ALL'S WELL THAT SPLIT ENDS WELL

Gottfried (2nd trumpet) getting a lift to the station

(Picture:  Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly)

I am not one for blowing my own vuvuzela, as you know, but as a reserve member of the KNOB* I was called up to help provide some musical accompaniment for the big trade union demo yesterday.    

I arrived at the Gare du Nord bright and early. where I was supposed to meet up with Wolfgang, Gottfried and the boys.   While I waited I practised my Lotte Lenya repertoire.  Hundreds of militant Flemings in their trade union colours (green = Catholics, red = socialists, blue = independents) and brandishing flags, banners and cans of Jupiler were pouring off the trains from Antwerp, Gent and all points south.  It was pandemonium!  How was I supposed to find my brass section in all this hubbub?  I pushed my way through the crowd, and found myself being carried along on a wave of discontent.  Before long I had acquired "colours" - a red rain jacket and a hi-viz waistcoat, which I donned in hopes that the KNOB* lads would spot me more easily.  From then on I was pestered constantly by commuters trying to find their way out of the station, who took me for an employee of the railways. Oh, the ignominy!

It all started to go a bit Charlie Chaplin from this point on.  I had my outsize gay umbrella with me, in the event of rain.  At one point I opened it and held it aloft to avoid it getting broken in the crush.  I had bought this umbrella many years ago in Sitges, on a holiday with Harold, and it has survived many adventures, so I was damned if I was going to lose it to a bunch of gobby metalworkers.  I let the crowd carry me forward, waving my umbrella desperately in hopes that one of the KNOB* might see it and rescue me.

I was quickly surrounded by the hairdressers' branch of the CSC-ACV, who complained they were being goosed by the rank and file, and wanted to start a splinter group rallying under my umbrella.  I protested that I was only hired to provide the music, but they had taken a fancy to my fruity hat, and were now clamouring for a Carmen Miranda number. 

What can a world-famous cabaret artiste do?  I pulled out my maracas from my Delhaize bag-for-life and burst into a chorus of "Brazil" - perhaps not the wisest choice, given that the Belgian national footie team has qualified for Rio 2014.  Pretty soon the whole crowd were doing the conga and singing "Brazil", and "Here's to you, Vincent Kompany", and some of the trade unionists were getting a bit cross, as we were supposed to be heading for the European Parliament with angry looks and waving fists.  Instead, I was in the middle of a swirling vortex of singing hairdressers,  one or two of whom were glancing at my grey streaks with concern.  "Stand still a minute, love," said one, whipping out his instant-retouch pen.  


Of course, it would have to be at that very moment that my own hairdresser, Nico Lala, spotted me being retouched-up by another.  He let out a piercing banshee wail, and pushed his way through the crowd like Alexis Carrington at her screechiest.  "How very dare you!"  he spluttered, "That is Madame Daphne, she is MY client!"   The other hairdresser pffffed with contempt.  "Get over it, girlfriend!"  he pffffed.  "All's fair in love and extensions.  Anyway, are you a union member?"    Nico blanched visibly under his Max Factor American Tan panstick foundation.  "That," he retorted archly, raising himself up on his high heels, "Is neither here nor there.  I just stopped off to visit the lavatories."  The next thing I knew, there was a catfight - hairspray canisters going off like Exocet missiles.  I had to grab Nico and haul him away from the enraged horde of crimpers and other revolting workers, who would have killed him for not having a union card. 

The throng started to thin out as the procession started moving, and we managed to make some headway.  We even had time to sit down at a roadside cafe for a quick chai latte while Nico tidied up my split ends.  In the distance I heard the muffled sound of a brass band and recognized the rather rude noises that Ulrich likes to make with his trombone.  We forged ahead by using an old student trick I knew (taking the metro), and wove our way through the crowd to get to the front.  Eventually I spotted the distinctive white and bald heads of the KNOB*, and managed to catch up with them.  Once they had finished playing "Ciao, Bella, Ciao" for the umpteenth time,  I joined in on kazoo, and Nico played my maracas with surprising panache.  He does a better Carmen Miranda than me!

  

I bumped into a number of people I knew on the march, including Millicent Tendency, Frau Dr. Von Klampwangler and the girls from Hot Flash!, and started for the first time to enjoy the walk.  I never used to approve of demonstrations, but now I was starting to see the point.  It's the social side, you see.  It's a bit like a massive ramblers' club, with the occasional loud bang.  A bit like rambling through a firing range.  I was delighted to find my former schatz Bert leading the KNOB* for the last time, as next month he is due to be crowned Kaiser of all the German oompah bands across the Vaterland.  Der Fuhrer, Gott mit uns.  

