.
No, what makes me very irritable, Angela, is having no fucking stories and having to fill an entire newspaper with just fucking prepositions!
Fucking hell! Fuck! Jesus. I'm not a joke, okay? All right? Hello? I am a man! I am a man, you know? You know?! This... THIS...! THIS IS MY LIFE! I'M A HUMAN BEING, AND ALL THIS IS MY LIFE! And it's collapsing in front of me! You know, Tom's lot, they're never gonna want me, are they? And fucking Hugh, now he – Jesus Christ, this is all...! I AM A MAN! And –
Terri
I know, listen –
Terri
I do!
I'm irrelevant! No no, go away, I'm irrelevant, I'm irrelevant, I'm irrelevant.
Terri
Glenn, Glenn, Glenn –
FUCKING HUGH JUST WANTS TO SPEAK TO TINKY WINKY?! WELL, FUCK TINKY WINKY! FUCK YOU, TINKY WINKY! Auf Wiedersehen Pet, the party's over, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road! WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HITLER?! WELL, HE HAD A MOUSTACHE AND HE LIVED OVER THERE! FUCK US ALL!
(Meanwhile, Ollie Reeder and Terri Coverley are discussing the Cabinet reshuffle at DoSAC.)
(looking at his computer) Remtard at Energy and Climate Change.
Terri
Really? I'm not getting that. (Terri looks at her computer.) It's not on here. How did you get that about Remington?
(slightly annoyed) Refresh the page.
Terri
Yeah. Ah, yeah. Oh look, Fatty's staying put! They're not moving Fatty!
Yeah, well, that's 'cause they haven’t got five big blokes and a winch.
Terri
They couldn't really demote Fatty, 'cause he knows too much.
Well he doesn't know where the Ryvita is kept, does he?
(Hugh Abbot has lost his place in the reshuffle.)
Well. That's Hugh gone, then.
Terri
It's so sad, isn't it? Hugh.
(to Terri) You don't give a shit!
(beat)
Terri
...No, well, perhaps I don't.
Terri
(to Glenn and Ollie) Have you two finished emptying your desks yet?
(agitated) Yes, don't worry, Terri, we're all ready to go.
Terri
I'm just trying to get everything organised for whenever whoever arrives. They are gonna have their own people. It's gonna be very embarrassing if your hand cream's still in the drawer.
Terri
Yeah, well, whatever men have. I don't know, electric nose-hair trimmers, Ex-Lax...
(mocking Glenn) Aww, look at Glenn. Your face...On the scrapheap at the tender age of 76? It's no life for you, is it, Glenn, this? Hey, do you want me to call Dignitas? (beat) I could call Indignitas. They could come round and shove you out of the window dressed as a clown.
(Terri checks to see if Nicola's alright.)
Terri
You all right?
Yes, it's all a bit crazy. No, it just feels like my head's made entirely of smoke alarms. (laughing) At the moment, it's all a bit OOH... (Nicola mimes an explosion.)
Terri
Yes, well, it was a bit of a shock for us all, you know.
Terri
In a good way, in a good way.
Terri
Well, like twins or a tax rebate.
(Meanwhile, in Nicola's office...)
So, uh, you got three kids, yeah?
Yeah. Katie's 16, she's the eldest. She's just left school.
Not going to a college or university?
Um, she's a bit of a rebel.
(concerned) What sort of a rebel? I mean, so, I mean, look, what are we talking here? Are we talking a pierced navel or holidays at Pakistani training camp?
It's-it's chiefly heroin. (beat) Although she has cut down since getting pregnant by that Nigerian people-smuggler, because the track marks would have affected her porn career.
(Terri has awkwardly entered the office. She politely apologizes for the interruption, but feels...a little awkward about the conversation taking place.)
Terri
I'm sorry to disturb. Um... (to Malcolm) Morning, Malcolm.
Terri
(to Nicola) Just wanted to give you a few things here. That's change from the fruit salad. This is this morning's paper. Do excuse me.
(Terri politely leaves the office...and Nicola resumes her chat with Malcolm.)
Um, I'm surprised that you, uh, haven't vetted me, I thought you'd know about the kids.
It's just that 'cause you were just a sort of, you were a bit of a late-ish kind of appointment.
That didn't quite give me the time to, you know, to "fuck the I'd and fist the T's," as Robert Robertson might say.
(to Ollie) Sounds to me like that she's only bringing in, um, one other person, so...you know, I wonder whether she might keep one of us on permanently.
Terri
Thank God I'm safe.
(annoyed) Je- We know you're safe, Terri! How do we know you're safe? We know your safe, because you keep using the word "safe," like bloody Jim Bowen!
[imitating Jim Bowen presenting Bullseye)] Yeah, you've got DoSAC, that's safe. Do you want to go for the treasury, young lady?
(Nicola suspects that Malcolm set up the 'I am bent' photos)
Malcolm. Sorry, can we just carry on talking about that thing? Was it you who positioned me there?
(waiting for a lift) Do you know what the first sign of madness is? Paranoia. Have you seen that film, you know, A Beautiful Mind, the one with that, err, Russell Crowe? The one where the maths guy thinks that the CIA are working away in his shed at the bottom of his garden? That's you.
No. I'm not the mad one here. You are the mad one, you're Russell Crowe.
