A couple of short stories inspired by the input “We’re in trouble”. It probably makes more sense in the Youtube video, but the script is below.
Thanks Caroline. Thanks for having me. Nice to be here. They’re all really hard acts to follow, as always. Great minds think alike.
I’ve been told I dance about on stage, causing squeaking. I hope I can avoid that this time. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m all about managing expectations. So, let me tell you now, as I have told my girlfriends: What follows may not be pleasurable, but it will be brief.
A German friend of mine told me the following story about his first trip to the UK, back in the 80s. He and his wife were driving along a lonely motorway at night in icy, snowy weather. Nobody has winter tires there so it is really treacherous.
My German friend and his wife drove some distance behind another car. Then, without warning, this car must have hit a patch of black ice. It first slid, then started to spin, doing a full 360 across the hard shoulder, at which point it began climbing the motorway verge.
The driver then recovered some measure of control and tried to steer it back towards the road, but the verge was so steep the car began to tip, then rolled onto its roof and, then, all the way over back onto its wheels again. By some miracle of physics it was not only back on the road, but it was facing the right way.
My German friend and his wife looked on in horror, then pulled up. My friend got out and jogged over to the stricken car to see if he could help. As he got close he saw there was a middle-aged man behind the wheel and what was likely his wife in the passenger seat.
“Hallo, hallo. Is everything okay?”
The man wound down his window and said, “It’s quite slippery out there tonight, isn’t it?” And with that he wound up the window and drove on.
As my German friend concluded that these British people were not going to say, “We’re in trouble” until it is strictly necessary. Adapting to this penchant for stoical understatement is harder for some than others
And to illustrate this we find ourselves a fly on the wall of the UK branch of Superheroes Incorporated, a US corporation which provides the UK with superhero coverage from an anonymous office block in East Croydon.
“Good afternoon, Captain Exaggero, please take a seat,” says an anonymous young man in a white shirt and trousers.
A man enters the office and takes a seat opposite, his green and red spandex suit audibly straining to contain his bulging muscles.
KS: “Right, well, then. I thought I should ask you to come in to talk about your dissatisfaction with your posting to the UK.”
CE: “I am grateful for an audience with you, Superhero Resources Man.”
KS: “No, no, it’s just Kevin Spratley. Just a regular personnel manager. Thank you, all the same.”
CE: “As you wish, Kevin Spratley, Supremo of the excel spreadsheet, overlord of the photocopier, unrivalled hero of the full round of perfectly-brewed tea.”
KS: “No, no I am simply here to keep track of superhero holidays, sick pay, pensions, timesheets, and the like. And, of course, reports of dissatisfaction like yours. Could you explain why you feel dissatisfied?”
CE: “As you will know from my resume I can leap tall buildings in a single bound, fly faster than a speeding bullet and have the strength of a thousand men. My eyes can see through miles of solid concrete, while one breath is enough to trigger a tsunami.”
KS: “Indeed, yes. And your first month in the UK has been exceptional: fifteen damsels in distress rescued and three apocalypses averted. You even qualified for an extra half day’s holiday. I’m at a loss how you can be dissatisfied?”
CE: “Indeed, I am happy to have spared so many innocent lives, especially those of unusually good looking young women. And I am also happy about my half day vacation. But I feel the UK is not a suitable location for Captain Exaggero.
KS: “Is it the weather?”
CE: “No, no. The weather is indeed quite depressing, but it’s not the weather, Excel Spreadsheet Man.”
KS: “It is just Kevin, please. Is it the food, then?”
CE: “No, no, Captain Exaggero has taste buds and stomach of hardened steel, Super Kevin.”
KS: “Please, just Kevin. Can you please just let me know the problem, for the form?”
CE: “Well, if I must. I feel the British people do not appreciate me enough.” Kevin wrote the word “underappreciated” in his notes, as he had written it many times before. “Superheroes thrive everywhere, but here in the UK, we’re in trouble. Without a regular supply of superlatives we are doomed.
KS: “Could you, perhaps, give me an example to explain what you mean?”
CE: “I can explain, but I will not resort to mere human words. I will replay a scene with my super telepathic power.”
With that Captain Exaggero sent Kevin a mental replay: A woman is on the roof of a burning building in north London, smoke billowing around her.
“Help, help. Please, someone help. Pleeeeaassee…,” she cried. “Oh, no, it looks like I’m gonna die. Oh, bloody hell. We’re in trouble.”
As if by magic Exaggero swoops into view, on a cloud of his own hot air.
CE: “Fear not, fearful, and unusually attractive young lady. Captain Exaggero is here to save you. You need not be afraid.”
With this Exaggero carries the young woman into the air, flies up, up, up into the night sky, until London is spread out before them like a sparkling carpet.
YL: “Ooo, very nice. Could you drop me at 34 Buckingham Road, Surbiton.”
CE: “What? Drop you? You want to end our night of salvation together already?”
YL: “Well I can’t fly around here all night and I have got work in the morning. And aunt Renie will be worried sick.”
CE: “But, but I just rescued you from certain death!”
YL “Yes, you did and I’m grateful. But what do you expect, a bleeding medal?”
CE: “A medal? I am just saying that by some miracle I saved you from certain death in the nick of time. I am Captain Exaggero, superhero, stronger than a thousand men, quicker than a speeding bullet…”
YL: “I’m Captain Exaggerato, superhero … Captain bleeding bighead more like. And, you’re right, it was the nick of time, and all. Why wait until my flat’s already bleeding burnt to a cinder, eh? …I know your game, mate. You wanted me all helpless and alone.”
The rest of the flight was a little awkward.
YL: “Here we are, 34, first of the left. After the white van. That’s it. With the hedge. How much do I owe you?”
And there the flashback ended.
KS: “Yes, that was a little awkward wasn’t it,” said Kevin as he emerged from his telepathic trance.
CE: “It was more than a little awkward. It was possibly the most awkward thing I ever experienced in my entire superhuman life.”
KS: “I hear you, Exaggero. Tell me, can you keep a little secret?”
CE: “I can. I can keep secrets more securely than the most sophisticated form of human encryption ever devised.”
Kevin pushed his card across the table, “My secret role here is to help you superheroes acclimatise to local conditions. I am here to guide you.”
CE: “So, I was right, you are a superhero after all. You are the superhero of superheroes. You are Understatement Man! I am saved by the most understated person in the whole universe.”
KS: “Shhhh. Keep your voice down, Captain Exaggero. Secrecy remember! You will have to learn the art of understatement. Lesson one I am just Kevin an understated man.”
CE: “Thank you Kevin, the most an understated man in the universe.”
KS: “Not quite, but we’ll work on it.” ■