Hobbit

The lovely Mr BC and I are dining in Pizza Express in Chiswick. A young man comes in to order a takeaway, wearing jeans that are really quite daringly tight for W4. Then he goes away again. Presently:

MR BC: That was a hobbit.

ME: Hmm?

MR BC: That was Merry. Or Pippin.

ME: Oh gosh, yes, so it was! It was him out of -

MR BC: Lost.

ME: I was going to say Hetty Wainthropp Investigates.

MR BC: That's him. Dominic, er, Thing.

ME: Yes.


CUT TO:


INT. QUINQUIREME TOWERS - MORNING

MR BC and PATROCLUS in bed, drinking tea.

MR BC: ...and we saw a hobbit.

ME: Ooh yes, I'd forgotten about that! I'm going to write a blog post about it. Something about collecting the whole set, in various chain restaurants in Chiswick. I'm going to look out for Elijah Wood in Zizzi's, that sort of thing. I'm not sure I'd recognise them all, though.

MR BC: You could recognise them from the tattoos.

ME: What tattoos?

MR BC: They got tattoos at the end of The Fellowship Of The Ring.

ME: In Rivendell? I don't remember that bit.

MR BC: (pityingly) In real life. All nine of them, they got tattooed with a 9, in Elvish, when they finished filming.

ME: Nine? I was only collecting four hobbits!

MR BC: Only John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli, didn't want a tattoo, so his stunt double got it instead. But his stunt double doesn't look anything like him, so he'd be harder to spot.

ME: This is all too difficult now. I think I'll just put up the Lord of the Rings video from Flight of the Conchords. It's funny.

Off Again

And off I go back to France for another five weeks of exile.

[This statement accompanied with a lot of melodramatic sighing, tearfulness and wistful staring into the distant distance, in the manner of Elijah Wood at any given point in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.]

See you all on the other side...

Volume

One of the salient architectural features of my French house is that it has very few internal doors.

This is fine if all you want to do is swan from room to room remarking on the pretty patterns made by the mildew or marvelling at the delicate festoons of cobwebs. But when you're trying to work at the dining room table, and the dining room is actually more of a cupboard off the sitting room, and the sitting room is where your mum spends the day watching television, then things become slightly more vexing.

Far be it from me to speculate on the efficacy of my mum's hearing, so let's just say that mum likes the television to provide her with a rich cinematic experience. There's nothing about Hetty Wainthropp Investigates or Keeping Up Appearances that can't be improved by cranking up the Dolby surround sound to plaster-loosening levels, for example.

Today, however, mum decided she'd had enough of Patricia Routledge's various incarnations and started watching her Lord of the Rings DVD box set instead. As I was trying to write an article about European economic competitiveness, this gave me no choice but to put on my headphones and attempt to drown out the hobbitses by subjecting myself to the complete works of doomed Oregonian junkie Elliott Smith at an inadvisably loud volume.

Under the circumstances, it's a wonder I even heard my phone ringing, but I did, which is how the following scene unfolded:

Mobile phone rings. I yank off my earphones and am instantly felled by a tidal wave of orchestral music as the LOTR theme swells and booms around me.

Me: (answering phone) Hello, Patroclus speaking.

Client: Oh, hello, it's your client here. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to go over something with me?

The LOTR theme rattles the windows and light fittings with nuclear intensity.

Me: Oh, yes, sure. Of course.

Client: Are you sure? You sound, er, busy.

Me: No, no, I'm fine, I'll just move into the...hang on...

I move three feet to the right, into the kitchen. The volume abates by a fraction of a decibel. I pray for a contemplative scene in which Frodo stares into the middle distance with a troubled look on his face. Unfortunately, the music continues to swell. Then swords start to clash, and dwarves and Men start yelling about dark things and rings of power.

Client: Have you got the document open in front of you?

I haven't. I've left my laptop in the dining room. I'm going to have to go back in there and fetch it. I wait for a lull in the proceedings and make a dash for it, phone cradled to my ear.

Me: Right, yes, just opening it now...

From the sitting room, a booming voice intones 'ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY WALK INTO MORDOR.'

Client: Are you in an airport?

Me: Not exactly.

I hastily unplug the laptop from its various shackles and run back with it into the kitchen. Unfortunately, it turns out that one of the things I unplugged was the earphones. Now Elliott Smith is blaring out of the speakers at an inadvisably loud volume.

Elliott: NO BAD DREAM FUCKER'S GOING TO BOSS ME AROUND

Client: Should I ring back later?

Me: Yes, I think that might be best, actually.