No, no, no, no, you are Russell Crowe. (waves patronisingly at her) And you need to fucking listen to me, Russell, you fucking Antipodean fucking kangaroo-loving fruitcake! See this poster stuff? That's fucking small fry. That's fucking whitebait, Russ me old cobber. (enters the lift) The really horrible stuff, that's all still about to happen to you, right? Right, you're coming in here so we can carry this on?
Err, if you can spare the time!
Err, no. (pause) No, I can't – I don't use lifts, I'm claustrophobic.
(incredulous) You're what?
Not hugely, I can be in rooms, you've seen that, I just... don't do lifts, that's all.
But this lift is – I mean, it's fucking huge! I mean, this is bigger than some rooms, this is bigger than some people's flats!
It's about not being able to get out.
Oh, well that's great. That's fucking great, that's another fucking thing, right there: not only have you got a fucking bent husband and a fucking daughter that gets taken to school in a fucking sedan chair, you're also fucking mental! Jesus Christ, see you, you are a fucking omnishambles, that's what you are. You're like that coffee machine, you know: "from bean to cup, you fuck up".
(to herself, returning to her office) He so is Russell Crowe!
Terri
(at her desk, overhearing) Who?
(deleted scene)
Because if you are worried about Malcolm, well, you know, Ollie and I have amassed one or two tips, how to deal with him, over the years. It's pretty much common sense, really: don't drive a gas guzzler, don't sign up for Bupa, don't have an affair. Don't tell racist jokes, however ironic.
Don't send your children to independent schools.
Don't dig up Diana and have Patrick Moore play Nazi drinking songs on her ribs.
(deleted scene)
Yeah I suppose so, he's gonna have to let her go free-range for a week, isn't he? Till after the by-election. Then he can snap her beak off, cram her into the battery cage;
'I'm not really good with cages', (impersonates Malcolm) 'Get in there Nicola, fucking get in till you're perfectly square, and you're shiteing cuboid eggs!'
Terri
(sighing) Thank God I'm safe. I'm glued to this department and you'd have to steam me off.
Yeah. Well you don't have to worry about me: You don't hang around in this business as long as I have without picking up contacts.
Yes, but Disraeli's dead, Glenn, he died in the Crimea, did you not hear the town crier announce it?
(deleted scene)
It's never too soon to go to Leamington. It's the Venice of the Midlands, if Venice was fucking horrible.
Have a lovely time in Leamington, yeah? I hear it's got the best Lidl in the West Midlands.
(deleted scene)
(at the poster launch in Leamington) And we need to be investing, er, at least –
Invest? Did I hear her say 'invest'?
Terri
(on the phone) Ollie, she's gone off-piste, she's off the mountain now.
Oh, Jesus. She's so far off the mountain, she's being finger-banged in a chalet by Bigfoot.
(Nicola is in the bathroom -- on her cell phone, though. She's having a chat with Terri, who's driving her car while talking to Nicola.)
Terri
(on the phone, happily) Hi, Nicola!
Have you read up about this Peter Mannion second holiday thing on the Dig Deep blog?
Terri
No, no, I haven't actually seen that. Where's he off to?
Amalfi. So could you make a few phone calls? See if you can get it some press traction?
Terri
I'm sorry, I just can't do that. That's a party political matter. You're gonna have to get John Duggan onto that, 'cause it's his responsibility.
Trouble is, Terri, that the only thing John Duggan is doing here is depriving a village somewhere of a twat.
Terri
Ah, yes, I've heard he's about as useless as a chocolate teapot. Although I probably shouldn't say that, sounds a bit racist, doesn't it?
Terri
I'm ju-just on the way down to Hastings to see my sister. Poor thing, having some trouble shifting a piano. So what I'm doing is I'm working from home today.
No, you're not working and you're not at home, so as my 16-year old would say, "You are totally busted."
(And make no mistake -- Terri is totally busted! She exhales, knowing Nicola has caught her in a lie.)
(Nicola makes her phone call to...Terri.)
Terri
(answering in a sing-song voice) Hello?
Terri, it's-it's Nicola again. We're at DEFCON 1. Or-Or 5, or whichever the really bad one is.
Terri
(looking out her car window) You stupid pillock! Oh, boy racers.
(getting desperate) Terri, can you harness that anger and bring it down to Eastbourne, please? I desperately need you to come down and help me.
Terri
(replying to Nicola) The problem is this party political problem, because I'm a civil servant and I cannot possibly be seen to have anything to do with a party conference.
(begging) Terri, please, I'm standing in a factory that makes fans, right? And a-a man has walked in with a giant shit-spraying machine, and you happen to be bunking off work and not very far away, so I need you here!
Terri
(reluctantly giving in) Listen, I've got a cagoule in the back and I could come incognito with the hood up, if that's gonna help you out.
(Nicola is discussing what she's going to say about her Fourth Sector Initiative on Richard Bacon's radio show with Terri and Glenn.)
Fourth sector, people power. Inspiring each other out of disadvantage.
Terri
And you need to put in the liking words as well, not just the headlines.
I am going to talk in complete sentences.
Terri
I think you should rehearse with those headlines.
Okay, how about "I believe in people power. Will you fuck off, Terri?" Is that okay?
The Thick Of It · 395 quotes
