Livin' in London

[roguem]

I arrived safely. 
Am rather tired, so will probably go to bed early tonight as I have classes tomorrow.
Have met some of my friends here, they were very happy to have me back, which was very sweet. *feels loved*


And now for something completely different.
I saw that starlit_woods had a link in his journal to a Bill Bailey song. That got me to thinking about "Black Books" which is a british sitcom that I just loved. By the help of YouTube I bring you some clips. I also collected some quotes. Enjoy.

A little taste of this wonderful series.

Black Books is a second-hand bookshop in London run by an Irishman named Bernard Black. He is probably the planet's worst-suited person to run such an establishment: he makes no effort to sell, closes at strange hours on a whim, is in a perpetual alcoholic stupor, abhors his customers (sometimes physically abusing them) and is often comatose at his desk. Help comes in the lumpy shape of Manny Bianco, a hairy, bumbling individual who (almost by osmosis) becomes Bernard's assistant. Manny is not exactly great at the job either but he is a million times better than Bernard. Next door is Fran, an anxious, frustrated woman who (in the first series) runs a sort of new-age shop selling the most unlikely bits of arty junk. (In the second, her shop was neither seen nor mentioned.) Fran is friends with Bernard and, through him, with Manny; together the trio become embroiled in escapades that are sometimes extreme or violent or fantastically ludicrous, and always bizarre.

Cooking the Books is the first part of the first episode of the show, where Bernard and Manny meet, we're also introduced to Fran who is Bernard's friend. (Runtime: 04:21)

Bernard: Half ten? Half ten? I've never been up at half ten! What happens? 

Fran: Finished with your accounts?
Bernard: Yes. I've turned them into a rather smart casual jacket. 

Bernard: (reading from tax returns form) "What was your mother's maiden name?"...What was her first name? I just knew her as Ma!! Ma, that'll have to do...(writes and speaks out loud) Ma.....possibly deceased.

Bernard: WHAT!?...WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!...WHAT?!...(reading aloud from tax returns form) If you live...in a council flat, beside a river, but are not...blind. WHAT!!?!

Bernard: I've been gravely injured now. I don't have to do my accounts. You're a witness.
Manny: I could do your accounts.
Bernard: What?
Manny: I'm an accountant. I was. It's the least I could do
Bernard: You mean you could do more?
Manny: Yeah.
Bernard: Could I have a glass of wine?
Manny: OK.
Bernard: And a ham sandwich?
Manny: If you like.
Bernard: With pickle?

Skinheads This is pretty much the end of the first episode. (Runtime: 02:13)

Manny attempts to sell a book. I have no idea which episode this is, but I suspect it's the second one. (Runtime: 01:01)

Post-party. This is from the last episode of the show. The Manny, Bernard and Fran have been to a party and are a bit drunk. (Runtime: 01:33)

Bernard's Letter. This isn't from an episode of the series, but the DvD extras. ;)  (Runtime: 02:33)

For more clips and info GO HERE.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bernard: Where's all the books?
Manny: What?
Bernard: Where's all the books?
Manny: Oh, I've sold them.
Bernard: Oh, JESUS. You know what that means?! It means I have to go and ring the ordering place and you have no idea how incredibly BORING and COMPLICATED that is. 
Bernard [On the phone]: Hello? Is this the place where you order books from when you want to sell them from your book shop?

Bernard: What do they want from me? [customers]. Why can't they just leave me alone? What do they WANT from me?
Manny: Well, they want to buy books..
Bernard: Yeah, but why me, why do they come to me?
Manny: Because you sell books..
Bernard: Yeah... I know... but...

Manny: I insist you come over right away! Ok, tomorrow. But first thing tomorrow! After lunch... right after lunch! Six o'clock. Fine.

Manny [On the phone]: The place is a mess! Look!
[Manny points the phone at the room]

Manny: You can't taste anything! You smoke eighty..bajillion cigarettes a day! Whats that? What are you eating?
Bernard: It's some kind of delicious biscuit.
Manny: It's a coaster.
Bernard: Is it? Are there any more? 

