The Beiderbecke Affair

Trevor Chaplin:
Did the earth move, Darling?

Jill Swinburne:
No, but the dressing table twitched a few times.

Jill Swinburne:
I give you fair warning, Mr Chaplin. If you get engaged to that girl, I shall insist you move into the spare room.

Mr Carter:
This tea would make a brontosaurus puke.

Mr Carter:
Mrs Swinburne, may I sit with you and kindle my desires?

Mr Wheeler:
Are you eating, boy? You should know by now that eating is forbidden. That's why we supply school dinners.

Chief Supt. Forrest:
[On Hobson] What do you make of him?

Joe:
Compared to what, sir?

Chief Supt. Forrest:
Exactly.

Trevor Chaplin:
It's two years exactly...

Jill Swinburne:
Two years exactly since I dragged you into bed for the first time and slaked my lust on your body.

Mr Carter:
Education is wonderful, isn't it?

Jill Swinburne:
Yes. I wonder why we're all teachers - seems such a waste.

Trevor Chaplin:
[reads from instruction manual] "Applicate the component A to bracket B with appropriate screwing." Have you tried that?

Mr Carter:
I daren't - not in front of the children.

[rehearsing Jill's election address over the tannoy]

Trevor Chaplin:
My friends, vote for Jill Swinburne. A vote for Swinburne is a vote for freedom... what's more, she's terrific in bed!

Jill Swinburne:
Give me that, you stupid pillock.

Trevor Chaplin:
Shh. The neighbours might hear.

Jill Swinburne:
How do you switch it off?

Trevor Chaplin:
You switch the switch marked "switch".

Jill Swinburne:
You've probably lost me the election.

Trevor Chaplin:
I might have *won* you the election!

Jill Swinburne:
D'you fancy going out tonight? Belated anniversary celebration.

Trevor Chaplin:
What is it? "Save the whale" or "single-parent families"?

Jill Swinburne:
I've got no kids - I can't be a single-parent family.

Trevor Chaplin:
Have you considered fostering a blue whale? Solve two problems.

[over school dinner, discussing the attempts to frighten them]

Trevor Chaplin:
I still think it's a lot of fuss about a dead cat.

Jill Swinburne:
*You* wouldn't have liked it.

Trevor Chaplin:
I had a noose and I didn't scream.

Jill Swinburne:
You big brave macho incredible hulk, you.

Trevor Chaplin:
I just got up on the desk and took it down. [Trevor chuckles] As my mother used to say, "no noose is good noose".

Jill Swinburne:
Gordon Bennett!

Trevor Chaplin:
You don't even like cats.

Jill Swinburne:
It's not the cat. It's the death aspect.

Trevor Chaplin:
I wonder if they killed it specially, or just found it somewhere.

Jill Swinburne:
Ooh, that's awful.

Trevor Chaplin:
I'm just making a rational analysis of the situation.

Jill Swinburne:
I think it's the same sort of dead cat as they use in that.

[Jill looks at Trevor's dinner; Trevor pushes his plate away in revulsion]

Jill Swinburne:
I think somebody is trying to frighten us. Successfully.

Trevor Chaplin:
Mmm-hmm!

Jill Swinburne:
You're frightened?

Trevor Chaplin:
Oh yes. I only *pretend* to be brave.

Jill Swinburne:
I think I might need somebody to give me cuddle tonight.

Trevor Chaplin:
Me too.

Jill Swinburne:
See Mrs Swinburne in her classroom after school.

Trevor Chaplin:
You what? I'm not going in *her* classroom - it's full of dead cats!

Jill Swinburne:
I don't find that funny, Trevor.

Trevor Chaplin:
No. I don't suppose it was a barrel of laughs for the cat, either.

[Sergeant Hobson has warned Big Al that using the church crypt as a warehouse contravenes planning regulations]

Big Al:
The town planners have moved in like a wolf on the fold.

Trevor Chaplin:
I believe they tend to do that.

Big Al:
If we don't get all that gear out of the church basement by the weekend, we're all pencilled-in for deportation, solitary confinement, loss of privileges, discharge with ignominy, boiling in oil... or a small fine.

Trevor Chaplin:
All that for breaking the town planning regulations?

Big Al:
I think you get a choice - I haven't studied the small-print.

[Helen has invited Trevor for lunch to meet her parents]

Helen:
Mother's been up half the night with her stroganoff.

Trevor Chaplin:
[flippantly] Well, what use is money if you haven't got your health?

Jill Swinburne:
Oh, hang spring-cleaning!

Jill Swinburne:
I've never done any spring-cleaning. Being a male chauvinist, I've always had women to do those sort of things for me.

Trevor Chaplin:
I don't mean that.

Trevor Chaplin:
It's all part of my craggy northern working-class background.

Jill Swinburne:
I'm talking about The Wind in the Willows.

Trevor Chaplin:
Don't tell me - it's a book.

Jill Swinburne:
Ratty and Mole are supposed to be spring-cleaning, but instead they say "Hang spring-cleaning" and they go off and mess about with boats in the river.

Trevor Chaplin:
Is that what you fancy?

Jill Swinburne:
Sort of, yes.

Trevor Chaplin:
Well we could take to the hills. We'll go tomorrow.

Jill Swinburne:
We're at school tomorrow.

Trevor Chaplin:
No! We'll have sickness and diarrhoea. We'll telephone Mr Carter with some excuse to pass onto the Head that's so bizarre he's bound to believe it.

Jill Swinburne:
A plague of locusts down the street.

Trevor Chaplin:
A summons to The Palace.

Jill Swinburne:
The house has been struck by a thunderbolt - which happens to be true.

Trevor Chaplin:
We'll think of someting and say "Hang spring-cleaning".

[Jill walks over to Trevor and looks tenderly into his eyes]

Jill Swinburne:
Thank you.

Trevor Chaplin:
Thank *you*.

Jill Swinburne:
For what?

Trevor Chaplin:
True love means never having to explain what you're saying "thank you" for. [Trevor looks away, embarrassed] Have you ever noticed how spiders get trapped in your double-glazing?

Jill Swinburne:
Have you ever noticed your amazing capacity to spoil everything?

Trevor Chaplin:
Yes. It's famous over six counties.

Jill Swinburne:
Cue romantic music.

Mr Carter:
If you were at any of our finest public schools, you'd be eating garbage like this four times a day, and your only consolation would be unnatural sex and the prospect of ruling the country.