GRAMS: KIRSTY MacCOLL - 'FREE WORLD' (ENDS)
MORRIS
Don't suppose you heard the Today programme, Monday morning, ten past eight - cracker of an interview between James Naughtie and Michael Heseltine. Naughtie was basically sort of saying "Are you going to be... Are you going to put yourself forward to challenge John Major?", and Michael Heseltine was going "(HUFFS) This is pointless speculation, I've answered this question so many times! All you're trying to do... you're just trying to push me towards giving you a slip of the tongue, and then you'll go wwwrrrushing off to all your colleagues on the One O'Clock News, the Evening Standard will do a leader about the whole thing and everyone in television will be running around getting over-excited...". And he just absolutely lambasted the whole idea of the kind of media speculation thing, er, which effectively works because of, the media has such a rough reputation for just, er, y'know, making things up or just pumping hot air into stories which aren't really issues. Erm, and James Naughtie was just kind of like, nearly crying by the end, every time Heseltine waded in and said "there's another one - there's another one... You... you see, you're just trying to... trying to make me say something stupid so that in the end you'll be able to rush around with your little piece of tape!". And Naughtie was sort of going "Ohhh, but, ehhh, ohhh, ehhhh...," and he was kind of like... virtually nearly crying. It was class! It meant nothing at all, but it was class listening. (TO BAYNHAM) You didn't hear that, did you.
BAYNHAM
No I didn't, I just heard the second half of that programme. About the, um, the stuff about the Lottery. Lotto...
MORRIS
Oh, the Millennium Fund?
BAYNHAM
Yeah, yeah.
MORRIS
Ah, well, you see, the content of that was much more disturbing but they underplayed it a lot - that thing about, er, one point five billion quid at the end of the century to spend on the celebrations....
BAYNHAM
Yeah, yeah...
MORRIS
...drawn from the National Lottery tickets that we're buying now.
BAYNHAM
I know. It was really... I saw the Panorama thing as well about it...
MORRIS
On Monday night?
BAYNHAM
...yeah, yeah, yeah...
MORRIS
Ah yeah. How are they gonna spend that though? It's absurd!
BAYNHAM
What a... waste of money, this business of they're gonna give it to the thir... they're gonna give a third of it...
MORRIS
Yeah...
BAYNHAM
...to the first baby born... on New Year's Day, 2000.
MORRIS
Utterly ridiculous - they've totally failed to foresee what trouble that's going to, er, throw up...
BAYNHAM
Well, ba... basically, the way I see it is anybody who conceives during 1999 is gonna want some of that so they're gonna hang onto the kid or something like that...
MORRIS
Well they're gonna say they're in with a chance - those who conceive early will say "yeah, let's hang onto it - we won't have it in October", and those who conceive late will say "we can do a super-gestation in a month!" and have it out in a mo... so you're gonna get these mothers, like, in October, they're gonna start contractions and they're gonna go "no, no, I'm gonna jam in a cork! Keep it there - keep it there for two months..." Or, the baby's gonna start coming, the waters will break, the baby will start coming out... and the, the, the head will be sticking out of their pants! They'll be walking around going "it hasn't been born yet!", and they'll take these drugs to relax all the muscles so it won't fall out! And then Mothercare will be actually providing... with these... kind of... these, these pants - these pregnancy pants with a great big kind of baby's hat let into the gusset! So they can walk around with a baby sticking out of their pants! And they... they'll even appear on... like, on er... tube trains - you know how people sort of think it's quite acceptable y... "I'm feeding my baby so I can get my breasts out, okay - you're not allowed to watch..." What they'll do this time - they'll be just, like, hoiking up their skirts! And showing their pants! And then just whipping out a bottle and then jamming it between their legs into the gaping baby's mouth which is lying down there!
BAYNHAM
What about... all the ones where the kid hasn't started to show, so, y'know, they haven't gone into the contractions yet...
MORRIS
Right.
BAYNHAM
...but they might soon. I mean, they're just gonna start doing things like pushi... pushing little Christmas lights up there, or little fire flies...
MORRIS
To keep it in there?
BAYNHAM
Yeah, yeah, so the kids are like "Ehh-hhh-hhhh"
MORRIS
"Ooh, I'm not coming out!"
BAYNHAM
Or give 'em one of those little dogs - you know, those little Japanese dogs? What are they called, um...
MORRIS
Japanese Finger Dogs?
BAYNHAM
Yeah!
MORRIS
What, those two-inch things?
BAYNHAM
Yeah - they're gonna push one of those up inside... and the thing's gonna be there, barking at the foetus - the foetus is gonna be cornered in the middle of the... in the uterus.
MORRIS
And there's all these 90-year-olds as well - I bet you they'll be kinda like... thinking "I could have a kid too!" - they'll be desperately swallowing ovaries or shovelling frogspawn up their fannies... or, they'll try anything, those people, they're kind of like the, the, the jumble sale technique - it's like anything is okay! So, like, they'll knock out their husbands, bung them into a pram, rush round to a hospital and say "Ew, look, I've had a baby!" Or, they'll try and get inseminated by rushing around Soho peep shows with a little yoghurt pot - "Can I have some?"
BAYNHAM
It's gonna be an awful mess! Live on television. Horrible.
MORRIS
Well of course it's gonna be telivi... I mean, televis... I mean, if it doesn't happen on television then it's not a fact! I mean, you know how television confirms things as fact. We use... we refer to television programmes all the time in order to try and substatiate some ridiculous lie!
BAYNHAM
Er, Chris.... you shouldn't...
MORRIS
Sorry.
BAYHAM
Mm.
MORRIS
In fact none of them seem to have taken account - this is the sad thing - none of them seem to have taken account of the fact that the whole thing is going to be eclipsed... by the fact that Christ is very likely to be born again that night! Experts predict that Christ is going to emerge as a fully-formed man from a circus elephant!
BAYNHAM
They'll have to hose out his beard a bit then...
GRAMS: STONE ROSES - 'LOVE SPREADS'
MORRIS
I'm not gonna buy anymore Lottery tickets, are you?
BAYNHAM
No. (BEAT) Why are we banging on about babies again?
MORRIS
Broody stuff I think. It's 'cos Emma Freud's gone off to have a baby. That's why she's leaving. She's going off to have a baby. You know the careerist cow won't elbow enough space in her diary to have one. It's tragic, and... plus the fact that Richard Curtis is impotent...
The Chris Morris Music Show
Show 20 - 30/11/94, BBC Radio 1