Terri (on the phone): I think we're just playing it in the wrong key. It's when we go, (sings at a low pitch) 'Red and yellow and blue' –
NicolaWhat's she talking about?
Oh. She's putting on her annual production of Joseph, in Hemel Hempstead. She doesn't license it ever because she considers Joseph to be public domain.
But I need to just pitch it a little higher. More like, (sings at a much higher pitch) 'Red and yellow and blue and green' –
She's directing it. And starring.
Nicola
With a beard?
Well, one assumes with a beard. Maybe she'll just let herself go for a couple of weeks, see what happens.
(All DoSAC staff are leaving because of the election)
See you, Nicola! (to herself) Or not.
(deleted scene)
Is this good, all this panic? I haven't seen Snakes on a Plane, but I imagine this is pretty much how people would react on finding their plane was brimming with snakes.
Nicola
Except Malcolm is the snakes, isn't he? I mean, this is more Snakes Not on a Plane.(deleted scene)
Malcolm (walking into Steve's office): Steve! Look! I've made an unexpected comeback. Like Noel Edmonds or secondary cancer.
SFSteve Fleming
Don't get any ideas, Malcolm. I can cut you loose any time I like; I can toss you aside like an unwanted panettone, which, I warn you, is most panettones.(deleted scene)
Cal Richards (giving his pre-election pep talk): Remember, this government is like going out with Madonna: at first you think, 'Result'; now we wake up every morning to see an increasingly crazed, craggy-faced egomaniac who jumps on every fucking passing bandwagon.(deleted scene)
Terri (leaving an answerphone message): If you have any political enquiries, at any time, 24 hours a day, Oliver Reeder and Glenn Cullen will take –
24 hours a day? Fuck off. No, we're political advisors, we're not fucking prostitutes.
Well, you've spoilt it now.
Right, sorry to interrupt you at this very sad time, but we do have Prime Minister's Questions in one hour.
Nicola
No it's fine, I've got the lead question, I've got the follow-up sarcastic question and I've got the withering put-down, so I'm prepped, I'm fucking prepped.
Yep. You'll walk rings round him.Ben: The Leader of the Opposition is in that room, Malcolm, practising walking. I mean, baby horses can walk from the womb, she's one-nil down to a pony.
A pony isn't a baby horse, it's a foal, a fucking foal is a baby horse.
Right, our guest tonight on 'I Don't Give a Fuck about Baby Horses' is me. But we need to do something about Nicola, Malcolm, I mean, you know about her plan – I mean, Nicola with a plan, that's like a toddler with a harpoon, there's a toddler wandering around in that office with a harpoon.
Yes, well, don't you worry about Nicola's plan. I'll deal with that, Sweaty Betty – Listen, when you wake up in the morning you've got a routine, haven't you?
Big shit, granola, check the email, shower and a shave, Nespresso, sometimes a second shit.
Exactly. You have a plan: that's good. Nicola has a plan: that's not good. But I have a plan: that's fucking great.Malcolm (seeing Nicola bend down in front of the photocopier): Oh, that's very moving: 'They shall not grow old, who photocopy their arses at the Christmas do'.
(Nicola and her advisers, Ollie Reeder & Helen Hatley, are brainstorming ideas for a buzzword for do-gooder members of the public.)
They're commuters, they are the street-pounders, street – walkers, um –
Nicola
You can't call them streetwalkers.
They're the people who deal with the little stuff, erm – Wombles, Honest Wombles, Everyday Wombles?
Sorry, I've just got to take a call.
Nicola
Erm, straights.
Nicola
No. No, of course, sorry.
Nicola
Interrai– human interrailers –
Human interrailers? That's interrailers. Er, everyday superstars, all British supremes –
That sounds like a racist tribute band.
Nicola
Ordinary people, with something special about them, with a special power.
Please don't say special. Don't say special.
Nicola
No but – you know, but like sup– people as superheroes.
Ironpeople, Spiderpeople. Wolfpeople.
