How to Get Ahead in Advertising
1989
Denis Dimbleby Bagley: Perhaps if they'd hanged Jesus Christ we'd all be kneeling in front of a fucking gibbet!
Businessman on Train: (reading a newspaper) I see the police have made another lightning raid. Priest on Train: I suppose young girls was involved? Businessman on Train: One found naked in the bathroom. "Breasts smeared with peanut butter. The police also found a bag containing 15 ounces of cannibus resin. The bag may also have contained a small quantity of heroin." Denis Dimbleby Bagley: Or a porkpie. The bag may also have contained a porkpie. Businessman on Train: I hardly see what a porkpie's got to do with it. Denis Dimbleby Bagley: Then how about a turnip? The bag may also have contained a large turnip. Priest on Train: The bag was full of drugs. It says so! Denis Dimbleby Bagley: It's the oldest trick in the book. Priest on Train: Book? What book? Denis Dimbleby Bagley: The distortion of truth by association book. You all believe heroin was in the bag because cannibus resin was in the bag, but the chances of it actually being there are certain 100 to 1. Businessman on Train: A lot more likely than what you say. Denis Dimbleby Bagley: About as likely as the tits smeared with peanut butter. Priest on Train: The tits were spread with peanut butter! It says so! Who's a man you are to think you know more about it than the press? Denis Dimbleby Bagley: I'm an expert on tits. Tits and peanut butter. I'm also an expert drug pusher. I've been pushing drugs for 20 years, and I can tell you a pusher always protects his pitch. We want to sell them cigarettes, and we don't like competition, see? So we associate a relatively innocuous drug with one that is more deadly, and the rags go along with it because they adore the dough from the ads! Businessman on Train: I'm getting off at Datchet. Denis Dimbleby Bagley: Getting off at Datchet won't help you. Getting off anywhere won't help you! I've had an octopus squatting on my brain for a fortnight, but now I see that only I can save you! It'd be pointless to go into reasons why, but I've been worried sick about boils for a fortnight! Big ones, small ones, fast eruptors, they're incurable all of them. I know that. Everybody knows that. Until they get one; then the rules suddenly change, but there's really nothing but hope of curing that. (Points to priest) He knows that, which is why he gets a good look-in with the dying. Sells them hope, see? But these boils would be fortide into real estate if anybody came up with a genuine cure for death! Priest on Train: Good God, this is a madman! Denis Dimbleby Bagley: What do you know about God, you wire-haired mick?
Penny Wheelstock: Yes, I'm fat! And you're perfectly at liberty to hate me for it! Denis Dimbleby Bagley: Oh, you're wrong. I don't dislike you because of that. I wouldn't care if you were so huge we'd have to put scaffolding up to feed you.
Denis Dimbleby Bagley: We're living in a shop. The world is one magnificent fucking shop, and if it hasn't got a price tag, it isn't worth having. The Greatest freedom of all is the freedom of choice, and that's the difference between you and me, boil. I was brought up to believe in that, and so should you, but you don't want freedom, do you? You don't even want roads. God I never want to go on another train as long as I live! Roads represent the fundamental right of man to have access to the good things in life. Without roads, established family favorites would become elite as delicacies. Potter's soap would be for the few. There'd be no more tea bags, no instant potatoes, no long life cream. Chewing gum would probably disappear, so would porkpies. There'd be no aerosols, no tin spaghetti, or baked beans with six frankfurters. Foot deodorizers would climax with the hope of replacement! When the hydrolized mono-sodium glutomate reserves ran out, food would rot in its packets. Jesus Christ, there wouldn't be any more packets! Packaging would vanish from the face of the earth. But worst of all, there'd be no more cars, and more than anything, people love their cars. They have a right to them. They have to sweat all day in some stinking factory making disposable cigarette lighters or everlasting Christmas trees, by Christ, they're entitled to them! They're entitled to any innovation technology brings. Whether it's ten percent more of it or fifteen percent off of it. They're entitled to one of four important new ingredients. Why should anyone have to clean their teeth without important new ingredients? Why the hell shouldn't they have their CZT? How dare some smutty Marxist carbunkle presume to deny them it? They love their CZT! They want it, they need it, they positively adore it, and by Christ, while I've got air in my body they're going to get it! They're going to get it bigger - and brighter - and better. I'll put CZT in their margarine if necessary; shove vitamins in their toilet rolls. If happiness means the whole world standing on a double layer of foot deodorizers, I, Bagley, shall see that they get it! By God I will. I shall not cease, till Jerusalem is builded here, on England's green and pleasant lands!