Manny: You are a filth wizard. Friend only to the pig and the rat. Ugh. Look!
[he opens a pizza box]
Bernard: Pizza. I was going to warm it and eat it later. Everybody does that. That's normal. You are just looking for things to complain about.
Manny: And what are these?
Bernard: ...wasps.

Manny: We have needs! Frans got her piano; I want some time off; you want to go out with a girl.
Bernard: Don't make me laugh...bitterly. Fran will fail. You'll toil your life away and I'll die alone, upside down on the floor of a pub toilet. 

Bernard: You! What did you say to Kate? She thinks I'm the Renaissance! She'll think I've lied. I have to go along with all this 'reclusive genius' stuff. She's going to be very upset when she finds out I'm a reclusive wanker!

after telling Bernard the walls of her flat are moving in
Fran: Look, if you don't believe me you can come around tonight and we'll watch the wall!
Manny: Don't be ridiculous, we'll be staying in and watching the thermometer tonight. Won't we, Bernard? Eh? Eh? Won't we?
Bernard: I don't know, it's an impossible choice. Walls, thermometers, I'll just have to hope that when I flip the coin, it somehow explodes and kills me. 

Bernard: My oven can cook anything. My oven can cook...bits of oven!

Customer: Look, there's no other way to say this, but I didn't come in here to be insulted.
Bernard: Well, I didn't ask for the job of insulting you. In another life, maybe we could have been brothers. Running a small, quirky taverna in Sicily. We would have married the local twins instead of wasting each other's time here in this dump. But it was not to be. So...hop it. 

Fran: So what's it like then? The fags and booze.
Bernard: Well, to be honest, after years of smoking and drinking, you do sometimes look at yourself and think...
Fran: Yep...
Bernard: You know, just sometimes, in between the first cigarette with coffee in the morning to that four hundredth glass of cornershop piss at 3am, you do sometimes look at yourself and think...
Fran: Yep...
Bernard: ... "this is fantastic. I'm in heaven." 

Bernard: All right. Let's just, you know, get some ideas bouncing around. Sort of go crazy...no rules...
Manny: Yeah. Sort of anything goes.
Bernard(Yelling): No, not anything goes!! I said NO RULES!!! 

Bernard: Who is she anyway, this so called person?!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And just because I think Dylan Moran is brilliant, some clips of his stand up acts.

Dylan Moran live in 1997 (Runtime: 07:27)
Dylan Moran Stand Up Dylan Moran's 3 & 1/2 minutes from 'The Cream of Irish Comedy'.


And some Bill Bailey:

Bill Bailey- Pub Joke Bill Bailey - Pub Joke, taken from Bewilderness

Bill bailey - evolution Bill Bailey talks about evolution and drugs

Asylum -Bill Bailey 

Bill Bailey and Cockney Music Bill Bailey outlines the standards of Cockney music, and uses examples where classical composers have been influenced by the cockney genre.

Comments

[yeuxdebleu.livejournal.com]

Glad you arrived safely and were welcomed by friends.

I didn't even try to look at the clips (dial-up) but the transcripts you posted were funny. Sounds like a great show.

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

Aww, they're rather short, but I'm guessing that doesn't matter with dial-up.
Glad you enjoyed the quotes though. :D

[yeuxdebleu.livejournal.com]

A 1 MB clip takes over a half hour to open. I just don't have that kind of time to wait. :<(

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Wow, yeah, totally get that you don't want to do it then.

[yeuxdebleu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, dial-up really sucks. *sigh*

[roguem.livejournal.com]

But you're getting high-speed soon. :D

[yeuxdebleu.livejournal.com]

Yes, but not until late summer I think. It's expensive and there are many other expenses coming up in the next few months that we have to take care of. But eventually.

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Ah, I understand.

[sexy-wolfy.livejournal.com]

Better get some sleep,you will defiantly function better in school.