 

 Bert got a free short back and sides from my crimper contingent.

The procession was mostly good-natured although I saw the odd heated exchange, which was usually between a Walloon and a Fleming who had possibly got heatstroke from the unseasonably warm Brussels weather.  So much for El Pueblo, Unido.  "L'union fait la force" is the motto of Belgium, but I think it must be a surrealist joke.  Flares were being thrown with a total abandon - one landed on a balcony of St Jean hospital.  I do hope there was nobody with a heart condition inside the room.  Someone with more courage than sense (probably Solidarnosc)  lobbed a flare inside the grounds of the Russian Embassy.  However, it appeared the Embassy officials had knocked off early for the weekend, so there was no riposte and Mr Putin did not try to annexe Ixelles. 

There were a large number of burly chaps in orange workclothes, with "Haven van Antwerpen" on the back, who seemed particularly vociferous.  I'll walk with them, I thought, for safety.  I noticed many of them were wearing those Palestinian chequered scarves across their faces, and complimented them on their foresight in dressing to beat the Brussels pollution levels.  

 Safe haven?  Perhaps not.

We arrived at the rallying point to find a battle raging - flares and paving stones were being met with CS gas from the riot police.  And who was in the middle of the fray?  The hairdressers, assisted by Scrumpy and his dreadlocked friends, who were inexplicably lobbing oranges at the police.  The police were catching them and peeling them, eating the segments in a languid fashion, before turning the water cannon up to level 7, and giving the protesters a good old Brussels downpour.   Just to make them feel welcome.  This only served to enrage the hairdressers - all their blowdrying instantly undone - and they piled in with thinning scissors and curling tongs.  The dockers, who had planned to storm the barricades themselves, were understandably miffed, and set about the hairdressers.  They were perhaps not ready for the resulting squeals and giggles and shouts of "Ooh you're a big boy!".  Meanwhile, the riot police were drinking Buck's Fizz on top of the water cannon and enjoying the show.

(Photo:  Berlaymonster)

There were some refreshment stalls set up at the end of the route, offering burgers, frites, and welcome drinks.  Thorsten, 3rd trumpet, who's a bit short-sighted, came back with a case of Jupiler.  "Belgian coca cola is very good!"  he announced happily.  I hadn't got the heart to contradict him. 

Belgian Coca Cola

A large amount of "Belgian coca cola" was being consumed, especially at the end, when the majority of the rank and file abandoned the speeches to go and watch the infinitely more entertaining running battles between the hairdressers, the dockers and the police, although some of the dockers had abandoned the fight and were enjoying head massages from the hairdressers.  So if nothing else was achieved, the workers of InBev are secure.  And I gathered up enough squashed oranges to make a whole batch of marmalade.  Our musical performance was much appreciated by the crowd and we played loud enough to drown out the screams of pain from fallen policemen.

That second hand copy of "The Communist songbook" was worth every penny. Take it away, Uli!

* Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band

THE SILVER SPRING

Alas!  The Curse of Daphne strikes again.  No sooner had I mentioned Paco de Lucia than he plucked his last plink, riffed his last riff, strummed his last, er, strum.  This has happened before.  Princess Diana, Colonel Gaddaffi, and Petite Anglaise all came a cropper after I mentioned them.  (Petite Anglaise, I hasten to point out, is still alive:  she just stopped blogging after I decided to pimp her).  

I swore not to do it again.  But the word of an over-50 is not worth the shopping list it's written on.  We forget things, you see.  Our brains start to erode.  We have more and more of those 'senior moments', when we get all the way to the end of the road under our own steam and then find we're still in our dressing gowns.  If we're lucky we can turn back before we get to the office.

And yet we can remember the name of every rock musician who went mad or died, or where Mick and Bianca got married, or exactly what happened to Gram Parsons' corpse.   We can wallop the youngsters in quiz nights - as long as the questions are not about computers, video games or rap music.   We can remember HOW to do the Funky Chicken, we just can't physically do it.  Bob Marley's "Get up, stand up" is just a song title now.  We don't go to rock festivals because it takes too long to fight your way to the loo.

