One year. 100 articles. So we're having a Reader's Party. Come along to Upsidecrown.

Upsideclown banner

Fresh Mondays and Thursdays   ARCHIVE   US

 
 

Burt Pakamak

4 June 2001
Victor knows Bergerac's hose.

At weekends I am the Supersoaker. With my twenty-foot garden hose I pursue male celebrities and demand retribution. Please find attached a summary of my progress thus far:

Paul Hogan - I expected to find him in crocodile skin and hoped for a certain amount of chafing on contact. I was disappointed to find that he was wearing tennis shorts when I bumped into him. Still, wet whites afforded a suitable modicum of humiliation.

Burt Bacharach - I wanted to see if he really could walk on by when faced with my aquatic barrage. He did. Arsehole.

Ernest Borgnine - a great cameo and character actor deserves to be centre stage for once. Hosed him down on stage in the middle of Death of a Salesman. He was ungrateful.

Hose too far

BA Baracus - apparently my low shot to the fuselage is his reason for not getting on a plane, fool.

Mark Hammell - whom I espied driving down the freeway on a Monday morning fifteen years ago. The only water source I could find was a fire hydrant which rendered the hose extraordinarily powerful. Mr Hammell was driven off the road by my vengeful snake. I believe you can still see the scars. Must be more careful next time.

This time. My hose is due to point at the British actor John Nettles, who immortalised the Jersey Bureau des Etrangers detective Jim Bergerac in the eponymous 1980s series. Bergerac was a shock in tan leather and white trainers, a reformed alcoholic with a maverick approach and an eye for the ladies. He did wonders for the Channel Islands Tourist Board and revived the libido of countless menopausal British and Australian women.

Where is he now? I know exactly where he is, but I'm not telling you. You might break my cover in your desire to see the master water terrorist at work. Since the end of Bergerac, Nettles has enjoyed a spell at the Royal Shakespeare Company and can now be seen, lamentably fatter, in another detective series, Midsomer Murders. Nevertheless, his craggy Cornish overtan still wows the ladies of the daytime.

Let me tell you how it's going to be: Mr Nettles will be in the barber's, in the process of receiving his now shorter hairstyle. Once a good layer of discarded hair has accumulated on his shoulders I will burst into the shop, having first gained temporary licence to fix my hose to the sink in the florist's next door. There will be no time for pleading or bargaining. I have no room for compassion in my work. Mr Baracus tried that and didn't get very far. I will aim for the shoulders first - there are few things more irritating or more difficult to shift than wet hair clippings. From the head area I will proceed downwards towards the torso, pinching the mouth of the hose to ensure maximum coverage and vexation - I am aware that a light sprinkling is much more torturous than a full-on blast.

Mr Nettles will be surprised. After reasoning with him, however, he will acknowledge that his soaking has been fully deserved. He will see that the course of his career - his meteoric rise to sexual divinity and stardom and his subsequent foray into serious acting and obesity - leaves no other avenue open but atonement through hose. And he will join me in my quest to bring celebrities to their senses through the application of a reviving draught to both face and body. He will, I hope, see that soaking is the only antidote to the self-inflation of celebrity status, a very real cold shower to the delusions of power of the semi-famous. I have a list of female "celebrities" for Mr Nettles to drench at a suitable juncture. It includes Martine McCutcheon, Sheena Easton, Barbara Taylor Bradford and Jackie Collins, McCutcheon as a matter of urgency.

Then they will pay. If I can get time off from the vet's.

 

 
     
Previously on upsideclown

top

Current clown:

18 December 2003. George writes: This List

Most recent ten:

15 December 2003. Jamie writes: Seven Songs
11 December 2003. Dan writes: Spinning Jenny
8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
4 December 2003. Matt writes: The Mirrored Spheres of Patagonia
1 December 2003. George writes: Charm
27 November 2003. James writes: On Boxing
24 November 2003. Jamie writes: El Matador del Amor; Or, the Man who Killed Love
20 November 2003. Dan writes: Rights Management
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
13 November 2003. Matt writes: Disintermediation
(And alas we lost Neil, who last wrote Cockfosters)

Also by this clown:

8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
27 October 2003. Victor writes: Our Tune
6 October 2003. Victor writes: Sucking face (in a public place)
15 September 2003. Victor writes: You got any ID?
25 August 2003. Victor writes: Blood on the Boulevard
4 August 2003. Victor writes: In (paren)theses
10 July 2003. Victor writes: Island Fling
19 June 2003. Victor writes: Back (back) and forth (and forth)
2 June 2003. Victor writes: 300 clowns, 13 eight-year olds
12 May 2003. Victor writes: The swings and roundabouts of outrageous fortune
21 April 2003. Victor writes: ...just sitting there quietly contemplating suicide
31 March 2003. Victor writes: Victoria
6 March 2003. Victor writes: Relevant experience
17 February 2003. Victor writes: You will eat chips and go nowhere
27 January 2003. Victor writes: A bushy fish for fishy Mr Bush (after Juvenal)
6 January 2003. Victor writes: The Accidental Voyeur
16 December 2002. Victor writes: Gripper goes bang
25 November 2002. Victor writes: Bediquette
4 November 2002. Victor writes: Where have all the spastics gone?
14 October 2002. Victor writes: An Immodest Proposal
23 September 2002. Victor writes: Fastscan masterplan
2 September 2002. Victor writes: Dry Humping Social Club
12 August 2002. Victor writes: Beat the Mongol
22 July 2002. Victor writes: What life is not
1 July 2002. Victor writes: Stupor heroes
6 June 2002. Victor writes: Dry
13 May 2002. Victor writes: Muppet Suite
18 April 2002. Victor writes: gingermingeninja
25 March 2002. Victor writes: Sodomize with Pukka Pies
28 February 2002. Victor writes: Dave's problem
4 February 2002. Victor writes: King of the Aisles
10 January 2002. Victor writes: Here come the decorator gimps.
17 December 2001. Victor writes: Make war, not supper.
22 November 2001. Victor writes: Cough
29 October 2001. Victor writes: vbarnesinstruments.com
4 October 2001. Victor writes: Green Gauges
10 September 2001. Victor writes: Blind weed
16 August 2001. Victor writes: Snout!
23 July 2001. Victor writes: You're not going to put this in a clown are you?
28 June 2001. Victor writes: What is a droll?
4 June 2001. Victor writes: Burt Pakamak
10 May 2001. Victor writes: Board to Death
12 April 2001. Victor writes: Tricolon with anaphora?
22 March 2001. Victor writes: Point of View
26 February 2001. Victor writes: Goth's Dinner
1 Feburary 2001. Victor writes: Les Miserables
4 January 2001. Victor writes: Flat-packed furniture
14 December 2000. Victor writes: Deliverance
20 November 2000. Victor writes: Bottomry: Exorcising Ghosts
26 October 2000. Victor writes: Body Art
2 October 2000. Victor writes: Disney must die
7 September 2000. Victor writes: Ice-cream in Offworld
14 August 2000. Victor writes: I like sweets that taste of medicine
26 June 2000. Victor writes: I've seen the future, and it's feathered

Let meeeeee entertain you

top

We are all Upsideclown: Dan, George, James, Jamie, Matt, Neil, Victor.

Material is (c) respective authors. For everything else, there's it@upsideclown.com.

And weeeeeee can entertain you by email too. Get fresh steaming Upsideclown in your inbox Mondays and Thursdays. To subscribe, send the word subscribe in the body of your mail to upsideclown-request@historicalfact.com. (To unsubscribe, send the word unsubscribe instead.)