“Who is it?” Jen
asks sleepily as the frantic knocking on the bedroom door wakes her
from her rest. Her flatmate Debbie runs into the room and sits down excitedly at the foot of her bed.
“Have you heard the
news?” she asks,
“No.”
“Okay, okay, okay. Do
you remember that advert with the white haired, slightly lascivious
bloke selling insurance, where he asks her to calm down dear because
it's a commercial?”
“Vaguely.”
“WELL! Maybe she should tell him to calm down dear because he's dead now!”
“WELL! Maybe she should tell him to calm down dear because he's dead now!”
Debbie claps her hands triumphantly and waits expectantly for her flatmate to respond. Jen rolls over and tries to get back to sleep.
“Oh
come on Jen! What did you think of my brilliant topical joke?”
“It wasn't very fluid."
“Well what do you know,” Debbie says,
getting up from the bed crossly, “I've already had 32 re-tweets and
18 likes.”
“I'm
very happy for you.”
“You do know your wasting your life Jen, not getting involved when the nation gets together to laugh at the death of a celebrity.”
“It
just seems in slightly poor taste.”
“Not
if their entire life can be boiled down to a catchphrase or meme it
isn't!” Debbie shouts furiously and slams the door behind her as
she leaves.
Meanwhile...
“...and
so he goes 'why don't
you calm down dear, it's a
funeral!” Bill from Marketing says over the top of his desk divider,
as the rest of the office fall about with painful, guttural laughter.
“Here's
one, here's one!” Ian from Customer Services manages to shout out
between wretches of mirth, “Michael Winner gets to heaven looking a
bit shocked so God says 'calm down dear, you're in heaven!'”
Sally
from Firewall Management almost chokes on her morning coffee as
Trevor from Vending Machine Optimisation scrolls frantically through
Twitter.
“Have
you guy's heard this one?” he asks, the sweat of good humour
pouring from his forehead onto his keyboard, “Michael Winner is
dead. Calm down everyone!”
There
is silence in the office.
Then
everyone falls about in uncontrollable hysterics once again as the phone lines in the
office ring and ring to the indignity of no-one paying any attention.
Meanwhile...
“Erm,
we are sorry for the delay ladies and gentlemen,” the muffled sound
of the tannoy dribbles out into the overcrowded morning train to
groans and tuts from the commuters. Twenty minutes late already and
now more bad news about to befall this accursed London-Midland
journey.
“We're
having some slight problems getting you to your destination today,
but don't worry, calm down dears
it's only your daily commute!”
The
explosion of laughter seems almost like a physical presence in the
carriage as everyone falls about, hugging one another and punching
the air with delight. Some openly weep with joy and others text their friends
to tell them what has just happened.
The conductor himself finally stops
laughing at his own joke and continues, “But seriously folks a
young couple have committed suicide by jumping in front of this train
so we'll just be a few minutes more while their mangled bodies are
peeled off the front bumper.”
Meanwhile...
In a hospital bed, after several hours under the influence of heavy medication, the actor Michael Winner wakes from his operation.
* *
“Nurse!”
Michael says irritably, having already been ignored three times,
“nurse, was the operation a success, I feel fine?”
But
the nurse just walks past the bed and into the next ward.
“Bloody
ridiculous.” Winner says grumpily to himself, stepping out of bed
and into the hospital slippers. He feels slightly woozy from the
medication but otherwise in tip top condition. He sees two doctors
chatting in lowered voices around a water cooler and approaches them
to register his complaint about the rude nurse.
“Did you hear about Michael Winner?” asks one of the doctors to the other.
“Yeah,
I guess he should have 'calmed down, dear!'” both men let out
guffaws but quickly stifle them, concerned of waking up the sleeping
patients in the ward.
“Now
look here!” Winner begins but they ignore him and continue their
conversation.
“Still
we shouldn't laugh though, died on the operating table poor chap.
Where did you hear the news?”
“BBC news website, you?”
“A
funny picture on 4chan.”
“It is strange though, because I was in the operating theatre at the time and I remember the operation being a complete success.”
“I heard that too, but then, why would 4chan make something like that up?”
“I suppose so.”
“And why would everyone on Twitter be making all these brilliant jokes?”
“Well...”
“Look,
let's just check Wikipedia. If Wikipedia is wrong about something
then I don't want to be right!”
The two doctors get their iphones from their doctor bags and browse in silence for a few seconds.
“Okay,
well I guess you're right, I don't know what I was thinking. Go on,
tell us another one!”
“Okay, okay. What did Michael Winner say when he met St. Paul at the Pearly Gates.”
“Dunno...”
“Calm down dear, I had a Death Wish so let me in Heaven already will you!” The doctors burst into laughter at the two brilliant individual references and once again hush each other up.
Exasperated,
Michael Winner stomps into reception and, ignored by the
receptionist, doctors and other patients, out the front door
and onto the London street.
“Taxi!”
Michael Winner raises a hand but the cab driver just continues on
past. He curses to himself as a young lady bumps into him. She looks
confused for a moment and then carries on walking.
“CAN
ANYONE SEE ME?! I'M MICHAEL WINNER!” Michael shouts to the crowded
street but no-one glances his way. Michael Winner looks down at his
hand, it gradually fades away into nothingness, as the words "calm down dear" in slightly different but ultimately identical guises fill social media live feeds.
FIN
This
Blog is dedicated to my good friend Shaun Kellett, and anyone else who made a Michael
Winner joke over a social networking site and showed no
contrition afterwards.