A recent study by Belgian academics came to the alarming conclusion that older workers cost more than they are worth in terms of productivity.  I would like to vehemently disagree.  I would like to, but unfortunately I think they're probably right.  They keep telling us we'll have to work until we're 70, but who would want Mrs "Two Soups" Overall for a secretary, slopping the coffee in visitors' laps?  

These Belgian academics came to the conclusion that the only solution to this dilemma was to reduce workers' salaries in line with their performance.  Which will, in turn, have a reductory effect on their pensions.  Nay, nay, and thrice nay!  First they want to make us work till we drop, now they want us to do it for less money! 

This will bring the oldies out in their droves, waving their walking sticks and garden implements in the air and holding sit-down demos in the street.  They can hold out for days, even weeks, as long as they've got somewhere to sit down.  Such a shame Tony Benn has just gone, he would have been the perfect champion.  In his absence, perhaps I should take on his mantle and marshall the old fogeys to revolution.   We could call it the Silver Spring!  (Rather good that, better write it down before I forget it).  

As the La Pasionaria for the Third Age, I would stand proudly with my megaphone atop the barricades built from garden sheds and zimmer frames, and exhort older workers to rise up, or if they couldn't manage that, sit down vigorously.   Picture the scene:  hordes of angry sexagenarians, shuffling down the main boulevard.
 

"What do we want ??"   

" Oh, er, wait a minute ...... what DO we want, again? "  





 

 How to be an annoying older worker

Employers might complain that their older workers are already on a go-slow, but with age comes wisdom and a wiliness grown of experience.  Older workers know there is more than one way to skin a cat. We would start with a campaign of annoying behaviour in the workplace:  calling out the IT department several times a day because we've forgotten our password;  forgetting to flush the loo; audible belching in meetings;  slurping our tea; smelling slightly of wee, that sort of thing.  We would have to recruit some younger elements to take care of the Twitter account.

We would then move on to Phase II of our campaign involving civil disobedience:  clogging up nightclubs with seventies nights; taking ages to get change out at the cash desk to pay for one small jar of jam (you might say some do that anyway, but imagine 50 of them in a supermarket at the same time); driving up the wrong side of the motorway, or driving at all; attempting citizens' arrests for ageism; dancing to Black Sabbath; buying up all the tickets to Justin Bieber concerts; going naked on the beach in Ibiza; cooking cabbage; wearing leather trousers; and mowing the lawn on Sundays.    Of course the public would be taken hostage, but this is a noble cause that concerns everyone, and the public would have to bloody well put up with it.   One day this will be your problem. 

Cliff could be our Bono

 

In Phase III, if our demands are not met, we would be obliged to violence as a last resort.  Bombarding the Pensions Office with used incontinence pads as an opening salvo.  Drunk on sherry, we would loot surgical appliance shops and make IEDs out of the hollow tubular legs of commodes.  Suicide missions would be launched at the Ministry of Social Security, using wheelchairs piloted by the recently deceased.  This would have the double advantage of eliminating funeral expenses for the families, so it would become a point of honour to volunteer grandad for the final push, so to speak.  Elastic stockings could be used as catapults to lob Molotov cocktails made out of empty Sanatogen bottles at government offices (a younger person might need to be on hand to remind us to set fire to them first).    Hearing aids could be synchronised to bombard the European Commission with white noise - imagine half a million decibels of feedback. Alexander de Kroo (Belgian Minister of Pensions) would be kidnapped, tied up and subjected to 24-hour loud recordings of Eddy Wally at full volume until he agreed to our demands.

So think again, Belgian academics and government, before you attack older workers.  We have methods of persuasion that make waterboarding look like a fun day out.  Take it away, Eddy: 

ADIEU LA FRANCE, HOLA ESPANA

I have been an unrepentant  Francophile for many years, almost since the day, aged 7 or so, that I discovered old uncle Algernon's dusty pre-war Hugo's French Primer in the bookcase at home and started teaching myself phrases such as "Pardi! Otez votre haute-forme, Monsieur, avant de descendre de la calèche" *   By my teens I was nuts about all things French - Sacha Distel particularly.  At 15 I won two tickets to his concert at the London Palladium in a Daily Mirror competition, where a terrified Sacha was mauled by me and Aunt Lucy, and 48 other middle-aged women.

