TSP interviews'Pottie The Parrot' author
TS ELIOT
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| TS Eliot interviewed by The Sock Puppet |
The Sock Puppet: Giz a
Potted Outline of yr Youth, Petal...
Troy Story Eliot: ...of my
younghood, Sugar? The absolute gist? Psh-haw... Oh Yaaah... mine was
a DEADLY SUBMARINE of a
childhood; a very Cold War Business done with black-and-white
cut-outs in tedious Slow-Mo. I was born into a Lower Class household
in a leafless suburb of Wroittenborough. My parents went astray when
I was still a tot, Ma ran off with the first Peace Convoy that came
along; then Pop upped and chased his dream of becoming a Brazilian
Mud Wrestler. Godknows what became of them.
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| Copyright Double Dutch Mint |
After they disappeared, I was
adopted by Dirty Aunt Ernestina. Her dwelling was even further across
the tracks, a pebble-dashed packing crate on a soap-opera council
estate. Dirty but Daring, Ernestina fed me on Love Hearts and
Licorice Allsorts. I contracted chronic toothache and with the help
of Welfare was fully braced and re-capped by the age of thirteen.
Honest to God, mine was the Smile that topedoed a thousand Liberty
Ships. Despite that, I fooled a Gang of Bikers into kidnapping me as
a Media Heiress. Over a single weekend, I swopped my sweet Jimmy
Savile Innocence for one Jimmy Hendrix Experience after another. By
Monday morning, I found myself approaching the Garden Gates of Eton
at a hundred and twenty on the clock. Suddenly, there was a hairpin
bend in the road, then a great bang, and I was flung from the
pillion. When I looked up, I immediately realised what had gone down.
An over-rich fuel mix had blown the carburettor gasket. Off my face
in panic, I'd gone into a Back Flip and landed on my Toes.
TSP: Did you ring the
bell?
TSE: To that posh school?
My Governess, no! Even I knew never to do that! I climbed over the
ironwork and scurried round to the rear. Hunger led me, by the nose,
straight into the Refectory. Breakars was being served, so I slipped
through the crowd and sat down with some kids of my own age. It was
the first time I tasted porridge in my life.
TSP: Incredible! Does
porridge have a taste?
TSE: Crème brûlée to my
poor, uneducated tongue. Until that day, I thought Breakfast was a
type of Dog Food.
TSP: Then you enrolled?
TSE: Not officially. By a
stroke of fate, my arrival had coincided with day one of the new
term. There were hundreds of newbies and nobody noticed that my
plimsolls hadn't stepped out of a Rolls. So in vogue was my Street
Style Rap they never thought the Lower Class Gauche was anything but
a Spectacular Pose. I was perceived as Eton's answer to Stephen Fry,
who was requisitioned by Top Hatted Geezers long before their Mothers
were Invented. When anyone asked who my Pop was, I would frown and
whisper my real name – Jeanne-Paula Satyre - and that I was a Deep
Cover Operative from Poverty International. Then they'd laugh
themselves hoarse. Never could understand why. In fact, in my fourth
year the School Sec began to wonder why too. There were Great Arrears
in my fees, see.
TSP: That sounds rather
far-fetched! Hadn't the Bursar spotted the slip up?
TSE: Not at all! So fond
of the sauce was he, the Accounts Book was all wine-stains and
ink-blots. It was only when a snooping reporter got on the case that
my txt msgs to Jim'll Fix It came to light.
TSP: Uh-Oh! That must have
been embarrassing! How did you get out of that one?
TSE: Top of the form,
woznai? Teacher's pet. Captain of Girls' Rugger and Meanest Hooker on
and off the Cricket grounds. To them, the Ice Cream Spoon stuck in
the corner of me mouth was the heighth of Chic. They unearthed a
chest of scholars' ship-money from somewhere and finally I was able
to go home for the holidays.
TSP: And where WAS Home
during that traumatic period?
TSE: Same as ever, Sugar.
Dirty Aunt Ernestina's five-bedroomed council 'arse in
Wroittenborough. D'you know, she hadn't even reported me missing, the
dear old fraud? As my Grauniad, she'd been living it up on Free
School Meals with smokes and drinks on Child Benefit.
TSP: That was Dead Bad of
her. What about yr education? Hadn't the sagging-off snoopers bin
round the auld homestead?
TSE: That's the best part!
Aunt Ernestina had never been educated, see, so, disguised as me,
there she was filing her nails on my desk at the local
state-assisted, woznit?
TSP: A GRAMMAR School, by
Jeeves?
TSE: Very forward-looking
place was Wroittenborough in those days! Mind you, Esnestina finally
learnt her three Rs and was serving up Claims left, right and centre
court. Of course, when I showed my mug, she had to pack the racket
in.
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| Guest Artist Slot |
TSP: (very slowly) Woz yer
ant pleased t'see yuz after all them years?
TSE: Oh, I should say!
She was enchanted! Positively poisoned me with Municipal Kindness!
Nicked my Old Spoon, for spite. The Dratted Thing thought it was
silver plate and took it down the pawnshop for a quote.
TSP: How much did they
spot her for the heirloom?
TSE: Let's just say it was
in shillings and pence. Anyroads, soon afterwards, there was I,
passing the very shop and I seeing it in the winder! “Me Plastic
Spoon!”, I walked in and cried. No dice. I had to sneak home and
filch the chit from her purse. The purse was empty besides, she
having spent all the ill-gained on Love Hearts and Licorice Allsorts.