Nicola
They're just regular citizens, but they have this – that one special quality that makes them like Batman, or Batpeople. Erm, Quiet Batpeople.
(glaring) Quiet Batpeople?
Nicola
Before we finish, I just want to throw one more pebble into the thought pool.
Nicola
Sorry Ben, I missed that?
Just I'm sorry, I just, I said 'ploop', it's just the noise of a pebble.
(A photographer has managed to take a picture of Helen's 'Quiet Batpeople' notes)
Nicola
"Quiet Batpeople" on every fucking paper!
Right, this is a wake-up call. And by the way, Helen, the next time you want to make Nicola look like a clown with her fucking hair on fire in a Zumba class, why don't you just take your notes down to Snappy Snaps and get them blown up to gigantic charity cheque size, so the partially sighted can be in on the fucking gag?
I didn't know they'd be able to see it!
So we have to seize the agenda. We have to deflect attention away from all this. It's now time to embrace our friend Mr. Tickle.
Nicola
I can't even say his name without smiling.
Yeah, well, he's not smiling, is he? He's living in a tent, 'cause his key-worker housing's been sold off.
Yes, and he's a 24-carat fucking nutcase. Which means that Peter Mannion has been picking on a man with a history of depression. That's a way right into the Principality of Pricks right there.
(answers his mobile) Hi Mum. Yeah, a bit sore –
(entering Ollie's room) Here she is, Britain's latest post-op transsexual. How did they do that, did they actually manage to graft one on? (briefly lifts up Ollie's bedsheet)
I'll call you back, Mum. (hangs up) It's the scary Morrissey!
(throws Ollie some flowers) I've come to cheer you up.
Did you actually buy me flowers, Malcolm?
No no no, it's one of the many advantages of living close to an accident blackspot. So how are things, the little boy from The Secret Garden?
Well, you know, there's no Wi-Fi, there's basic Freeview. It's like living in 2003. But I am lighter to the tune of one whole appendix, so I do feel very svelte.
So have you seen this? (holds up the Guardian, which leads with an interview with Steve Fleming)
(reads the headline) "Nicola Murray is 'unelectable'"?
(throws Ollie the paper) Fleming is foaming.
Is that it then, is she fucked?
Like Caligula's favourite watermelon. Fleming's fired the starting pistol so we can all start firing our actual pistols into her fucking fat unelectable smug head.
It's on. It's on like Fat Pat's thong. We're putting Nicola on a train today to Bradford. It's the closest as I could get to locking her in a metal box.
Oh, this is the Here 2 Hear thing. What a great idea, going around the country listening to people tell you that they hate you, just in different accents. (In various accents) "I fucking hate you." "I hate you." "I fucking hate you."
So wait, today's the day?
Today's the day. Once she's on the train, I'm going to detonate the main bomb, but I need you to set one off later.
(laughing) Malcolm, I'm in hospital, I'm not wearing any pants!
I don't care if you've been dead for a year and playing cribbage with Jimmy fucking Savile. I want you to make a bomb and explode it, today.
(confused) This is a metaphorical bomb, right?
This is it, Jack fucking Bauer. Time for you to embrace your inner bastard.
Nicola
I'm not going to exploit a suicide.
Come on, you can't look a gift corpse in the mouth, you should be taking that corpse and slapping the Government about the face with it. Bit of slap with Tickle, yeah?
Nicola
No, I'm not doing it, it's insensitive, as was that.
Nicola
Erm, John, maybe –
Please, call me JD, I've rebranded.
Nicola
Right. So John, if you could get us some drinks, that would be great.
Abso-dutely, I could murder a lager! It's all right drinking on trains, isn't it, it's one of those places where alcohol is acceptable at any time of day, like a casino, or Cardiff. That's not racist. I could have said Glasgow, or Dublin.
(Meanwhile, Nicola and Helen are on a train back to London, when Nicola realizes...)
Nicola
I never act on impulse. I'm so not impulsive. And Malcolm made me do it now, fuck!
Nicola
Launching this inquiry may prove to be misguided in that I now recall I may have fleetingly supported the policy myself.