I am in here somewhere

I visited France at every opportunity until the age of 23, when I set off to seek my fortune as a danseuse exotique at the Folies Bergère.  I had no idea how long I would stay, but it turned out to be the equivalent of two seven-year itches.  However, in recent years I have become increasingly disillusioned with the Hexagon.  For the past eight years I have been on a catch-up exercise visiting all the bits of France I didn't have time to see when I lived in Paris.  I have been to Brittany North, Brittany South, La Rochelle, the Vaucluse, Corsica, the Loire Valley, Cathar country, Alsace AND Lorraine, Champagne country, the Nord-Pas de Calais and of course countless visits to Paris.  I have been searching for that corner of France that beckoned winsomely, the place where I could hang my béret, take off my Christian Louboutins and pour myself a glass of Chablis.    Unfortunately, eight years later, I find French towns looking more like Slough than Shangri-La.   Sometimes you wonder if there's not a case to be made to Angela Merkel to send the Luftwaffe back on an architectural mercy mission.

 

Cergy-Pontoise

In addition, I am coming to the conclusion that France isn't all it used to be.  I notice a growing trend for Starbucks and Claire's Accessories.  The food isn't so good any more.  It is generally accepted everywhere - everywhere except France, that is - that you'll eat better in London than in Paris these days.    The French have lost that je ne sais quoi.  400,000 of them have buggered off to London.  Most café-tabacs in Paris are run by the Chinese.  And there are roundabouts everywhere.  You might as well be in Milton Keynes. And now it looks as though the dreadful Le Pen woman and her odious cohorts may be running the place before long.   The last bastion of the Fronde is about to fall.  I am throwing in the torchon.   It's time to find a new hunting ground. 

                                 The old Spanish mission ... no bullet holes in this one

Gorbals and I made an expeditionary trip to Andalusia last November.  It's no country for old women down there - it's where Sergio Leone filmed his "Dollars" series of spaghetti westerns, and every petrol pump attendant looks like the illegitimate son of Lee Van Cleef.  Added to that, we were staying 600m up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and it was freezing cold.

I had been to Spain seven times before, since 1986, and therefore am not a total virgen in matters Iberian.  I had picked up a little Spanish on my travels.  I am a great fan of Spanish food, although I do wish they would eat at a reasonable hour.    The Spanish breakfast comes a very close second to the Full English in my book.  You can keep your cappuccino, a Spanish cafe con leche accompanied by freshly squeezed orange juice is the best way to start the day.


Many years ago I had a plan to visit the three great Moorish cities of Andalusia. On previous visits I had been to the Alcazar in Seville and the Mezquita in Cordoba.   I finally completed my triathlon in November, with the breathtaking Alhambra in Granada. 

I stood on one of the verandahs of the Generalife and gazed out over the palaces, transported back to a previous life as the Sultan's flame-haired favourite, floating about in fuchsia chiffon harem pants bearing silver platters of Fry's Turkish Delight, or occasionally treating him to my old routine from the Folies Bergere.

"Come to me, my little loukoum" he called, looking a bit like Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia.  "You must show me that thing you do again with the ping pong balls."  I fluttered my eyelashes over my yashmak and shook my head demurely.  "Sire, you are confusing me with that bint from Bangkok," I protested.  "I only do it with Maltesers."    Only I could get away with contradicting the mighty Sheikh Ahmed Bin Liner, anyone else would have been beheaded for such lèse-majesté.  But he could refuse me nothing.  My lustrous curly locks - the colour of tangerines, he wrote in his poetry - and my alabaster skin fascinated him.   He called me Rebekah, which in his dialect means "She who listens in the shadows".   I sat at his feet in rapt attention while he recited his love poetry.  Unfortunately his voice was so mellifluous that I fell asleep, and when I awoke I had missed the guided tour of the palaces and nearly missed the charabanc back to our hotel.

Of course there is the problem of the 1 million Brits already in Spain, and it would seem that no corner of Iberia is untouched by British hand.  Still, I'm not as purist as I used to be about being an emigrant.  I would of course learn Spanish should I decide to live there, but I would not turn my nose up at having a British supermarket within walking distance, Tetley's tea bags and tapas are not mutually exclusive.


And then there's the music.  I am, as you know, a great fan of flamenco.  I have seen Manitas de Plata in concert twice - and actually met him once - as well as Antonio Gades' dance troupe and Paco de Lucia in concert, not to mention a good few tablaos in Madrid and Seville, and almost became engaged to an accidental member of the Gipsy Kings once in the South of France.  The flamenco is a dance which is designed for a woman of my calibre, shoe size and temperament.  Stamping my feet is something which comes very easy to me.