I had to redeem the jolly old mouthpiece from my own stash of bobs
and tanners.
TSP: Didn't you confront
her over the theft?
TSE:
Confront Ernestina? Like, ask a Bookie for your Stake Back when your
Horse comes in Last? Do me a Por Favoree! I had to play it
straight-faced, eleven vols on the QT. I started putting out like the
regular toffee-nosed-twerp. Boasted of me Pushbike Pass into Downing
Street
and pied-à-terre
on Throgmorton
Street.
TSP: Would you say you
conformed to any stereotypes in your choice of occupations?
TSE: Quite right. And with
the proceeds, bought me Aunt a Traffic Warden's Outfit for her
thirty-third birthday.
TSP: Yer made a Meter Maid
of her? That woz... imaginative. Did the Trick, as such?
TSE: Capital, dear boy,
Capital! To this day she struts the streets of Wroittenborough in
black uniform, fishnet tights, notebook and pen in hand, dishing out
fines and dreaming of pinching Sir Paul McCartney. Made an honest
woman of her!
TSP: And, as everyone
knows, when you came up from Eton, you returned to your old home town
to become the first Blasted Toff to live there since 1922.
TSE: Aye-aye, together,
Ernestina and I have stood this old place back on its knees. A few
years ago, it was a paradise of benefit cheats, dope pedlars and
thoughtless parkers. Nowadays, if anyone so much as dreams of making
a bogus claim or overstaying their welcome outside Lidl, down we
swoop and pester them with Family Circle Wheel Clamps and Snooty
Insinuations. (Plummy voice:) “See here, you Plebs you, these are
all Private Recreation Grounds, aintchya got stately homes to go to?”
TSP: It must be sheer hell
for the petty grafters of Wroittenborough!
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| Copyright Banks of Inngland, Enngland, Angland & Glond |
TSE: Well, they do keep
crawling from the woodwork. Then there are all the pensioners camped
out in the Municipal Gardens. I'm up to my eyeballs confiscating
their Residents' Vehicle Permits.
TSP: But what of your
dreams? Do you not hope one day to give up the provincial life and
bring your brand of Squalor-Busting Snobbery to the streets of London
or New York? Don't you think the Rest of the World needs an Avenging
Twerp like you?
TSE: You're reckoning
without the great enemy I made at Eton. You see, soon after my
reconciliation with Dirty Aunt Ernestina, I was tracked down by the
Rotter Spiro de Mountebank. He invoked the Curse of The Three
Snitches and impregnated me - while all I could do was simply to Look
On in Horror. As a result, I became the Single Ma of dear little
Beastie Braddocksnicker, who binds me to this Manor. Whenever I try
to cross its Borders, I hear those Tiny Tot Cries, impelling me to
run home and Prostrate myself before Her Noble Pottyness. Motherhood
has turned me into the Prisoner of the Parish Boundaries.
TSP: Life must be Dead
Tedious for you all the way up here!
TSE: Never say die! There
is always some little hole I can crawl into on my
four-days-off-a-week. Moreover, Wroittenborough has become almost
Metropolitan since I came to Power. As well as the Old Town, we have
incorporated the seaside resort of Wroittenmouth, Enclosed the great
common of Wroittendale and Compulsory Purchased the Twin Plateaus of
Wroittencraig - where the oiks go cross-country skating in winter and
cheese rolling in summer. And life has its ups and downs, especially
with that Rotter Spiro de Mountebank yelping at my heels. By day, he
dwells in the alehouses of Wroitten-under-the-Burgh. After nightfall,
out he comes wreaking squalor on the poor constituents and stirring
me from my Single Parent's Bed. Wearing his Faux Claimant's Cloak &
Coronet, he musters hordes of self-employed tree surgeons and their
Privet Husbands; they throng the led-lit streets, tweaking Mayhem
from the rubber hydrants and popping the windscreens of clapped out
Bubble Cars. Little by little, I am learning how and when to
circumcise their lewd displays of Insubordination. Meantime, there
remain simply vols and vols of adventures for me to hack through. And
with little Beastie to bring up on the Strange and Callow, there's
seldom a straight moment in the life of this Community Cheat-Busting
Bitch!
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| Copyright Little Brown Jug, 2012 |
TSP: I see yer plugged yr
vols back then. How goes the old pen-pushing these days?
TSE: What, I? Make Mention
of my Printed Books? The very Cheek of it!
TSP: Come, come, Madame,
with twenty-eight best-sellers to your name, shifts of your latest
book have taken an unexpected downpan. How do you explain this sudden
loosening in the bowels of yr popular following?
TSE: I'm sorry, my Agent's
making signs through the window. That's enough questions.
TSP: Surely you'll take
this opportunity to explain the Great Plot Void between Vols 9 and 14
of 'Hottie The Carrot'?
TSE: That's not a very
nice thing to say, Young Man! Well, never mind, time's up. I mean,
little Beastie's crying for her changey-wangey!
TSP: Well, thanks for all
yr troubles.
TSE: 'Twas nix! BTW,
Sugar, no cash payment. Hand Ernestina your card to swipe on the way
out.
TSP: Ouch!
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| Sock it To 'Em |
