One Foot in the Grave

# They say I might as well face the truth

# That I am just too long in the tooth

# So I'm an OAP and weak-kneed

# But I have not yet quite gone to seed

# I may be over the hill now that I have retired

# Fading away but I've not yet expired

# Clapped out, run down, too old to save

# One foot in the grave #

Amazing the adverts they put in the local

''Cane my young traffic warden's bottom''

''Listen to a housewife moan''

I can do that any day

''Hear my massive 46-inch breasts''

Hear my massive 46-inch breasts?

How? What's she got, cowbells on them?

''Available via PIN number''

Rang one of these numbers up once It's about as erotic as Amy Turtle

Well, that's that read from cover to cover

Madness Unutterable madness

Now, then

What have we got here?

I don't

What in the name of bloody hell?

What was the last thing I said to you before I went out

about keeping an eye on the weather for me?

How am I supposed to put these on?

Spin round like Wonder Woman?

I'd throw these socks away except they'd probably keep coming back

Unbelievable!

Did you see this? What I just found in one of those crackers you bought?

No But do please tell me

Question ''What's the difference between Victor Meldrew

''and a chef who keeps dropping his pancakes?''

Answer ''They're both useless tossers''

Can you believe that? Inside one of those crackers

Where did you say you got them?

I can't remember Cardigan Crescent, I think, the Happy Shopper

Happy Shopper? Do you know what? Somebody has been tampering with these

Poking these things in the end with the end of a screwdriver or something

Bastards

Same person or persons unknown I presume

who were responsible for this little piece of unpleasantness I found this afternoon

Sticking out the top of our wheelie bin if you please

Mrs Blithery at number 25 nearly had a heart attack,

thought we were leaving dead bodies out for the dustmen

Just kids, I expect, playing pranks

Pranks?

It doesn't even work Look, it's got, ''What's the difference between''

And then it says we're both useless tossers

How is that the difference? That's not the difference

That's what we've got in common

Now, if it said, ''Why is Victor Meldrew like a chef

''who keeps dropping his pancakes? Because we're both useless tossers,''

then it would work

It'd be a proper joke then, but it doesn't

I mean, it's not even logical

They haven't even taken the trouble to think it through properly

-before poking the bloody -Yes, all right!

Can we drop it now, please?

Don't know how many of these things are circulating out there, now do we?

Evil little buggers

Still haven't got over them sticking that live frog through the letter box

Nor has the frog

Wondered what it was croaking away in my bath water yesterday morning

Thought at first it was that beans and toast I had for breakfast

Yes, well, of course, most people would realise it was a frog as soon as they'd picked it up,

instead of spending two minutes trying to squash it onto a new bar of Palmolive

Is there a cup left in here for me?

Oh, well, when you've finished with the Cadbury's fondue

But it felt like a piece of soap in the water and I hadn't got my glasses on

Anyway, how was your day?

You're late back Buses up the creek again?

I didn't come straight back

I told you I was going to stop off to give old Mrs Tebbings another driving lesson

Taking a bit of a risk, weren't you? Going out with her after dark

Woman's got precious little sense of direction as it is

What's that supposed to mean?

Well, how many people do you know who sit in the lavatory facing the cistern?

It took six lessons to stop her putting her hands in front of her eyes whenever she went downhill

All is well so long as she's happy to pay me a few quid

I suppose it gives her an interest in life

Especially now her cat's getting a bit old and past it

Now that its eyesight's going

Chased a mouse upstairs into the bathroom last week,

ended up nearly choking to death on a pumice stone

She said she's thinking of getting it contact lenses

Contact lenses? For a cat?

How? What's she gonna do?

Show it a chart with different sized tins of Whiskas on?

Of course, you know the story, it wasn't even her cat in the first place

It just turned up in her garden one day with a little metal disc in the collar saying,

''If found, please return to so and so at this address''

-Know what she did? -Sent them back the collar

If you've ever heard anything so daffy

So, what are you thinking?

Is it the Peugeot still?

