What is a curmudgeon?
The Collins dictionary defines the word as a noun, meaning "a surly or miserly person", but really it's just a term we nicked off Lee and Herring, of TV's Fist of Fun, who we really like and who are masses funnier than us and have ideas to spare. Probably.
Ah, so this is some kind of rip-off, then?
We'd prefer to think about it as an homage. Or summat.
Why is it so ugly?
We prefer the term "minimalist".
But it is ugly?
Ah, but like Quasimodo, it's what's on the inside that counts. Well, unless you're buying new shirts, then the outside is quite important.
What the hell are you talking about?
Ah, a very good question. Basically, the educational system has left us with over-active imaginations and a morbid fascination with facts.
What's a fact?
It's very important to note the difference between facts, information and data. Data is intellectual static, the unapplied observation of the universe and probably involves maths and is dead hard. Information is what you get when you remove all the dull stuff from data and try to impress people with what's left. Information becomes a fact when you learn it, and then can't help telling everyone you know that same nugget of factiness. For example, everyone knows that there is such a thing as toy racing car. That is mere data and of no interest to us. If you can name more than two types of toy racing track, then you have information, and this is good. But if you can walk into a model shop and complain that the ailerons on a model are from the first half of 1996, but the specific font for the chocolate sponsor's advert was that used only at the Grimsby Grand Prix, which was in the latter half of the season, and therefore the model has no credibility, then you know facts! Facts are Good! Facts are great for clearing a route to the food table at parties! Once you are at the table, people will be afraid to come near you, in case you tell them about track gauges and ampage drop-off! This is how we developed our Dorito addictions.
It gets fairly twisted sometimes. Do you guys take drugs?
No, we don't. Which, if you think about it, is a blessing. Because if we're like this straight, think what we'd be like on peyote. You'd have to buy a mop.
There's an awful lot of it. Do you people have nothing else to do with your lives?
There's moments like this when it would be handy to be American, so we could plead the Fifth, and not be forced to talk about "hollow shams" and "wasted potential". But we get to see loads of films and stuff for free, so hah!
You guys have "wasted potential"? Potential for what?
Terrifyingly enough, between the editors there are a total of four university qualifications. If ever you needed a searing indictment of the travesty that is our educational system, then there you go.
So who the hell does your proofreading?
The one with the degree in Publishing Studies. Shows, doesn't it.
What do you actually do with your time?
Pete spends his time being hired for ludicrous sums of money, working for a firm for six months and then being head-hunted by the firm over the corridor, who offer him even more insanely vast wads of cash. He then works for them for six months, until getting head-hunted again. Amongst his hobbies, Pete enjoys emptying his desk and attending 'good luck in you new job' parties.
Richard M. Whittaker likes to claim that he's some kind of journalist and almost sells stories sometimes. He spends most of the day shouting at the TV, trying to find his keys and writing letters to Dale Winton, in which he suggests new rounds for Supermarket Sweep. None of his ideas have ever been taken up.
Back to the plot: what precisely are you trying to achieve with the Mudge?
Well, either we're trying to form a symbiotic relationship with an appreciative audience, which can finally be used to create a tide of public pressure, resulting in global reforms, the disarmament of all armed forces, deployment of resources dependent upon need first and desire second, culminating in a determined and unified push for the stars: or we're just trying to get loads of neat stuff for free and rant a bit about Brian Redhead and widescreen videos.
So what do you talk about in the 'Mudge?
Richard likes to discuss the metaphysical constraints placed upon ideas of platonic love in a Neitzchien environment, but normally gets diverted by new Colgate toothpaste advertising campaigns. Pete, however, has to be actively restrained from abandoning all topics of conversation in favour of reciting dialogue from The Sweeney.
Ah, but aren't you just buying into this counter-culture kitsch thing, made so fashionable in recent years by ranks of second-rate comedians and Mod revivalists, of knowing loads about obscure 70s tat and sit-coms?
That's where you're wrong: those culture slugs you mention are only doing it to appear hard and cool when they hang out at the Groucho club, whereas Pete is genuinely hoping for a new season of Oh, No! It's Selwyn Frogget. But that's only because even he has accepted that The Gaffer is never coming back.
Have either of you failed the Turing test?
Failure is such a subjective term. Although Pete did once get mistaken for a random number generator. At a party. A birthday party. His 23rd, actually.
You two didn't get out much when you were kids, did you?
We had books and the Radio Times. We didn't need friends.
Bet you used to keep your Plasticine colours separate, rather than rolling them up into a big, sludgy-brown mess? Didn't you?
Maybe. Sometimes. Because if you didn't, then how could you get the strips back into the cellophane wrappings and the cardboard containers? Answer me that, smarty.
Don't date much either, do you?
We refuse to buy into the traditionalised concept that individuals cannot be complete psychic entities without the assistance of a life partner, where the concept of pairing has been transformed from an emotional to an enforceable legal paradigm. Anyway, we have books and TV Quick.
Not dating now, are you?
What are you saying here?
You dancin'?
You askin'?
I'm askin'.
I'm dancin'. La-la-la-la, la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-Liverbirds.
Under what circumstances will the 'Mudge cease to appear?
When any of the following criteria are met
Then we'll be a little preoccupied.
Did Whit really stand near Michael Hordern?
Absolutely! It's unbelievably true. He got hired to appear in a very awful movie called Diamond Skulls in 1989, as an extra at a party. He only got the job because he had his own dinner jacket, which his parents brought for him when he went to university, because they thought he'd go to lots of balls and soirees and stuff. Yeah, right. Anyway, he was on the set, and Michael Hordern was there and unbelievably old. The end.
Is that it? Not much of an anecdote.
We didn't say it was interesting, we just said it happened. Amanda Donohoe was there as well, and she's much taller than you think, while Gabriel Byrne just looked embarrassed all the time. Well, you would be too, wouldn't you, if you had any idea at all that you might be appearing in Cool World in the next few years. Oh! Oh! and Sadie Frost was there as well.
Who's Sadie Frost?
Oh, you remember her.
No.
Oh.
Well?
Oh, right. She was the one who played Lucy in the Coppola version of Dracula. You must remember that one, the one where Keanu Reeves hair kept changing colour for no readily apparent reason. Anyway, this was back before she had the orthodontistry and she just kept yattering on about how this was going to be her big break and everything, and that even though she was actually on the cast, dah-ling, she didn't mind hanging out with the extras. Little did she know that Shopping was just around the corner, waiting to put the kaibosh on her trip to Oscar acceptance speeches.
When will the madness end?
Now
RMW