**********************************************************************************************

SANDY: What with the decline in the cinema industry and the fact that we couldn't get financial backing, Jules never became a second Barbra Streisand, and then they repossessed our Bolex, so we got out of films and went in for travel. Reynard La Spoon, the choreographer, helped us to set up our own agency 'cos he was well in with Quantas - at least, that's what he said. We called it Bona Bijou Tourettes, and we'd hardly been in the place two minutes before Mr. Horne came trolling in.

*************************************************************************************

HORNE: I'm interested in booking a holiday.

JULIAN: Would you like us to do something exciting for you in a cheap package?

HORNE: Yes. What would you recommend?

SANDY: Well, how about Juan in the S of F? That's Les Pins. Bona, ennit Jules?

JULIAN: Divine. Sitting, sipping a tiny drinkette, vada·ing the great butch omis and dolly little palones trolling by, or disporting yourself on the sable plage getting your lallies all bronzed - your riah getting bleached by the soleil.

SANDY: That's your actual French. How about Juan Les Pins?

HORNE: I'm not besotted by Juan.

SANDY: He's not besotted, Jules. What else have we got in the S of F?

HORNE: Isn't it a bit expensive?

JULIAN: Oh, no. Not if you do it our way. We've got an ami down there who'll rent you his lattie.

SANDY: Who?

JULIAN: Gordon. You remember him.

SANDY: Oh, yes. That Gordon. Him with the leather jeans and jackets and goggles and helmet and things. Looked like a kinky AA man. Him who had the bar in Tangiers?

JULIAN: Yes. The Sheep's Eye. in the Rue des Matelots.

SANDY: Has he give up the bar?

JULIAN: Yes. Fell through. She walked out on him.

SANDY: What? The old American boiler?

JULIAN: Yes· She moved on.

SANDY: Hmm. Thought she would.

HORNE: Sorry to interrupt you but if I hang about here much longer, my passport will expire.

SANDY: Sorry. We was just having a wander down Memory Lane. Now - if we drop Gordon a 1ittle telegramette, I'm sure he'll accommodate you if we say you're a chum.

HORNE: Somehow I don't think it's me. What else can you suggest?

SANDY: Well, what else have we got with a little ambiance?

JULIAN: Well we've discovered a new place in Greece - right off the beaten. Village des Naturistes - grass huts, volleyball in the starkers, folk singing and nut cutlets... what more could you ask? Two weeks - fifty guineas.

HORNE: All in?

JULIAN: You probably would be after two weeks.

HORNE: How about Spain? Somewhere like Malaga?

SANDY: Don't talk to us about Malaga!

HORNE: Naph, is it?

JULIAN: He's got the palare off hasn't he?

SANDY: I should say it is naph, treashette. Jules had a nasty experience in Malaga.

JULIAN: Traitor! - you swore you'd never bring that up!

SANDY: It was meaningful while it lasted but it's left its scars, hasn't it, Jules? And every time anyone mentions Malaga it wells up in him. You see, he got badly stung.

HORNE: Portuguese man-of·war?

JULIAN: Oh, I never saw him in uniform. Anyway, we wouldn't want you coming to grief in Malaga.

HORNE: What else is there?

SANDY: Well, all we got left on our books is Working Holidays - you can go coal-mining in the Ruhr, mackerel-gutting in Oslo, or sheep-shearing in Austra1ia- Or there's one nearer home - Hamburg - that's very cheap.

HORNE: I'll take it.

SANDY: There is one slight drawback. Your day's your own, but twice nightly you have to put on a goat skin and wrestle with a camel in mud.

HORNE: Hmm. I'll think about it. But tell me, what brought you into the travel business in the first p1ace?

JULIAN: Well, we've always enjoyed cruising, haven't we, Sand?

SANDY: Always. It's a sort of wanderlust with us. We once did a round·the-world troll in a 1ifeboat.

JULIAN: It was the call of the sea, Mr. Horne. When I get it, I can't resist it.

SANDY: He can't resist it. When he gets the call he's got to go. Haven't you, Jules?

JULIAN: Like a shot. I m off like a shot.

SANDY: You see, we was in Southampton and the urge came upon us. I said to Jules, 'Why not?' Didn't I, Jules?

JULIAN: He did, Mr. Horne. So I said, 'Well, I'm game.'

SANDY: Oh, he is, Mr. Horne. There's no one gamier.

JULIAN: So we set sail next day - in this 1ifeboat.

HORNE: With no preparations?

JULIAN: Oh, I'd had me hair done. Anyway, to cut a long story short, after several days at sea, where did we

find ourselves? Nowhere.

SANDY: We hadn't seen a buoy for ages - so we had no idea where we were. 0f course, we had our sea lallies by

then but if I told you what we suffered, you'd never believe it.

JULIAN: Fourteen days we were exposed to the elements without a single tin of face cream.

SANDY: We nearly cracked, didn't we, Jules?

HORNE: Nervous tension?

SANDY: No, dry skin. Then this great storm blew up.

JULIAN: Blew up, it did. Between him and me. I thought he'd nicked my eyebrow tweezers.

HORNE: Did you keep a record of the trip?

SANDY: Of course - show him your nautical log, Jules.

JULIAN: 'Ere,1isten: `Eighth day - still no land to be vada'd anywhere. Rations low - down to last tins of paté. Twelfth day - no food. Sand raving. Fourteenth day - I went overboard.'

SANDY: Oh, it was terrible, Mr. Horne. A gale blowing and me hanging on to me jib for dear life - spray dashing

in me eek - salt caking my eyelashes. Suddenly I become aware Jules is screaming.

HORNE: Department of No Surprise.

SANDY: I look - and there he is in the water. I shouted `Ome overboard !'

HORNE: What did you do?

SANDY: There was only one thing to do in a predicament like that - I fainted.

JULIAN: I summoned up me last rcsources, stiffened up me sinews -

SANDY: They do go limp in the water.

HORNE: But did you manage to drag yourself up on deck?

JULIAN: No, we dressed casual - sweaters and jeans.0h, I see what you mean! Yes, I got back on board, more dead

than alive.

SANDY: But I resuscitated him. Give him artificial resuscitation. The kiss of life.

JULIAN: It's not like the real thing - more like the kiss of death. But listen to this from the log: Twenty·fifth day - Dear Diary, Sand's in one of his moods again - I think he's going to pieces., He started to wander, didn't you, Sand?

SANDY: Yes, I wandered. I don't like to talk about it, Mr..Horne - it was terrible. I was babbling, wasn t I, Jules?

JULIAN: He was babbling of green fields, he was. And Earls Court. And she was rolling and pitching.

SANDY: We was shipping it green over the bows, and our gunnels were awash, weren't they, Jules

JULIAN: Yes.

SANDY: And I do hate washy gunnels.

JULIAN: Then, on the sixtieth day, we was picked up - by the Purser.

HORNE: Purser I thought you were in a lifeboat?

SANDY: We was. But it was strapped to the deck of the Q.E.2.

*************************************************************************************