Or the Astra possibly I'm not sure

God Three months, is it, now?

I still can't believe anyone would steal your car outside a garden centre in Purley

I know Just when I thought we were never gonna get rid of the bloody thing!

Yes, it's been a complete disaster from the day we first bought it

Never knew what was going to seize up next

And then

Oh, the bliss when we came out of that tea shop and discovered that some poor sod had nicked it

It was like having a very unpleasant boil lanced

Do you realise

Do you realise that for the first time in our lives

we're actually going to benefit from an insurance policy?

I'll get it

Are you nearly finished in there for tonight?

Seven hours you've been at it now

I said don't you think it's time you were taking Denzil out for his walk?

Oh

Well, that's just perfect, isn't it?

What's the problem?

There are other things he needs to do out there besides walk, you know

I'm not blowing this presentation to Leibnitz and Wang for anything

If I get this contract, it could mean the difference between life and death

We could drop the price on this house and move next door to something vaguely human

Something that has a reflection in a mirror

Oh, no!

What What do you mean?

This is the absolute bloody limit

I mean

For God's sake

6:2 7 Early one tonight

In the name of sanity!

Oh! Tell me that I'm still asleep, that this is just a bad dream

You're not asleep It's not a dream

They've found our car!

And it's not my bloody fault!

After three months? Whereabouts?

Whereabouts?

Finland

Are you stark raving mad?

Finland? That car couldn't get to Finchley!

What did they do? Tow it there with a team of reindeer?

I'm just telling you what he said

He said a local woodcutter found it abandoned in the middle of a forest

still with our plants and boxes of Phostrogen on the back seat

He said they've kept his name and address in case we want to give him a reward

Give him a reward? I'll give him a bloody thick ear if I ever see him!

Who would want to go to Finland in the first place?

I don't know!

Here, ring Judith Chalmers

While I go and put your socks in the grill pan!

Thank you

Thank you, St Total Bastard, the patron saint of insurance companies

I don't know why I bother

Is it drivable still or what?

Well, it's supposed to be, according to

Look at this For crying out loud

The man who sold it to us did say it was a very fast-growing variety

Fast-growing variety?

I mean, you think they'd have had the sense to prune it now and again Look at it

Clings like bloody Super Glue, this stuff

Yes, well, Patrick and Pippa have offered me a lift in So

I think they're having lunch with one of his business clients or something

Ready when you are, Margaret

Coming

-You need anything while I'm out? -Yes

You can see if Halfords do a large and very hungry goat

-Thanks a lot, Pippa That's just the job -You're very welcome

Oh, Patrick, don't forget your presentation

Oh, Margaret, I know what I meant to say

I think I've got a pair of Y-fronts belonging to you at home

They must have blown across into the garden the other night

Thought when I was ironing them, I didn't think Patrick had a pair with a blue waistband

Anyway, I put them to one side in the bedroom

-Pop them round later, all right? -There's no rush

Bye, then I hope it all goes well for you

Look, is that them?

A blue waistband?

What's the matter with you?

This is the mother of all nightmares you pray will never happen

I'm about to go into the most important business meeting in my career

wearing Victor Meldrew's underpants

You what Oh, you didn't put

Anyway, look

-Come on, they've seen us -I can't move

My entire genital area has gone into trauma

For goodness sake, pull yourself together and remember who you're meeting

This must be how John Hurt felt with that alien in his stomach

Little buggers

Mrs Blithery, how are you today?

Bloody car

Finland of all the places

It's a wonder we haven't heard from the astronauts in the space shuttle

''Hello, Mr Meldrew

''We just found a D registration Honda up here orbiting the earth

''We think it might belong to you''

Oh, by the way, I forgot to say

I solved the mystery of that practical joker

You know, the rubber hand

and the crackers and the frog and everything

Apparently, it was that Mr Grimwade's children

You know, two doors down from the post office Do you know them?

I can't say as I do, no

No, I didn't remember him

Anyway, he came up to me in Asda's today