by Belinda
corridor, opened the door of the office, poked his head in with a big grin on his face and said “Hello, I'm the shmock from England. Where are you a shmock from?"
'The big cheese had the grace to apologise and during the meeting that followed further endeared himself to Mr Rosenthal by saying that his company, "Movie of the Week", dealt in three areas only: heart, stomach and groin. Seeing Jack's expression, he elaborated: "Heart is romance, stomach is horror and groin is sexploitation." Jack nodded gravely, stood up and said, "I'm sorry, this is not for me. I'm afraid I only do 'elbow'." The mogul was impressed; he wanted to know more but Jack just smiled and left enigmatically.
'The following day at 9 o'clock in the morning, the guy with the world at his feet and his feet six inches off the floor, phoned Jack's agent and said, "Get me the guy who writes elbow, I gotta have him. Elbow's exactly what we are looking for." By this time, Mr Rosenthal was on a plane halfway across the Atlantic, rubbing elbows with real people...'
- with thanks to actress and writer Maureen Lipman who tells us this story about her husband, the writer Jack Rosenthal.
'I was asked to provide the voice of a donkey for a commercial extolling the virtues of a well-known West Country resort. I shall not reveal the place or the firm concerned for fear of embarrassment. The recording was carried out all very efficiently and the character of the cheery little donkey seemed to come through well enough to keep the client happy. It was a tortuous day in which I drew on all my classical training at Rose Bruford and with Jaques Lecoq in Paris. If only Stanislavski could have seen the preparation for this role.
'Having completed the job the invoice was sent and it was just a question of waiting for the cheque.
WRONG... three weeks turned to four, from a month to two, three... six months passed and no cheque. I sent the “kind" letter along, "I wonder if you have forgotten?'', “I wonder if you have mislaid the invoice?'', all that sort of polite remindery! After seven months I had had enough. It wasn't as if it was thousands of pounds. It was peanuts considering how my voice had suffered as that ruddy donkey.
'I decided on a different tack: confront them and get to see "Mr Big", the man with the money. I went into the office which was situated in Bristol. Nice area. Nice carpet, I recall. Nobody in the office except the receptionist-cum-secretary-cum-tea and coffee makeress. "Excuse me," I said, "I believe I am owed some money, can I have it please?" I showed all the relevant documents. The phone calls began, furtive looks at me and I smile. "Yes, Mr Harris, it's in hand. You should get it soon." "I want it now," I said. "It's already seven months late." "You'll just have to be patient," the woman said. That did it. I crossed quietly to the desk, unplugged the best-looking typewriter and made for the door. "Excuse meeeeeeeee..." she said, "what do you think you are doing?" "I'll take this in place of the money if that is all right with you," I said.
'The door was already beginning to close. "Just a minute," she said... more phone calls and I began to wilt under the weight of the IBM, or whatever it was. Click, the phone goes down. "All right, Mr Harris, the cheque is in the post." Yarooooooo!!! Success at last!
'I should point out that such behaviour is out of character for me. Totally out of character. I suffered for weeks imagining the moment I pulled out the plug - my clammy hands slip, the prickly heat begins and the firm arm of the law descends. Ohhh cripes!!! However, it was all worthwhile as I got my hard-earned lolly.'
- with thanks to Chris Harris, theatre director.
Quick Tricks and Devilish Deeds
Quick Tricks and Devilish Deeds
There was a man who achieved far better results than he could have hoped for by tipping out the shampoo from the bottle in her shower and substituting it with golden syrup.
1471 has made anonymous telephone calls traceable, but canny callers know that if they dial 141 before making the call, it renders the call untraceable.
Ordinary rosehips contain a marvellous home-made itching powder. The minute, hairy fibres, when dried, pierce the skin and cause considerable irritation. There is no end to the creative ideas for their use.
Make a video recording of your loo (with no-one in it). Next time there is a party, wait until someone goes to the lavatory. While he (or she) is there, put on your video. When he comes back he'll think you've all been watching him.