An early addition to my musical education

 The formidable and elastic-stocking-defying Blanca del Rey, about whose 
live performance I reported in 2011

On the whole, there's a lot about Spain I like.  I shall be taking my investigations further in future years, and to France I say "zut alors".   Spain has much to recommend it.  I am sure you will agree, ladies.

*  I say!  Remove your top hat, Sir, before getting down from the carriage.

REBOOT

Let's blog again, like we did last summer ...or rather last decade.  Last night one was reminded of the halcyon days of blogging by erstwhile Prince of Darkness Spanish Goth, into whom one bumped on the steps of the Hairy Canary en route to a New Year's libation with Aunty Marianne and Scouse Doris.  Having just seen the aforementioned blogueuses, he feigned surprise at seeing one in this unaccustomed part of town and asked "What is this, a bloggers revivalist meeting?"

Blogging, it appears, has gone the way of the skipping rope, the hula hoop,  Babycham, "Charlie" (the perfume, not the other stuff), the Gonk, the reel-to-reel tape recorder, the IBM Golfball, tank tops, loon pants, Radio 1 DJs, youth clubs, the Rubik's cube, the Furby, Jimmy Savile, western TV series, Athena posters,  ......... which is, I think, a shame as it had many beneficial effects, especially for people on the autism spectrum. 

As a way of making friends, blogging was the electronic equivalent of kidnapping. Speed-dating for control freaks.  If Facebook is like being in the pub, blogging was like standing on the bar with everyone else gagged and bound.  You could hold forth at length, and readers had to absorb the entire post before commenting.  That way, you were sure to be heard, if not listened to.  It was great for ranters, although not wise for them to add "Site Meter" to their blogs, as they soon realized they were standing on the bar of an empty pub, or like John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness.

There were some big egos.  There were even some "method bloggers" who refused to come out of character.  And they, of course, assumed everyone else was a method blogger too.  I remember one Grande Dame of the ethernet, having met me in the flesh, saying in a bemused way:  
"You're not at all how I imagined.  I thought you'd be .... "   
"Posher?"  I countered, shifting my chip from one shoulder to the other.   
 "Yurse .... " she replied languidly, blowing Sobranie smoke through an ivory holder. * 



Some bloggers even got famous and were published.  Belle de Nuit was one, and Petite Anglaise, who it turned out was just bored between husbands and is now back in an office job. 

 

I even got into print myself.  I and a few other Brussels bloggers were featured in this compilation which was published for Red Nose Day 2007.  

 

Blogging was a way of allowing people who are convinced there's a book in them to find out it's only a pamphlet, write it and get on with their lives.  But you get a bit of feedback and the let-down is gentle because the expectations are that much lower.  As for me, I contented myself with a therapeutic voiding once a week, only some of which was based on fact.  But then life got in the way and, you know, the creative juices started to leak out of the tetrapak that is my mind.


Remakes. reboots and reprises are very in vogue right now.  Ben Stiller has remade  "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (which will remind me of Harold, I know);  Ridley Scott is remaking "Exodus" in the Almeria desert, where Christian Bale as Moses (nice irony there!) will part the Sea of Plastic and Jesse from Breaking Bad will play Joshua 'blowing' his horn - all terribly subtle;  "Open All Hours" is coming back, with an elderly David Jason now in the role that Ronnie Barker vacated.   


So my New Year's resolution is to decant my mind into a bottle rather than the other way round, and write more tales of the KNOB**, further adventures of Gorbals McChe (Glasgow Hard Man - retired),  The Rise and Rise of Bert,  Hot Flash and brassy women of a certain age, the best way to play the maracas, salacious gossip about the Euroslebs of Brussels, and possibly even The Return of Scrumpy.

The KNOB**

 Eurosleb.  Sorry, Euroslob.

 Gorbals

The famous reboot of Dr Who was a lifesaver for the Doctor.  Perhaps it's time for Daphne to regenerate?   In a post-ironic way, naturally.







*Any resemblance to bloggers living or dead is purely coincidental 
** Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band

THEY MADE ME DEAF, YOU KNOW (PART DEUX)

Milady Esmeralda de Wayne de la Bough ended her performance with a flourish.  The crowd went wild.  Quasi McModo hirpled round with the hat, collecting a total of two sous, a button and an out of date luncheon voucher.   He infiltrated the crowd while Milady did her extended thank-you speech and dipped a few unsuspecting pockets.   His second haul wasn't much better.  He was just extracting a wallet from a back pocket when a firm hand appeared from nowhere and gripped his wrist.