PEACE

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Very true. :)

[tygerx.livejournal.com]

Will read more in detail later, but wanted to say glad you're well and meeting good peeps! :)

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :D

[starlit-woods.livejournal.com]

Ooh brilliant!!!!!!!! I have seasons 1 and 2 of BB on dvd, I should watch the extras :) I think my favourite part, it's so hard to choose though, is when Manny decided he'd run away and he left Bernard a note, and you hear Manny's voice reading it and think it's a voice-over, but it's actually Manny on the phone reading his letter to Bernard as Bernard sits in the shop reading the letter too. And then he tells Manny he's waiting for the fax of the running away note to arrive too! :D

I love them all. My friend said that Dylan is just the same in real life too :D

I'm really glad you arrived safely in London, I hope you settle in well and have a great time *hugs you*

[roguem.livejournal.com]

beluga has all three seasons, I haven't gotten around to it yet. *slaps self*

Is this your fave?
Bernard: [phone rings] Manny? Manny, phone. Manny.
[sigh]
Bernard: Oh, I'll get it, shall I?
[picks up]
Bernard: Hello?
Manny: [on phone] Bernard?
Bernard: Manny. Where are you? The phone's been ringing.

[after Manny has ran away and suffered a series of unfortunate calamities over the phone]
Fran: Well, where is he? How can I find him?
Bernard: Well, you could become a terrible event and happen to him.

;D
That's really good. But my fave episode has to be nr.3 in season 1; "Grapes of Wrath".

Bernard: [gibbering] They'd all laugh at me if they knew what I was trying to do... to create a new strain of super-wine in a half an hour with a fraction of nature's resources and a FOOL for an assistant. "Bernard Black, he's mad," they'd say. "He's insane. He's dangerous." Well I'll show them! I'll show them all!

The whole wine thing just had me rolling on the floor.

I wouldn't be suprised if Dylan was like that, it's totally his gimmick in his stand up acts. So funny! :D
Have you seen 'Shaun of the Dead'

Yeah, am settled, but not so ready to start working. ;P
Will get started though... in 6 weeks I'll be back home. :D

[starlit-woods.livejournal.com]

My sister has all three seasons, she bought me the first one for my birthday or Christmas once and she had the second season herself. And then she found the three-season box set and got that for herself and gave me her copy of the second season :)

I think that might be the episode I was thinking of! Where do you get your quotes from? I remember in the scene I'm thinking of Manny was in a phone booth saying "Dear Bernard, by the time you read this I'll be gone" or something, reading him the leaving note.

Oh and I love the episode, it might even be the same one, where Manny becomes a model for hairy beardy men! LOL *disturbed*

I love the Grapes of Wrath episode! Oh, what about the one where Bernard went to a party and got really drunk and went to the toilet in the people's kitchen? Ewwwwwwwwwwwww! lol

I haven't seen Sean of the Dead. I normally really hate anything even vaguely scary, but I've seen some ads for that and it made me laugh so if it's not gross or gory I would like to watch it!

I don't blame you for not wanting to start work yet! At least it won't be long before you're home again, will the course be finished for good then?

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Has she let you watch the third season?

Yeah, that's the one. Manny left and Bernard was to lazy to read the note, so he had to call Bernard and read it to him. The hen gets attacked by a bee and mugged and such.
It's also the one where he becomes a model, yeah. *dies laughing*

Oh, everytime I watch that and it comes to the part when he asks them why they have a wicker toilet in the kitchen... just ewwwww.
It's funny when he sings to the kid though.

Shaun of the Dead is really creepy, it's more funny. I love it, + Dylan's in it playing a total geek.

Yeah, not long, but that also means I don't have a lot of time to finish the work. Will have to get cracking.

[starlit-woods.livejournal.com]

She had the bad manners to move interstate and take the third season with her! Cheeky! ;P

Oh yeah the bee! LOL I love that bit!

Oh there are so many good bits in every episode! I love that show!

I didn't realise Dylan was in Shaun of the Dead, I think I might have to hire it then :)

Mmm good point...delegate to your class mates! Make them do the work and tell them you're practicing to be a director ;)

[roguem.livejournal.com]

Awww, what a rip-off. You'll have to make her bring you the third season!

Bees... will always remind me of Black Books.

It's amazing, it's so sad that there isn't more!

He is, and you should. ;)

Naw, this is essays and stuff, can't push it on someone else.