Post something appropriate to your adversary. We know of one woman who posted her erstwhile lover an anchovy.
Senna powder can have a dramatic effect, particularly if stewed. The man into whose bran flakes it was put knew of the fabled effect of bran but was surprised by its vehemence.
Milk is the stuff of vengeance and full fat ripens best -especially when it is tipped on to a carpet or, better still, the floor of the car.
If you know somebody you can't stand who has a pager number, find somebody else who they can't stand and page one to call the other, many times.
Put confetti in the air vent of their car.
Insert a siren into the exhaust pipe of their car.
Arrange for your victim's neighbour to receive a pornographic magazine in their mail with the victim's name but the wrong house number on the label.
There are a number of surprises you can put in the water tank - cochineal, washing-up liquid, blackcurrant juice -the possibilities are endless.
Why not put cows in your ex-lover's basement? Cows will go down stairs but they will not go up!
»
Fix fake number plates on the back of their car which look real and say things like: B J KING, DICKLESS or I AM GAY. It can take weeks before they notice.
Have some fun re-recording your ex-partner's outgoing answerphone message. The possibilities are endless.
Scatter a few pounds of raw mince over his/her lawn. It attracts all kinds of wild and domestic animals, not to mention maggots.
A man in New York poured sugar behind the plaster on the walls. They had to tear the walls out to get rid of the resulting cockroach problem.
Collect lots of call girls' phone numbers (you can always find plenty of their call cards in telephone boxes) and leave these numbers on your victim's pager.
One little boy who had been persistently bullied placed a sardine at the bottom of the bully's locker.
Put a fish in the ventilation shaft.
Put a big glob of grease under his car door handle.
If your victim has a fax number get five or six pieces of black paper, dial their number and let the fax begin. Don't
forget to erase your number from the machine. This will cost the recipient a lot of money, especially if they use the very costly thermal fax paper - and have you priced toner cartridges lately? Of course it will be expensive on your phone bill unless you use someone else's fax machine.
For those connected to the Internet: mail bomb him with gibberish text files, 30k or so long. Send several hundred copies to him in order to fill his mail box.
Put his name and phone number on the Internet, asking lots and lots of people to call him. Internet users are an active bunch and keen to please.
Call the home shopping network and order hundreds of pounds' worth of things for her. Make sure you use her phone number!
Call every kind of business that has an answering machine and leave a message for each in the mark's name expressing a desire to spend lots of money with the firm
- pick the really sleazy ones.
Tell her she looks absolutely wonderful in that simply frightful dress she is dithering about buying.
Unscrew the shower head and put in a little powdered or crystallised pigment or colourant.
Tell the Inland Revenue about the cash job your target did for you.
Stick a matchstick in her keyhole and break off the end.
Tell him you're pregnant.
Tell him you're pregnant and it's not his.
Always do your own dirty work - if you have assistants they can turn on you.
When staying in a hotel with someone you dislike, order a fabulous breakfa
st consisting of everything on the entire menu, to be delivered to their room... at 5.00a.m.!
Skiers who are fed up with queue-bargers and other irritants might employ this method of revenge. If the gondola lift has one of those compartments where the skis and poles are carried outside the lift it is a simple matter to wait until the lift is about to depart... and quietly remove the skis. It causes untold irritation to the victim that they have to go all the way up in the lift - and then down again to collect their skis.
- with thanks to the younger members of the Palmer-Tomkinson family who assure us they have never done it themselves!
Bobbit!
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Table of Contents
Foreword
Love and Disharmony
Sexual Subterfuge
Nasty Neighbours
Road Hogs
Office Politics
Little Angels
An Englishman's Home...
Looking Good?
Cash Crises
Military Mischief
Animal Antics
Telephone Trouble
Culinary Capers
Photographie Evidence
Travellers' Tales
Acting Up
Quick Tricks and Devilish Deeds