"Put that back,"  came a gruff voice.  Quasi looked up with his best 'it wasnae me' face.  Two flinty blue eyes glared down at him.

"Please, sir .... "  he whined.

"Please sir nothing."  the stranger growled back.  "What is your name, boy?"

"Er .... Oliver Twist, sir."

"LIAR!" bellowed the man. "You are Baldrick McModo, known as Quasi!  Don't you remember me?"

Quasi squinted up at him.  "Er ...  dad?"  he ventured.  It was worth a try.

"Sacrebleu, please God my loins should never sire a whelp like this!"  spluttered the stranger.  "Think back, McModo.  You have seen my face before, I'll wager."

Quasi squinted harder, although as he only had one eye, he couldn't squint too much or he wouldn't see anything.

"Come tae think of it, ye dae look familiar .... "

The man started to move away, still gripping Quasi's wrist.

"Where are we going, sir?"  whined Quasi.

"Here on the steps of the Cathedral, a beggar woman found you and saved  your life.  She took you to the orphanage where you grew up.  I was the director of that orphanage.  My portrait was at the top of the stairs.  I am your benefactor.  I have watched you from afar."

He paused, for dramatic effect,

"My name is Jean Valjean Magwitch".  .

"JEAN VALJEAN MAGWITCH!"  repeated Quasi, for dramatic effect.  "Why, you're the man whose portrait was at the top of the stairs in the orphanage!"

"Indeed I am, child."  said the stranger, looking more like Kenneth Branagh by the minute.  "I hoped that you would educate yourself and pull yourself out of the gutter.  But I see my efforts were in vain."

He glanced towards the Parvis de Notre Dame, where Milady was taking a final bow.

"Who is that woman?"  he asked, with a furrowed brow.

"Och, that's Lady Esmeralda.  I work for her." replied Quasi.

"Take me to her!" commanded Valjean Magwitch.  "This woman must have a heart of gold.  And her legs aren't bad either."

Milady saw Quasi approaching, dangling from the clenched fist of the well dressed stranger.  She adjusted her decollete, and flashed a radiant smile.

"And who have we here?"  she cried, rattling her tambourine.  "Good morrow, milord. Have you come to take down my particulars?"

Valjean Magwitch met her eyes unblinkingly.   "Madame," he began, taking her hand and brushing it with his lips.

Milady curtseyed prettily.  "Charmed, I'm sure," she responded.  "Have we had the pleasure, Squire?"

"No, and we've not met before either," responded Valjean Magwitch. "But I know who you are, Milady."

Esmeralda raised an eyebrow. "Do you now?"

"You are Gladys Eliza Doolittle Perkins of Wapping!"  he boomed.   Milady turned pale and faltered slightly.

"How can you .... how is it .....   " she stammered, clutching her throat.

"My dearest friend, the linguistics professor Dr Benjamin East, had a wager with me many years ago that he could turn a guttersnipe into a lady.  He picked up a simple market girl and taught her to speak the King's English.  He dressed her in fine gowns, taught her table manners, and turned her into a refined lady.  He took her to the races and to diplomatic parties.  He even changed her name, to Esmeralda.  She was his model student, she fooled them all.  Nobody suspected she was an urchin from the East End."

Gladys regained her composure.  "Yes, and then he dumped me in the bleedin' snow!"  she retorted.  "When he had won his bet with you, he had no more use for me and kicked me out.  I was left to support myself the only way I knew how, by dancing."

"I know," said Jean Valjean Magwitch, bowing his head, "and I regretted the way my friend treated you.   I have searched high and low for you for many years, hoping that you had not fallen on hard times.  At the same time I have been following the progress of this young man,"   he lifted Quasi up slightly by his collar, "and it is with great joy that I find my two protégés have found each other.  It is a kind of serendipity."

"Aaaaooowww milord,"  laughed Gladys, linking arms with the top-hatted man with the shiny shoes, "I wash me face an' 'ands afore I come, I did!"  

Bill Bailey breaks into cockney music ("da-da, da da-da-DAH"), and the bells of Notre Dame ring out as the crowd join the three principals in a high-kicking chorus of "Consider yerself at home".

F  I  N