(in disbelief) So you've essentially launched an investigation into yourself.
Nicola
Malcolm made me do it.
Nicola
You've met Malcolm. I would've said that it was ethically bad.
I'll tell you what you said, just give me a minute. (Helen scoffs) Brilliant. Courtesy of the Telegraph website. You said, "Great revenue raiser, but I'm afraid it's a no-no because of my bloody husband." I'm sorry. Why would you do that?
Nicola
You remember all your e-mails, do you, that you sent three years ago? Because from what I understand from Ollie, a large number of them were sent to that married producer on the Daily Politics.
Ollie is a fucking...because...He was supposed to leave her and...
(Helen wants to come up with a better rescue plan.)
Okay, while we're on our way back to London, maybe we should make a list of the things, you know, you're for and against. Let's start with something simple. Animals in circuses?
Nicola
Tell you what. Why don't you make the little list and shove it up your tight, cold arse? I just need to stare.
Malcolm (to party staff, ahead of Nicola's arrival): Right, stop rolling around naked in the headlines; blind man's crumpet's on the way up. If you're gonna film her on your phones, try not to make it obvious, and no smiling. Not even a wee fucking Anne Robinson, right? The look we're going for should be solemn respect: you know, like blokes modelling underpants.
(Nicola Murray is trying to ask Dan Miller, the new Leader of the Opposition, NOT to go through with launching the inquiry.)
Nicola
This inquiry, you know, it's not really necessary now, so if-if you want to say that, I'll just back down.
(unmoved) An inquiry wouldn't be a bad thing. A clean break with the past in the minds of the electorate.
Nicola
Well, I mean, the electorate, you know, like me. (chuckling) Quite a lot of them voted me leader, so...
But you only beat me on a technicality.
Nicola
Yeah. I mean the thing is, Dan, (Dan nods) you know, pragmatically, I'm now a party grandee – (Malcolm enters) Malcolm, this is a private conversation.
(Malcolm takes a chair and sits down.)
You are not a grandee, you are a fucking blandee. No one knew what the fuck you stood for. Political fucking mist. No substance, no weight. You've got all the charm of a rotting teddy bear by a graveside. By the way...women fucking hate you. I can show you the polling. They think you come across like a jittery mother at a wedding. The best thing you ever did in your flatlining non-leadership was call for an inquiry, because that will fuck the government and it will fuck you. So now, please, just fuck off back to your home, you headless frump, and prepare for your column in Grazia.
Steady on, Malcolm, that's a bit strong.
(to Nicola) Come on, let's go.
Nicola
Okay, you, well...You just need to know that you have absolutely fucking done it now, Malcolm, because you are about to find out what it feels like to have me pissing in your tent.
Well, you know what? Your piss will never fucking make it into my tent, because by some unforeseen Nicola Murray-shaped fiasco, like every fucking Nicola Murray-shaped fiasco I've had to deal with for the last two years. you'll end up blowing your own fucking stream into your own fucking face. There's your golden handshake.
Nicola
Finished?
Nicola
(to Malcolm) We'll see. (to Dan) Right, well, thanks, Dan. Think about what I said. Also might want to think about the fact there should be an apostrophe in "its" (pointing to the "Its Miller Time" sign) Illiterate fuckers.
(Nicola has discovered that Declan, the journalist due to interview her, is the man behind 'Mr Chop'!)
Nicola
I am, uh...ever so close to being on the verge of bawling my fucking eyes out' disappointed about this. I mean, this was it, was it? What was the alternative, going on Strictly Come Dancing and doing a fucking hooky waltz with Abu Hamza? This is pretty low. This is lower than my mother's pelvic floor, Helen.
I had to virtually go on the game to get you this. So, frankly, I don't care whether he wants to roll around in applesauce with you. Get in there and do as you're told.
Nicola
(taking a breath) Right. I will go, because I'm choosing to go in. But I just need you to know for the record...
Just get in there before I push you in.
The Thick Of It · 395 quotes
